Edmodo--Evading the Traps of Social Networking

"Facebook in the classroom?" "I don't want the kids to see my personal information!" "Kids don't want me in their facebook world!" "My Space won't go through the filter!"

Do these comments sound familiar? Social networking is an integral part of the lives of students. Accessing social networking is instantly engaging to students, but the security issue presents a problem for the classroom. How do we avoid the traps of social networking? Let me introduce you to Edmodo.com

Edmodo is a site which allows teachers to set up a social network for the classroom. Teachers and students can communicate within the social network through alerts, notes, and posts that function like status updates. You can think of this as combination of facebook and twitter for the classroom. Teachers have the ability to create assignments for students. These assignments can be turned in and graded digitally. The ability to embed links, photos, movie clips, and documents gives teachers and students the ability to share academic information in a safe environment. Teachers can create polls to gather information for continuous improvement. Students can post questions and get tutoring assistance from their classmates and from the teacher. RSS feeds provide teachers the ability to send alerts concerning deadlines and announcements directly to cell phones--without giving out personal cell phone numbers.

Social Networking can be used for academic purposes! Check out more by going to the Edmodo Blog Best of all? This social networking site is free!!!

How-to-Video: Get Text Alerts on Cell Phone

Students & Cell Phones--the 411

When we went to Raymond Hartfield's Texas ASCD presentation on October 26th called "Students, Please Turn You Cell Phones 'On'!" we found more uses for the cell phone than we knew were possible. For instance, we learned we could access Google through using text messages (for free!). We learned how to create a digital business card that could be accessed through text messaging. We learned about many free sites that we could use in conjuction with our cell phones. The best part was that all we had to do was text message Mr. Hartfield for his AT&T presentation. Take a look for yourself, and you'll be able to instruct students to "turn on your cell phones!"