As students and teachers anxiously await the arrival of the protective cases which will finally free the laptops from the proximity of their classroom carts, the excitement continues to grow. Teachers with varying levels of experience and comfort have started using Edmodo as a way to organize and manage their classrooms and assignments. Students like it because it looks like Facebook and it helps with organization. Edmodo has a number of features that make it attractive to teachers. Foremost, it is private. Students create an account for which an email address is not required, and then users join classes using a code provided by individual teachers. The code is entered once and the student joins the class; each time the student logs in to Edmodo, their classes appear on a sidebar menu. Teachers post notes, links, announcements, alerts, assignments, polls, and quizzes. Teachers can communicate to the entire class, to small groups, or to individual students. Student posts are private to the teacher or to the group; there is no private chat between students. A code for each student is available that gives parents access to the Edmodo account of their student. In the class, students can read comments from their peers and add their own. If a student has trouble with this freedom, their status can be set by the teacher to "read only" until the student is ready to demonstrate a better understanding of cyber citizenship. The creators behind Edmodo are very receptive to the concerns of teachers and respond quickly and thoughtfully to suggestions for improvements. These are some of the reasons I advocate the use of Edmodo in the classroom, especially in 1:1 environments. I look forward to learning more about this useful tool and how it can be used to facilitate learning.
