[Collaboration] Edmodo

Speaking of online collaboration, Facebook may firstly strike to people of my age. When we were college students, we used it as a platform to discuss assignments or other student events. Doing teacher training internship, we organised student teacher works on Facebook group pages. Thus, it can be easy to think of Facebook as a collaboration  platform in teaching. In this post, I'm going introduce you Edmodo.

Hopping onto Edmodo

The interface of Edmodo is similar to that of Facebook, so you probably feel familiar with it if you're a "Facebooker." No specific computer skill is required. The only requirement I see is that the users have to register accounts, according to their identities, with their email addresses. It is fairly easy to get adept at it by using it directly.

Generally, after ensuring that you're not lost, you can start to explore it on your own. Russell Stannard made a series of fantastic tutorial videos elaborating how to use it. Please click here to watch it. 

You may say

"Why not just use Facebook? Students use it a lot, and it is convenient to make an environment for class."

Right. Facebook is convenient indeed. However, it is admittedly distracting. When you are surfing on Facebook, it seems hard to refuse the interesting posts, charming photos, hilarious video clips, etc. I must say it is difficult for me to open Facebook pages without glancing what is happening around my friends, let alone our lovely, young students can resist the attractive things on the Internet.

Edmodo is exclusively for educational use. When using it, both teachers and students are less likely to turn to other things apart from the focused learning works. That is to say, the online learning works can be done more efficiently. Besides, it is compatible with both iOS and Android systems on mobile devices so that it can be employed flexibly.

"My students can perfectly focus on the discussion and announcements. I think my students and I will stick to having Facebook group pages as class websites."

Oh! That's great! Facebook exactly offers features for online collaborative discussion, like sending and receiving messages and polls. Edmodo is doing that as well; in fact, it does more than that. If you just watched the tutorial video, you may have noticed that Edmodo is versatile.

Note: Giving messages to the groups (classes) you're in, your students, and your colleagues.

Assignment: Detailing the assignment by making descriptions, demonstrating samples, etc.

Quiz: Making quizzes before/after instructions to activate schemata/assess learning.

Poll: Holding quick elections, discussing class issues online, etc.

With these functions, school time used for class management can be shortened considerably. As a result, teachers and students can do more tasks in classrooms. That is one of the reasons that online collaboration has drawn more and more attention recently. 

Additionally, as every activity will be recorded on Edmodo, which is especially for educational purposes, it is easy to keep track of students progress and collect the "evidence" of what is decided online.

"Is Edmodo accepted soon by my students?" 

Well, changes usually take times. Employing ICT tools in teaching somewhat means a change itself. In my view, using Edmodo for learning purposes may be more acceptable than using Facebook.

WHY????????????????????????

To me, Facebook is kind of private. I am used to sharing what I feel and experience in real life, not very willing to expose these pieces of personal stuff to those who I would not want to share thoughts with. To students, these people can be teachers, unfamiliar classmates, and parents. From this view, an exclusive space for "official" works may be more acceptable to both the teachers and the students. For another, like mentioned above, Facebook is too entertaining. It may hardly make an excellent platform for learning. Therefore, it seems better to separate learning from the private spaces. 

In sum,

I'm not against having Facebook for educational use. In light of the eclectic employment of the ICT tools, I merely propose another tool for you. It is not guaranteed that students always thit really powerful ink in the same way as the teacher wishes them to. Edmodo is not only functional but safe because it is designed for teaching/learning. Give it a go and you will find in making a specific environment for class collaboration.