Introduce yourself to Katharine or follow her on Twitter at @mshale5thgrade

My fifth graders have been studying historical fiction in reading workshop and I decided I wanted them to dive deeper into the genre with some kind of authentic writing experience.  I created a writing unit that challenged students to apply historical fiction and nonfiction reading strategies through social networking. My students used Edmodo for historical fiction and I incorporated some nonfiction and character standards for review purposes. It became a huge success and I am eager to hear how you might use this in your classroom!

Role-Play Preparation

My students used Edmodo to role-play historical fiction characters from the Great Depression time period. The goal was to create a social networking world that would resemble Facebook in the 1930s. I grouped the students into 3 families and as a team, they developed their characters by collecting information from their nonfiction texts and historical fiction books. They had to consider character traits, character relationships, and historical relevance. For my highest reading group, I came up with a story of how their family was related to the other families, so that they had to think about character relationships beyond the family.

Edmodo Set Up

Each student created an Edmodo profile using only their 1930s character name. I made 3 families (i.e. Edmodo Groups) and the students joined all three by entering in the 6-digit code. Edmodo doesn’t allow students to send messages to each other, but by grouping them into families, it made student-to-student communication possible and easy to manage. When students wrote a post, they would select the family they were writing to. To reply to a post, the students would simply read through their own family’s feed for posts related to them.

Instruction and Assessment

This writing unit was designed for multiple purposes, so I put together a rubric that would address all the literacy and technology standards I wanted to assess. Additionally, the rubric reflected many of the mini lessons taught during the unit. My favorite part about Edmodo was the badges I was able to design. Each of the badges for this unit either correlated with an area being assessed or a work ethic skill. My fifth graders obsessed over these badges! The badges motivated them and ensured me that they were accomplishing the expectations from the rubric.

Improving Student Engagement and Learning

I encourage you to use Edmodo in this way with your students. Previously, when I taught how readers use historically specific vocabulary and events to talk about characters, my second language students had a hard time mastering these skills. On Edmodo, students were eager to use these skills in order to sound authentic. It got to a point where their posts gave me chills because it so closely resembled what Facebook members would talk about in the 1930s. Some students even developed fake newsletters, scrapbooks, or videos and would link them to their posts on Edmodo. How cool is that?!

I imagine that role-playing on Edmodo can be used in many subject areas. When you do try it out, please share your successes with me. I would love to know how else students can learn through role-playing on Edmodo!

Here are some images from the project. Click any photo to enlarge.

This post is part of our Edmodo Spotlight series which highlights Edmodo teachers, schools and districts. If you are interested in being featured, please complete this form.

Anthony J. Garcia is a 3rd grade teacher at Dr. Edward L. Whigham Elementary in Cutler Bay, FL.

Two Problems Edmodo Helps Me Solve

• Student Participation - Edmodo’s easy to use interactive design increases the likability factor of any subject exponentially. This in turn escalates student participation and learning.
• Lost Homework – I love the ability to post weekly homework sheets, pdf files of supplemental activities and links to additional online resources via Edmodo. There’s been a tremendous reduction in the amount of paper and ink wasted on hard copies that go home, and often get lost. Lost your homework? No problem, it’s on Edmodo!

Keeping Parents Informed

I love being able to share links, but I think the Edmodo planner really helps in getting the word out to parents about school activities and local events. I recently had a mom tell me that she wouldn’t have known about our many community functions if she hadn’t seen them on the planner. The planner provides my students with the opportunity to stay informed of community happenings and explore and gather experiences that will enrich their lives and serve as a foundation for them to draw from for future writing assignments.

Developing Writing Skills With Edmodo

To help students develop their writing skills I’ve created two additional groups for my classes which we call “iBlog” and “What Do You Think?”

• In iBlog, one student is chosen weekly and they are given the opportunity to blog about their personal interests. Besides having to use complete sentences and demonstrate the correct use of punctuation and spelling, they are required to include pictures and links to websites, articles and/or videos related to their specified interest.
• In “What Do You Think?”, students are required to respond to high interest articles with their opinions, and provide additional digital resources that piggy back upon previous responses. All posts are reviewed and critiqued on our interactive white board.

Advice for Teachers New to Edmodo

I would suggest that any new teacher interested in giving Edmodo a try should go straight to Edmodo.com and watch the introductory video as well any available tutorial videos in the Edmodo Help Center or at YouTube.

Also, seek out fellow Edmodo users at your school for a more hands on approach and join Edmodo Communities to learn about the creative ways in which tech savvy teachers are integrating this amazing educational tool! It’s easy, fun and safe to use for students and teachers alike. 

