THIS IS A LINK TO EDMODO:
Edmodo is an educational technology company offering communication, collaboration, and coaching tools to K-12 schools and teachers. The Edmodo network enables teachers to share content, distribute quizzes, assignments, and manage communication with students, colleagues, and parents. Edmodo is an online networking application for educators and students. Think Facebook, but in a safe and controlled environment appropriate for school. Edmodo is primarily a tool for within-class communication, but it also provides several ways for teachers to connect with other teachers. Over 500,000 students are using Edmodo worldwide (Executive Summary- What is Edmodo, n.d.) .
One way to use Edmodo is as aTeacher Lounge. Setup a “Teacher Lounge” (a comfy sounding staff room) where you can share ideas, files and links that would seem like spamming if we sent it via email to “all teachers” on staff. Edmodo does not have to be for learning exclusively. A teacher's lounge can be one way to set it up so that teachers can discuss things unrelated to the school, or to make announcements for events or parties happening in their areas. It can be as easy as a casual environment.
Another way is for students to create specific groups for themselves and create a “Diversity Day” Typically this is done via real life using foods, and traditions and customs of a particular ethnic group. By Using Edmodo, you can turn that experience into a virtual one. Now students can get together and collaborate on a particular country and build their Edmodo page to reflect the traditions, customs, cultures, and food of a particular nation. Students can focus one aspect and then teach all the other students about it.
THIS IS A LINK TO EASYCLASS:
Easyclass is a Learning Management System (LMS) that allows educators to create digital classes whereby they can store the course materials online; manage class discussions; give assignments, quizzes and exams; monitor due dates; grade results and provide students with feedback all in one place. Our tools provide unique opportunities for the instructors to engage students in various activities and offer a new dimension for interaction and efficient learning.
Easyclass sets out to disrupt the Learning Management System (LMS) industry by creating an easy to use, yet powerful solution that will be the new standard for open technology in education. We believe that an LMS shouldn’t be a closed system; rather, it should be a platform that connects everyone in education and promotes anytime, anyplace learning (About Us, n.d.) .
One way an instructor could make use
of easy class is to ease their administrative work. No more
photocopying, carrying and grading stacks of paper and writing comments out.
All of this can be done online for the
assignments, tests and quizzes whenever wherever you want.
Easy learning is a Great platform for Blended Learning
initiatives. If you are looking to
incorporate more digital content in your
curriculum and looking for a robust platform that is affordable (like, free!), then Easyclass may be a perfect fit.
References
About Us. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.easyclass.com: https://www.easyclass.com/about
Executive Summary- What is Edmodo. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://edmodoteacherhub.wikispaces.com: https://edmodoteacherhub.wikispaces.com/file/view/Exec-Summary-Edmodo.pdf
I can see the usefulness of both of these technologies in building distance learning and/or blended learning classrooms. Thank you for the introduction.
ReplyDeleteEdmodo is great for K-12 environments where internet access should be controlled at school. I do not see as much if any use for it in higher education though necessarily. Easyclass does look interesting for higher education though and even for less formal educational purposes like community classes and such. It would be an easy way to organize almost any type of class it looks like. I will have to introduce a few friends who run free community center classes to this program as they all struggle with trying to organize and bring everyone together to be 'on the same page'. Nice find.
ReplyDeleteHi David,
ReplyDeleteI like this idea of Edmodo. The teacher lounge as you mentioned sounds like a great place for teachers to meet and share information. We always need new ideas from other teachers or else we won't be changing the way we teach.
Thanks for sharing,
Heba