Edmodo

www.edmodo.com is an educational website that provides forums for classes to communicate electronically.  I opened a "group" for the class as a whole and one for each student.

The whole-class group is for classwork such as posting thoughts on articles, taking polls, etc. The individual accounts are intended for students to do reading responses and similar work in.

I thought we had adequate discussion on the expectations for using the site, but there were two problems that surfaced quickly:

1) Yesterday as I was busy working with individual students to set up their personal accounts, a few crewmembers posted mildly inappropriate comments to the whole-class board. They apparently forgot that whatever they post is visible to everyone, including me.  I addressed this problem with individuals and the class.

2) A few students have used the whole-class group after school hours for communicating socially with crewmates.  This is not the intent of Edmodo. It’s not meant to be a social network site or open chat room. 

If you see your child using Edmodo at home, please remind them it is only for tasks I have directed them to do.  Obviously, I will eventually find out if improper postings are made, but it will make things easier if there is parental intervention stopping misuse up front. 

Also, students should not be giving the group code out to anyone outside the crew except you.  Your child can show you how to log on to the whole-class board and their personal board.  I do ask that you do not post comments to the site—let the site belong to the students.  Rather, email me if you have any comments or questions related to the content of the board.