Safe and Engaging Social Media for Education
Community Review for Edmodo
My Take
This is in my top 10 list of tools available for teachers because it provides opportunities for communication, collaborate, creativity and critical thinking...a lot of bang for your buck! Teachers can use this safe, social media site to share basic class information and announcements, but can also take it quite a few steps farther by creating and environment where students can demonstrate their learning through the communication tools, quizzes, and tests. This site can be used for students to consume information teachers and possibly other students post enabling all participants to learn from one another. I like how this site is a safe site allowing only those in a particular class to join teacher groups. Teacher's don't have to worry about random strangers participating in any discussions. I like how this program has an app that is available across multiple platforms.
How I Use It
I've used Edmodo to share basic class information and announcements, but also to engage my students in authentic conversations surrounding various topics we studied in class. One particular project centered around abolitionist and suffrage supporters. Students had to choose a famous abolitionist or suffrage supporter, change their profile pic to that person and create a conversation that could have taken place during that time period. I also like using this site as a place to start debates on various issues we studied in history or to post quotes/images/paintings of certain time periods to discuss major themes threaded throughout history.