I can not describe how much easier Edmodo has made my teaching! At the beginning of this academic year, and in my capacity as an eLearning leader, I was involved in a whole-school effort to rollout Edmodo. The eLearning leaders at school gathered all teachers and showed them a few videos highlighting the benefits of Edmodo, then we divided all staff between us and went on to smaller workshops to help them set up their own accounts and classes. It caught like wildfire! I had staff approaching me everyday wanting to learn more and find out ways to use it better.
In my school, we have three year levels using the iPads (years 6, 7 and 8), and two year levels using laptops (years 9 and 10). Every student in those five year levels has a personal learning device, whether it’s a laptop or iPad. I generally teach the earlier middle years, and I am in charge of the school’s iPad program. Therefore my focus is usually on the iPad as a personal learning device. Edmodo now offers a fantastic iPad app, especially after recent updates just before Christmas 2012. I will try to list the many ways I use Edmodo, and why I love it so much:
- It is now very easy to share a worksheet or handout with my students on Edmodo. If I prepare a worksheet on Pages or have a worksheet in my Dropbox, all I need to do is ‘open in another app’ and select Edmodo. I prefer to share worksheets and handouts as a PDF, because that preserves the formatting of the document and it’s very easy for students to download an app that allows them to annotate PDFs (like Notability or TypeOnPDF).
- Students can easily download a document from Edmodo, use it in another app (like a PDF annotation app) and then upload it again onto Edmodo to submit it as an ‘assignment’. This solves the whole ‘work-flow’ problem that many teachers faced upon the introduction of iPads into the classroom. Worksheets, handouts, task sheets, graphic organizers, anything you want the students to work on, just upload it into your library, add it to a folder that you share with the students or attach it to a post, then they access it and open it in another app. Once they have finished, they need to upload it into their ‘backpacks’ and then submit it as an attachment to an ‘assignment’ that you posted.
- Edmodo’s ‘assignment’ feature allows me to post an assignment with a due date and a task sheet, see who submitted it and when, mark it using a PDF annotation tool, grade/assess it and give feedback all in one neat place. It really is hassle-free! While the desktop version of Edmodo allows better assignment-marking features than the iPad app, I can still mark simple assignments on-the-go from my iPad.
- Edmodo’s ‘quiz’ feature allows me to create really quick and simple quizzes to use in class. Creating the quiz is really simple, and I can use multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blanks, matching, or even short answer questions. It also shows you some really cool statistics about the students’ answers.
- Edmodo’s ‘poll’ feature allows me create quick survey polls in class and can be a very valuable formative assessment tool. It has been very useful in my Humanities class to help me decide what students may need to focus on more for the coming lessons, or what sort of format would they prefer to submit their assignment as, among many more polls.
- Edmodo’s ‘note’ feature has been a great help in creating exit slips for the students. Right before the lesson ends, the students are asked to write ‘one thing I learned today is…’ or ‘one thing that surprised me today was…’ or ‘one thing I’d like to find out more about is…’. After posting their exit slips, they can all see what the others have posted and maybe comment on each others’ posts and respond.
- Edmodo’s ‘members’ feature allows me to manage my students in each class/group. This has been very handy in reminding a student of their username in case they forgot it while logging in again, or resetting their password if they can’t remember it, or even changing a student’s member-status to ‘read-only’ if they have been posting too much irrelevant content and abusing the posting feature. I can also use this feature to award ‘badges’ to my students, which is a great incentive for many of them.
- Edmodo’s ‘small groups’ feature makes group-work a lot easier to manage and assess. In my drama classroom, students are arranged in small groups or ‘theatre companies’, and a lot of their brainstorming is done on Edmodo, or even simply documenting group-work in a virtual group-work log.
- Edmodo’s ‘folders’ feature makes it very easy to organize documents in a folder and share that folder with my classes. Standard templates like reflection help-sheets or rubrics can be placed in these folders so students can have access to them anytime.
- Edmodo has made it much easier to teach ‘digital citizenship’ skills in a safer and more-controlled environment. Having a strong social-networking aspect to it, Edmodo allows the teacher to model appropriate online behaviour and etiquette, and gives the students the opportunity to practice those skills in a teacher-controlled environment.
I would seriously recommend Edmodo to any teacher out there. I would also refer any of them to the Edmodo Help-Centre which has a great collection of how-tos (with screenshots and clear steps) and tips for using Edmodo.
Mohamed El-Ashiry's Teaching Portfolio 
I find edmodo constraining. The digital interface is limiting, ugly and the passwords inhibit parent involvement. All the features you discussed I can get via a blog, socrative, collaborize classroom and star quiz.
True… There are many tools I guess, you need to find what world for YOU and YOUR STUDENTS 🙂
Quick question…how do you have students complete the quizzes if they cannot access them on a mobile device? Are they able to complete a quiz using the full site on their iPad? Another way? I have iPod touches and cannot have students take a quiz on them using the app.
They can complete the quiz using full site on iPads 🙂
I appreciate hearing about your experiences with Edmodo in the field. I have been using Edmodo this year with computers and am now just starting with iPads. Last year I used several different platforms – Blogger, Collaborize Classroom, Learnboost, Testmoz, Wallwisher. Although this was successful, I like having everything in one place this year with Edmodo. I also like how students can work more independently especially turning in their work and posting without assistance. Last year this was a bottleneck for me with 238 students.