About the Program

The Summer Reading program is designed to help students keep up their reading skills, and continue developing their critical thinking and writing skills by writing reviews and sharing their opinion with peers.

We know nothing motivates students more than rewards, that’s why DOGObooks is giving away one free book for every three books students read and review!

How to Participate

1. Install the free DOGObooks Summer Reading app to your group
2. Invite students to launch the app
3. Each student can select the books they want to read from the reading list
4. Students win a prize by reading 3 books and writing 3 reviews in the app

Why Participate

In a nutshell, the DOGObooks Summer Reading Program is . . .

• Fun, interactive and sign up through Edmodo is seamless
• Rewards kids for not only reading but also for writing book reviews 
• Comprised of a reading list of over 80 elementary and middle school titles carefully selected by leading children’s book publishers, to ensure there is something to suit every reader
• Allows students to choose their free prize from a catalog of over 4,000 great books

Win Books For Your School Library

It gets better!  DOGObooks will enable kids to give credit to their schools and keep track of the reviews by school. The top ten  schools that score the most reviews will win 200 (gently used) books for their school library from our generous partner Better World Books.

Ready to stop that dreaded summer slide? Install the free App and get started.

Archive Your Groups

At the end of the school year we recommend that you archive your groups. Archiving a group saves all of the work and grades for the semester, and the group is automatically set to read-only access. When archiving your group, you may want to rename the group to include the specific school year or term that it was used. This way, you can easily locate the group in the future.

Some teachers prefer to Archive their groups before classes start in the Fall. If you would like to allow students to continue accessing a group over the summer, make sure to set members to read-only access or turn on post moderation.

Export Your Gradebook

Exporting your gradebook allows you to save a hard copy of your class grades for reference after the school year has ended, without having to unarchive your groups. You do not need to clear out your gradebook at the end of the year, a new gradebook will be created for any new groups that you create the next school year. 

Use The Same Account For Next Year

There is no need to create a new Edmodo account each year. As a teacher, you have the ability to join and create multiple groups using the same account. Students can join groups for their classes at the beginning of a new school year and retain a record of their activities in their classes from prior years.

Stay Connected

Join Edmodo Communities, or create new groups to stay in contact and exchange resources with other teachers over the summer. If your students will be graduating at the end of this year, try creating an alumni group to help students keep in touch!

Transferring Schools

If you are transferring to a new school you can easily update your school information on your Account Settings page. If you need any assistance with transferring group ownership to another teacher, please email support@edmodo.com and we’ll be glad to help out.

If you are transferring schools within your same district and belong to an Edmodo subdomain, you will need to obtain the school code to associate with your new school.  Please contact the Edmodo Admin at your school to obtain the correct code.

Edmodo Support

Our Support Team is available 24/7 for any questions you might have. The quickest way to get assistance is to post your questions to the Support Community.

Have any end of the year tips that you’d like to share? Leave us a comment below!

-The Edmodo Team

Today we’d like to introduce you to some of the Edmodians that work behind the scenes – Dave, Bruno, Jose and Mark.

David Mandelin, Director of Engineering
Dave’s fourth-grade teacher showed him how to write programs to draw pictures, and he’s been programming ever since. He’s done IT apps, web applications, and research on programming tools. Most recently, he was the module owner and manager for SpiderMonkey, the JavaScript engine inside Firefox. His current role at Edmodo is to help make Edmodo great on mobile devices and support the engineering team.

Bruno Caratori, Product Analytics
Always a technology aficionado, Bruno started his career at a software startup in his homeland Brazil. He moved to Silicon Valley to get an MBA from Stanford University. At Edmodo, Bruno will be part of the Product Analytics team and will generate product insights that continue to improve our users’ experience.

Jose Guardado, Director of Recruiting
Jose has a passion for building teams. He entered the recruiting game in 2005 at a boutique firm in SF. After a brief stint selling ads for Yahoo!, he returned to the fast paced world of tech recruiting, helping to build engineering teams for Google, Cisco and most recently, Nebula. At Edmodo, Jose will lead talent acquisition across all areas, and is excited to help realize the company’s mission of reinventing K-12 education.

Mark Costigan, VP of Finance
Mark grew up outside Milwaukee and moved to the bay area in 2000 to join Commerce One. In late 2002 he moved on to Google and spent the next six years contributing to building the company’s core financial infrastructure. At Edmodo, Mark will be charged with continuing to build out financial infrastructure that will scale with the growth of our great company.

We’re hiring! If you’re interested in joining the team, check out our open positions at jobs.edmodo.com

The American Business Awards are the nation’s premier business awards program. All organizations operating in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations and finalists are selected by a panel of more than 140 business professionals.

