Edmodo: More than just a ‘Twitter for Education’

I had read something about Edmodo a few months back and remember it being described as “Twitter for Education”. At that point, I was not yet active on Twitter and as such did not quite understand what Edmodo could really be about. Once I did start ‘getting’ Twitter, I was wondering how the hell could anyone collaborate (in the context of education) amid all that noise. And of course, there’s the privacy issue, particularly in educational environments. I’ve been doing some more reading on Edmodo and talking to a few people and think Edmodo is a viable classroom solution…and more.

I asked Jeff O’Hara (co-founder of Edmodo, along with Nic Borg, both with backgrounds in education) how he would describe Edmodo to an ‘old school’ teacher (one with limited knowledge of online tools and social media) and he says: “Edmodo is a simple private on-line tool that you can safely use to communicate with your students and colleagues.”

Simple and safe. Two vital keywords that should get educators on board.

Edmodo was launched in September 2008. It’s an interesting way of engaging students inside (and perhaps more importantly) outside the classroom. It basically is a free microblogging platform for collaboration between teachers and students (or teachers and their colleagues). They can share notes, links, assignments, alerts and files. It is, unlike other platforms, based on closed group collaborations, meaning that only students of a particular class have access to it (codes are provided by the creator of the group – the teacher). It requires no email accounts and has been designed with K-12 in mind.

José Picardo at www.boxoftricks.net offers a good analysis of how the platform works (Steve Dembo at teach42 also did a great hands-on overview of the features here). José also shares the views of his students (16-18yr olds) who have embraced the technology. He makes a good case of why Edmodo is different from other existing tools that may not mix that well with education. He says: “it’s in a format that they readily recognise and enjoy, it taps into their lifestyle without interfering with their other, more private networks and it is clearly defined for academic use. It draws a line, a distinction, between private and academic so that they feel their privacy is not compromised and I feel satisfied I am using a system which will not result in my being exposed to potentially embarrassing pictures or videos.”

Tony Searle also writes about the Edmodo experience in his classroom after 10 weeks of using it with his Senior Modern History students.

Chris Webb, Secondary Schools Educational Technology Facilitator at Minot Public Schools has an interesting interview with Tom Scheeler, an 8th grade Language arts teacher about Sheeler’s use of Edmodo in the classroom. He says “The thing they do recognize, and like, is that it’s just THEIR class, it’s just THEIR learning community, where they know each other and feel comfortable.” I think this is something that is key, the ability to bring in online tools in the classroom without the distraction of the ‘outside noise’ and with all the privacy you want embedded in the model.

What’s great about Edmodo (and the reason why I say it’s more than just a Twitter for Education) is the fact that it can be introduced to relatively young classrooms. Jeff says, “When we initally started building Edmodo we thought middle school would probably be about the earliest that teachers could use Edmodo with their students effectively. Fortunately I was wrong and we have many teachers using Edmodo successfully with 4th and 5th graders.” I think the major advantage of such a simple tool is just that; the ability to introduce concepts of online collaboration early on in educational environments. I’ve known way too many college students with Blackboard or Moodle paranoia simply because they haven’t been conditioned to such tools earlier on and with a simple and gradual approach. Education is still a relatively dark spot when it comes to incorporating social media, but if we start introducing such concepts to the classroom early on, this world may just be more inclined to start learning together, sooner.

PS. I’m still collecting feedback from educators that have been using Edmodo in classrooms and planning a follow-up post with their input, so stand by. Interested in participating? Send me an email at elena.kostovska [at] gmail

Photo Credit: Jill