I teach Language Arts and I always teach my students to choose a title for their work when they are done writing. Yet, for some reason, the title for this post came to me first. Yesterday I wrote that I was overwhelmed by the possibilities. I'm still overwhelmed, but I've come to the conclusion that I need to step back, evaluate what I'm doing, choose one thing to focus on, and then take it one step at a time. If I don't, this whole thing could be one chaotic mess, and I wouldn't get anywhere and my students would suffer because of my lack of focus.
So, with that out in the open, I'm beginning to take my deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Nice and slow. Heart beat is settling. Nerves are calming. My mind is clearing.
I started my Edmodo classrooms a little over a month ago. They seem to be going well. Two of my courses seem to be up and running smoothly with this new instruction. Homework is posted on it every night and students now have the option of doing homework in their Writer's Notebook or on Edmodo. My system for grading these seems to be going well too. I still go around the room to check homework while they do their bellringers, but if a student tells me it is on Edmodo, I simply place a little E in the gradebook, and as soon as I make my rounds I quickly confirm. It doesn't take any more than a minute.
My Language Arts class turned in their Works Cited pages for their research completely on Edmodo last week. I'm in the process of grading them and almost done. This took much less time than it does on hard copies. I'm surprised by this. I pull up the document they attached and a copy of the rubric and fill in the rubric as I read their paper. and then I reply to their post and attach the graded rubric. No papers to lose, less trees to kill, and the time in grading this is considerably reduced.
The next test is the completed Research paper due this Friday. I had to modify the rubric I typically use to make it fit the completely digital submission, but I think it will end with the same results as the Works Cited page. None of the kids are complaining. I'm really pleasantly surprised. One of my students is out sick this week. I sent her folder home with all of her research, and she's working on hers from home. Great thing about it is she can still turn it in on time. This is great; I wish I would have found this great tool sooner.
The neat thing has been watching the students totally skip the learning curve on this program. There wasn't one. They are doing more for me with their work and better; yet, they are replying to posts over the weekend when they aren't required, and their posts are all education related. It is getting them to think critically.
The most exciting part of this Edmodo adventure is that one of my former students is a Fulbright Scholar teaching in Montenegro. Our classes have had the opportunity to Skype twice. I've talked him into having his class join mine on Edmodo. He got signed on today and hopefully his students will join us over the next week. I can see this being a very exciting and rich experience both for myself and my students. I think about how deeply we can go into some of the topics we've already discussed with them. We'll be able to truly get to know them on a level that the traditional classroom does not allow. I'm hoping they will be able to forge a friendship with students from another country and truly gain an appreciation for our differences and will embrace them. I want my students to understand that we can be different as night and day, disagree about topics regarding world events, and yet still forge friendships that will hopefully last a lifetime.
Lifetime? Really? Do you think so? I really do. With the technology that we have available to us today, and with the face of social networking merging into home lives and pouring into the educational setting, I think they can...and some probably will.
My vision for this Edmodo experience is far bigger than I could have imagined for my students in just a traditional classroom setting. I'm changing the world through tomorrow's leaders. Building friendships across the world and building understanding of differences and embracing them will only bring about enlightenment for my students, and hopefully make them tolerant and supportive world citizens of tomorrow.
I do have the chance to change the world...one step at a time.
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