Student profiles on Edmodo are personalized, but secure.

In Social Studies class, we recently piloted a new technological tool called Edmodo.  It’s a website that is made for students to communicate with social networking tools in a safe, secure manner.   In some ways, it has an interface like Facebook — students create a profile page, can post on a wall, and comment on each others’ posts.  However, there are many additional features, like the ability to submit assignments online, take polls, earn badges, and give parents access to seeing what’s going on in class.  In addition, it’s totally safe, because all content is hidden from the public and monitored by teachers. Facebook requires users to be 13 years old, but that doesn’t mean that our 5th and 6th graders aren’t interested in connecting with each other using new technologies.

Basically, students are into it.  But you don’t have to take my word for it.  Listen to what they have to say about Edmodo after less than a week using it:

We aren’t just using Edmodo because it’s cool.  We just finished posting our first rubric assignment there!  Students had to write about an issue that they’d like to see changed in America.  They analyzed how the government could make a change on their issue, and how a regular citizen could influence the government to make the change happen.  Students wrote about getting rid of the Electoral College system, getting health care for all citizens, preventing future terrorist attacks, and many other interesting topics. For extra credit, some of them are developing their ideas into real action.  Stay tuned to hear more about how these individuals begin changing the world… one person at a time!