My Edmodo "Classroom"

I recently had the chance to sample Edmodo, an online community of educators and students! (I'll describe Edmodo in more detail below.) I attempted to sign up as a teacher rather than a student because I think it would be a great idea to already have knowledge of the website and the tools available to me before I start teaching. In addition, I decided to take it all the way and make my mini-classroom! I find there are 3 layers to understanding how Edmodo works:

Educators and Educators

Edmodo serves as an educator "community" - educators from around the world are part of groups and forums that share information with each other while asking and answering each others' questions regarding educational resources. There are even folders to keep all of the resources found, a calendar to keep track of events and assignments, as well as a handy navigation tool that updates you on your group's activities.

 When you join a group, say, Professional Development, a teacher can make a post asking a question about the tools they use for assessment of a writing sample. This teacher gets answers from others in the group with links to resources or helpful ideas!

 Educators and Students

 

Next, Edmodo serves as an online hub for assigning and completing classwork, homework, and special assignments! There is a special class code that represents each teacher's classroom. Students signed up with Edmodo join using the class code, and they are able to see each post a teacher makes.
Students turn assignments into the website in the format of Word documents, pictures, posting links to websites such as blogs, and various other methods. They also earn badges from teachers that serve as encouragement and recognition for their hard work.

Students and Students

This interactive classroom can be as collaborative as the teacher wants it to be. Therefore, group assignments can be assigned to students, which can be completed by students in work spaces such as Google Drive. Additionally, the students can reply to a question or thought posed by the teacher in the same discussion.

My Edmodo "Classroom"

As part of my Edmodo experience, I joined and participated in Dr. Ludmila Smirnova's class, Pedagogy of Engagement, where the students and I immersed ourselves in different technologies and in many cases for the first time. Our last challenge was to create a classroom of our own with assignments (involving Web 2.0 technology) and tools from our folders. Here is a glimpse of what I did:

Assignment 1 - The students are to answer a survey I created with Google Forms about their English Language Arts experiences.

Assignment 2 - Anticipatory set - the students are to observe the picture (shown below), pick a plant they know, and write a 1 - 3 sentence description of it.

Assignment 3 - Text Evidence

Students read the first chapter of their assigned book The Plant Hunters by Anita Silvey and answer the questions with direct evidence from the text. The assignment has students download the Microsoft Word document I uploaded onto the website.

Assignment 4 - Follow that Time Line

Here students will use the time line in the book to keep building on a Prezi that I started about the Plant Hunters. The information is directly from the text, but one of the requirements is that students use text and a relevant picture for their part of the contribution.

www.edmodo.com

Assignment 5 - Pre-test (Science Integration)

As part of an integrated curriculum, I would now have students complete a pre-test designed to pre-assess their knowledge on the parts of a flower and the life cycle of a plant.

Apps - Doceri - Mini-Tutorial!

Doceri is copyright to Apple, and can be downloaded at http://doceri.com/download.php

 © 2013 SP Controls, Inc. All rights reserved.

I was recently able to learn how to use the iPad app Doceri, so below is a 2-minute tutorial video I made using it to show some of it's cool features. (If there is a plugin message, just click once on it and it will go away and start the video.)

Push vs Pull Models of Education - Web 2.0's Increasing Role

"Delivery of learning will not merely be in the classrooms but also via online and mobile delivery." - Doug Woods, The Push and Pull Models of Education

  Think about the picture below. What differences do you notice in the classrooms?

 

The first classroom shows a teacher standing at the blackboard calling on students to answer a pre-designed question, given the resources they used such as textbooks and in-class notes.

In the second classroom, the teacher is guiding students to find the resources they will need to answer the question posed, rather than seeking an answer that the teacher wants to hear. 

While reading a journal article about Web 2.0 use in the classroom, I stumbled upon terms I have not yet encountered which described the transition that's happening in classrooms:

The "push" education model refers to teaching in which educators give students resources and then have them complete tasks with a concentration on a certain purpose. For example, a math teacher tells the class, 'Today we will learn about multiplication because you will need to use it in the future.'

In contrast, the "pull" education model shows the teacher acting as the facilitator of the learning, while it is the students that find the necessary resources and actively engage in their own learning.  In my analogy above, the same teacher would pose a question to his/her math students, and have students use their classroom content and technology resources to explore, research, and create a possible answer or explanation to a phenomenon.

Web 2.0 technologies are at the forefront of the "pull" model of education because they are the vehicles that teachers will use to employ collaborative, reflective, and social practices. 

Stacks of paper that show student work will be a thing of the past - teachers will be utilizing wikis and e-portfolios that show the content online. The benefits include cloud storage which can be derived from any computer, organized and accessible documents, and the ability for students to comment and reflect on each others' works.