I also agree that allowing students to practice communication skills in a controlled environment is so important. With Edmodo, it is fairly easy to take that to the next level with global connections once classroom netiquette is mastered.
I’d like to add to your list of benefits the amazing community resources and connections you can make with other teachers.
Thanks for your inspiring post!
You are most welcome!
Thanks for sharing! I also use Edmodo but not so fully as you do. Congrats!
How can ipads be used within art with secondary pupils?
Great post! But you forgot to mention the most addictive thing for students – badges! While appearing to be somewhat superfluous at first, they are a great motivator. Very similar to “Xbox360 achievements”, but for learning! I have about 70 of them that I award to students for various accomplishments.
Also, Edmodo is great for making project-specific groups, that may even include other students in the school you don’t teach in the classroom. I have one that is used for our online history simulation activities, and students from any other classes can join just by receiving the group code. It makes for great topic-centered communities and not just classrooms.
Good job spreading the word!
Thanks! I’m starting to use badges a lot more now 🙂
Students really do like receiving them 🙂
I completely agree with the project-specific grouping as well, it’s an awesome feature!
iPads are a great documentation tool and very valuable tools in facilitating reflections. In an art classroom, the iPad’s biggest advantage is its camera, which can help on building visual portfolios coupled with written reflections and evaluations, or even oral reflections captured using audio recording.
An app such as Evernote seamlessly accomplishes all that!
Olá! sou brasileira, conheci o Edmodo a pouco e estou fazendo pós-graduação e, educação, meu trabalho final será sobre o uso da plataforma educacional Edmodo na educação de adultos, dou aulas no ensino noturno. Meu projeto começa essa semana na escola, no laboratório di informática, estou animada e ansiosa para ver como os alunos vão interagir na plataforma, depois te conto!
Parabéns pelo teu trabalho! Daniéle
Eu não falo Português, mas essa é a beleza da internet! Boa sorte em usar Edmodo e deixe-me saber como ele vai! Mohamed
I was wondering if you could give more detail on how you accomplish your 1 and 2. My school got iPads this year but haven’t fully embraced Edmodo because of this problem. I’ve downloaded Notability to try but having a hard time figuring out exactly what students would need to do. Thanks!
Hi Steph, I’ll create ‘how-to’ videos on an iPad to demonstrate numbers 1 & 2.
When ready I’ll send you the links! I’ll try to do that ASAP!
Hi Steph! I added the how-tos as videos into the post! Hope they answer your questions 🙂
Thank you so much! The only thing not working the same way is the option to open my note from Notability in Edmodo to add to my student backpack. Edmodo doesn’t show up as an option. Do you know how to add it as an option?
You need to ensure you have the latest version of the Edmodo app (latest update from App Store)
Sorry, can I ask where you are teaching? Are you in the USA or somewhere else? Edmodo has some great 3rd party applications that are great, but I’m not if they are available in all countries.
Quizzes and Assessments are a breeze if you use the “Literatu” App. It also links in with the gradebook!
I teach in Australia. Unfortunately we do not have access to many Edmodo apps here 😦
Reblogged this on melissayoungteachlearn.
Great post! What app are you using to create the video / instructional podcasts you embedded in this post?
DispRecorder iPad app 🙂
Glad you like the posts!
Great post and instructional videos! I am sharing it with other teachers at my site who are emerging Edmodo users. While I see the point of the commenter who said he prefers other apps for their effectiveness or aesthetics, the benefit of having students have a single log in to access all of their classes is immeasurable!
All over the DispRecorder app, too.
Glad you liked the post, feel free to share it as you wish 🙂
HI – I found your post very useful, but I’m still having trouble using TypeOn with Edmodo. I saw your videos about posting the PDF to Edmodo, but how do you open the PDF from Edmodo in TypeOn. Does the PDF have to be in your library? I use my laptop to attach my PDF’s to Edmodo, but then when I open them I don’t have the option to open it in TypeOn. I hope this makes sense. Please reply when you can.
Thanks!
Hi Kelly,
It’s always easier to download things from Edmodo if you are logged on through Safari instead of the app. If you tap on an attachment it should automatically open in a new tab, from there you can tap ‘open in…’ and select the app you want it to go to.
I hope this answers your question.
Reblogged this on Solve4Why and commented:
We are not an one to one building yet, BUT, I use Edmodo for all these reasons, on the desktops, in the laptop lab AND on the kids’ phones and ipods…
Also you can refer this report. http://edtechreview.in/index.php/research/66-reports/258-edmodo-social-network-for-education Consist of everything about Edmodo. Both students, teachers, tools, practice and examples
What’s up, constantly i used to check web site posts here early in the dawn, as i like to find out more and more.
I think edmodo is a very effective platform that enhance learning and teaching english because it include many feautres
Great job. We are learning how to use Edmodo and hopefully we could share it with teachers in the Philippines.
I really enjoyed reading about your 10 uses of Edmodo. I have linked directly to this page from my page on Edmodo at http://www.classroom20.co.uk. Thank you very much for sharing!
Thanks so much for your great post. But how con edmodo be used to collaborate on mathematics, create quizes in Math?