We are incredibly excited that the Edmodo Support team is among the top finalists for Support Department of the Year. The Gold, Bronze and Silver winners will be announced at the awards banquet on June 17. Cross your fingers for Edmodo Support! 

Details about The American Business Awards and the list of Finalists in all categories are available at www.StevieAwards.com/ABA.

UPDATE: Thanks to all who submitted. We received so many great entries, we decided to select two winners. Congratulations to Lynn Woods and Sonia Obregon….you’re going to ISTE!

The Edmodo team is preparing to go to San Antonio for ISTE 2013 and we’re looking for one super passionate Edmodo educator who’d like to join us!

In addition to meeting the Edmodo team (we’re a lot of fun!), this is a great opportunity for professional learning and networking at one of the largest Edtech conferences of the year.

As our guest, you’ll spend half of your day sharing all your awesome Edmodo experiences with educators who visit our booth and the remainder of the day going to sessions and workshops of your choice.

How To Enter

Entering to win is easy – all  you need to do is share your Edmodo success story with us. We are looking for exemplary stories of using Edmodo (especially Edmodo Apps) to create increased learning outcomes and help your students become successful.

Share your story via this form by Wednesday, May 15th. We’ll collect our favorites and select one person to win. Winner will be notified via email by Friday, May 17th. 

What You’ll Win

If selected, Edmodo will pay your airfare, lodging and conference registration. A team member will work with you to arrange your flight and accommodations upon being selected.

Note that meal reimbursements, baggage check fees and airport transportation are not included.

Program Overview

Edmodo Apps Professional Development is designed to help you find new and exciting ways to use high quality digital content as everyday tools in your classroom. Purchase now for $99 and get:

• Edmodo Apps instructional video that will help you learn how to search for and engage with apps to improve your practice
• $99 in promotional Edmodo Store credit (upon completion of the video and survey)
• Access to the Edmodo Apps Professional Learning Exchange,  an exclusive PLC where you can connect with app partners and test drive new apps for free
• Earn your Edmodo “Apps Explorer” badge and certificate of completion

Visit edmodo.com/apps-pd to learn more.

Who Should Register

Currently the program is open to all Edmodo educators who have access to Edmodo Apps. We encourage educators of all grade levels and subject areas to sign up.

PD Reimbursement

If you plan to complete a PD request or reimbursement form from your school or district, additional information is available at www.edmodo.com/apps-pd/overview

Group Registration

Schools and Districts interested in purchasing Edmodo Apps PD for a group of educators may contact institutions@edmodo.com.

Video Preview of Edmodo Apps PD 

This is a guest post from  Patrick Fogarty, Faculty Advisor of Instructional Technology at Xaverian High School, Brooklyn, New York.  If you are interested in contributing to the Edmodo Blog, please complete this form.

Introduce yourself to Patrick or follow along @fogarty22!

Mobile devices into the classroom, whether they be laptops, netbooks, or tablets, have quickly shifted from amenity to necessity. At Xaverian High School in Brooklyn, NY, I helped oversee New York City’s first iPad 1:1 integration, a grade 6-12, 1200 person deployment that required additional bandwidth, storage space, charging locations, and much more. As of today, we are one of over two dozen city schools working in iOS 1:1 environments, and we’ve had visitors from across the city and around the world in to see how we run our soon-to-be-paperless school.

Discovering Edmodo

As an Apple Distinguished Educator and conference keynote speaker, I’m often asked about my first recommendation for schools considering one-to-one programs. Step one for our school was choosing a content and/or learning management system that could connect us as an institution while also providing a safe place for individualized interactions via groups and personal messaging. That’s when we found Edmodo, which had a 90% faculty adoption rate before we even had a chance to conduct any workshops or professional development promoting it. It worked so well for such a wide variety of classes that we committed to using it for the next two years. Now, two years later, there hasn’t been any talk of reevaluating our choice. For schools looking to avoid the headache of on-site servers and in search of an intuitive, user-friendly system, Edmodo is the best solution available. Create a district-or school-level Edmodo account and begin connecting your school’s teachers to each other and the rest of the world.

Blueprint for a Successful One-to-One Deployment

With the classroom evolving at such a rapid pace, many educators and administrators are finding it difficult to remain ahead of the curve. For this reason, I wrote the book Going One-to-One: iPads and Mobile Devices in Education (available now on iTunes and Amazon) based on my experiences. It provides a blueprint for every stage of a mobile device integration, from an overview of every device class on the market to a cost breakdown for schools and districts of all sizes, to a primer on adapting lessons and digitizing course materials.  

Provide a conduit to the millions of brilliant educators blazing the same trail you are, and take great solace in the collective strength we have to initiate change and to make our students’ lives and futures better.

Download Going One-to-One: iPads and Mobile Devices in Education