I experimented with Edmodo last semester.  I did my usual, jump in with two feet and I dragged all of my kids in with me.  It was a good way to get to know the various features.  For example, with their glog project, I graded it using a rubric in GoogleDocs and then posted it to their profile in Edmodo.  =)

This semester, I decided to implement Edmodo from the get-go.  All students were required to create a profile with a picture, how they like to learn, and then their career goal.  I gave them a challenge to choose a favorite or meaningful quote.  So many kids took me up on that offer.

But here’s the best part…having just graded 191 profiles, I can truly say that I know sides of my kids that would have never been revealed if I hadn’t asked them to create their profiles.  I told them that I wanted them to build a learning community by working together on Edmodo to ask questions and offer support to each other.  So far…it’s working quite well.

So, kudos Edmodo guys.  Thank you for helping my students and me stay connected long after the bell rings.

I must be insane.  I plan to introduce my students to Edmodo tomorrow and Glogster the day after.  I’ve been dilly-dallying on the glogster accounts because I didn’t know of an easy way to upload 200 student accounts since it doesn’t allow Mac users to upload using an Excel spreadsheet.  But while playing on Edmodo this evening (I was procrastinating because I have a ton of notebooks to grade) I linked to the Glogster community and found a bunch of posts by teachers.  One of which highlighted the idea of using the teacher code as a faster way for students to create their own accounts which link directly to the teacher account.  Can you say AWESOME?!?!  I love that there are companies out there who are constantly working to make their product user-friendly.

My students are going to be SO stoked to learn two new tech things this week.  We took a long break from using the mobile laptop carts because I had such a headache the last time I used it.  I just hope that our wireless is working tomorrow.  Please, please, please.

So…I finally have some time to grade the initial posts for the ethical issues project for my World History courses.  I have around 200 initial posts for Task 1 to grade according to depth and content of post.  I do not, however, have an unlimited amount of time to do this.  I need to have all initial posts graded before Task 2 starts tomorrow.  I don’t understand how wikispaces has soooooooooooooooo much traffic that I cannot navigate within my own wiki.  Seriously?  Seriously.

I hate grading as is.  And I was motivated to grade.  Until now.  Ugh.