Great tool when used right

How I Use It

I used Edmodo with my 3rd grade students as a tool for literacy discussion. I found it best to be very specific about what students could post (I only permitted them to discuss books) and in the beginning I lead these discussions by providing a prompt or question for them to respond to. Once they were comfortable with the site and my parameters for use, my students got very good at creating their own prompts and responding to each others' comments about books. I would periodically use the poll tool to create a fun poll about a book we had read together or to have students predict what would happen next. This kept the website fresh and exciting for them. I would also periodically login to check and delete some posts, in the beginning I did this daily, but only had to do it occasionally once they understood what I permitted. Therefore, this site does require a bit of time to set up (create student profiles with pictures) and monitor once it is up, but I found it to be a great tool to encourage thoughtful discussions about books.