In years past, I spent one full day getting my students up to speed on how we use technology in my class. I had them log in, check out my web site, blogs, document pages, etc. This year, I'm doing something different.
One reason is that I'm adding new tools to my class, like EduBlogs and Edmodo. Our district has an account with Edmodo, and I thought I'd check it out. Edmodo is a school-safe social networking site. One interesting thing is that so many other teachers in our school have accounts, so there should be lots of students with a working familiarity of it.
My approach to getting my students familiar with the technology of my class is to take baby steps each day. Today, we just logged in, created an Edmodo account and worked on our profile. That's it. Then we turned to a lecture for the rest of the period. Tomorrow, I'll give my students more time to work with technology in my class--most likely, I'll have them complete a blog assignment.
I'm not sure how well this is going to work, but this is the first time I've taught Sports & Entertainment Marketing I in a computer lab for a block schedule, and I think I should take advantage of what I've got to work with.
I here about this site and just signed up after reading your post. Why Edmodo...I'm on and looking around. How will I know this site is secure? It seemed pretty easy to sign up. Will my students each create there own accounts?
ReplyDeleteEdmodo is designed for educators, or so my district tells me.
ReplyDeleteAfter you sign up, create a new group for your students--I do a group for each class period. Each group will have a code that you give to your students.
When your students sign up for Edmodo, they create an account and then enter your group code--they must have a code from a teacher in order to use the site. It seems very user-friendly for students.
I am still feeling my way around Edmodo. I've always used my school-issued web site heavily, and I want to minimize the bouncing around my students would have to do from my web site to Edmodo and back.