Edmodo is a free LMS with a very user friendly interface which allows both students and teachers to upload a myriad of resources including links, pictures, files and comments. Links can be opened up via hyperlinks. Edmodo uploads material directly from Google Drive, a collaborative co-authoring platform. Each message can be responded to directly in a variety of ways including smiley icons, and written messages. Permission to add a feature does not have to be given by the teacher. Ownership of the LMS is more egalitarian.
Workflow One
Lesson Objective: To get students to explore the way they support their own learning and that of others by encouraging them to experiment with the ‘learning objects’ they upload onto Edmodo.
Steps to be taken:
- Students use Popplet or Note to brainstorm the things that help them learn. Examples might include You Tube videos of mini lessons, Keynote or Prezi presentations of mini lessons, online exercises, photographs of board work, good student models of an activity they have done, and videos of Total Physical Response activities done by classmates.
- Teachers add a meta cognitive slot after key periods of learning and ask students what would help them remember these ideas or these learner outcomes. Learners record/save any learning aides still available and share them via Edmodo.
- Once students get into the habit of articulating what can make them recall and understand material, teachers move these discussions to a prediction/ pre-activity stage i.e. before the learning takes place. This primes students to be ready to use digital resources to save moments of learning and learning objects that stimulate learning. For example, one student may decide to record a discussion of why answers are correct using Audioboo. The recording could then be added to Edmodo as a link. It would not matter if this discussion was in L2 or L1, as it is not the target language, but meta cognitive work which can rarely be done in L2 at an early stage of development. Another student may get positive feedback on a draft writing assignment, improve it according to feedback and add it to Edmodo as a good example of x genre. This would be available to all students when studying for writing exams. Another student may simply photograph the board work and upload it. Yet another may ask a teacher to be recorded explaining a language point on a screencasting App such as Explain Everything, ShowMe or Screen Chomp and share the link on Edmodo. The main thing is that students decide what adds value to their store of reference materials, they capture them and they add them to a shared learning management system.
- Students look back at a period of learning and identify what their peers have added to Edmodo. A teacher created poll will list the types of student curated material added and students will vote for the one they find most useful. This does not mean to say that any material is not useful. The voting will only be a way of showing student perceptions. The same poll could be taken on Socrative to show what has been used, as in the Socrative App multiple answers can be given.
- Motivational badges can be awarded to students who have contributed a lot to the whole group learning.
Workflow Two.
Lesson Objective: Students will explore different Apps to develop their English language skills from a list of suggested Apps/links on Edmodo and share their favourite Apps/links on Edmodo discussion board with an explanation.
Steps to be taken:
- Each week, a bank of links and Apps that can help improve English language skills is shared with students on the class Edmodo. The skills to be looked at are reading, writing, speaking and listening, as well as grammar and vocabulary.
- Throughout the week, students are responsible for visiting these links/downloading these Apps and deciding which one/s is/are their favourite.
- At the end of the week, students write their choices on the discussion board and justify their decisions. Each student who makes a suggestion ‘in time’ on the Edmodo discussion board, with a good explanation of ‘why’ they chose the App/link and how the class can use them, gets a digital badge.
- The class also votes for a class favourite, using the polling function on Edmodo. If a student’s suggestion is chosen as the class favourite, that student gets a special digital badge.
