Imagine a place where Catholic teachers from all over the world can gather and share ideas, web resources, videos, assignments, and discuss current issues.
Imagine a place where you can connect with other teachers to plan collaborative projects where your students can communicate daily with students the world over.
Edmodo is just such a place. It’s simple, safe, powerful — and free.
In their own words,
Edmodo is a secure, social learning platform for teachers, students, schools and districts. We provide a safe and easy way for your class to connect and collaborate, share content and access homework, grades and school notices. Our goal is to help educators harness the power of social media to customize the classroom for each and every learner.
Social learning is a fantastic idea in theory, but there are problems with using services like Facebook, Ning or Twitter in the classroom. Whether it’s cost, advertisements, safety, usability, or management, most social platforms just don’t work well for education. Edmodo does.
I started using Edmodo with my 8th grade class this year, and they absolutely love it. Some of the things they like so far include:
- Its resemblance to Facebook.
- The fun and interesting badges I award them for accomplishing tasks.
- The ability to turn in their homework digitally.
- The chance to stay connected after school hours.
And here are some of the things I like about Edmodo so far:
- It’s safe: only my students and I are connected.
- Students don’t need email addresses to join.
- It’s free, with no advertisements.
- Students can communicate directly with me or the whole group, but not directly with each other.
- I can create polls, quizzes, and electronic assignments.
- I can create custom badges for anything and everything, and award them to students at any time.
- There’s a very handy mobile app for accessing and using Edmodo from anywhere. Edmodo is a fantastic tool for classrooms in which every student has an iPad or other tablet.
- There are many teacher groups on Edmodo for collaborating and connecting with other teachers.
It’s that last bullet that brings me to the main purpose of this post. Edmodo makes connecting with other teachers incredibly easy. I belong to the 8th Grade Teachers Network and the Back to School Best Practices Group, and those groups have already given me some terrific teaching ideas this year.
As far as I can tell, there is no Edmodo group specifically for Catholic school teachers. At least there wasn’t until now. I’ve created the Catholic Teachers Network, and I’d like to invite you to join.
Here’s how to join:
- Visit Edmodo.com and click on the “I’m a Teacher” button. You’ll be asked to provide typical login information: username, email, etc.
- You’ll be taken to a new page where if you look on the left hand side you’ll see a place for groups. Click the “Join” button and enter this code: c6u263
- That’s it!
- By the way, if you’re one of the first teachers to join, you’ll get the coveted St. Elizabeth Ann Seton badge — so check it out soon!
Here’s a video that shows you exactly how to join a group on Edmodo:
Give Edmodo a try and help build a strong community of Catholic school teachers who can support each other, share ideas, and collaborate on classroom projects.