Edmodo.com? Anyone have any experience with this?

[NolaRiordan]

My 5th grade DD brought home a note from school that they will be using a system called edmodo.com. It sounds like a Facebook type application for schools. Just looked at the website but I don't think there was a lot of info there. Anyone have any experience with this?

[delphine]

I am not familiar with it, but it looks pretty interesting from the web-site.  Keep us updated if you find out more.  Is this something for the kids to sign up on or the parents?  Our school uses an online system, but it's nothing like this one.

Personally I would love it if I felt like my kids teachers were more tech savvy.  They are woefully NOT in my experience.  So, if they were going to introduce something like this, I would be pretty happy. 

[nick5119]

Nola,

Go here for more information on what it is

http://help.edmodo.com/

Your right though, it is a social network for education.  but in a closed environment.  Students join a "group" created by a teacher by using a unique code.  Once that class has been filled with the students the teacher can close this class.  This allows no outside people to join the group or communicate with it (much more closed than facebook)

Also students can only post to the group, not to each other.  So there is no scares on cyberbullying due to the fact that everything is public. 

A great site getting a lot of following.  Our sons school uses it and he talks about it in a way that he seems EXTREMELY excited everyday to do school work, I LOVE IT!

[NolaRiordan]

Yeah I looked at the website and watched the video but I was interested in finding out more about how it's actually used. Glad you have a positive experience with it. My DD had to sign a contract before getting the account that said she would not share her password, that she would write in complete sentences and use appropriate spelling and grammar, etc. I thought that was good and was glad they laid out the expectations ahead of time.

[ecoteat]

That looks awesome. I'm the tech coordinator and science teacher for a K-8 school and I set up a Ning for us last year. Then Ning went and changed things and the free school account lost a lot of features. We could pay for the services we used to get for free, but that just isn't going to happen. Kids also have to be 13 to have an account, which limits it to my 8th graders. But this Edmodo looks like a great replacement! Unless they plan an hooking teachers on it being free and then starting to charge money, like so many other great web apps.

Nola, if I do implement this, I'm totally stealing the idea of a contract like that.

[NolaRiordan]

Originally Posted by ecoteat 

Nola, if I do implement this, I'm totally stealing the idea of a contract like that.

Yes, the contract was pretty impressive. There were 8 or 10 items and the kid had to sign and date it and return it to the teacher.
I really like having those expectations set out ahead of time.