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[El Macho]

Glad that this has been working for you. The app for Edmodo seems like a very effective way to get them to incorporate checking the site into their daily life – if it pushes notifications to their phones/iPads, that is a great reminder for them that they need to do something. That would, I imagine, negate the problem with them registering and then not doing much with the site.

Rereading what I wrote above, I think I came across as too dismissive of the idea. I'm certainly not against teachers using outside resources with the students, and am glad that this has been working for you. (Like I said, I use engrade and previously set up and administered a moodle installation.) However, I believe that the best possible solution is for teachers to be able to be included in those networks that students are always using, like weibo or renren. If a teacher's materials are always popping up in the social media streams that students regularly use, I think they're more likely to make use of them. The access barrier for us to reach them is super low.
what I really wish someone would create is a good elearning CMS that integrates into existing social networks. that way you can not only get current students, but also continue to hook former students with fun, additional stuff.

Anyway, will be interested to see how this evolves for you.

[Foscolo]

It seems quite similar to Moodle in some ways (and since Moodle is open-source, it may have some of the same code under the bonnet) but the obvious and huge advantage is that you don't have to set up web-hosting, install it and configure it, which can be a couple of days work for somebody who's never done it before. The default appearance of Moodle is a bit clunky IMO, and although you can change the appearance with as third-party "Theme", that's further effort required.

I recently ran some seminars trying to get teachers enthusiastic about starting to use Moodle. The majority were quite resistant, as the initial experience of trying to use it - even when already installed proficiently - can be a bit daunting and alienating. "It'll be more work for us", "We don't need it", "Students won't understand it" etc. Edmodo seems more approachable, more attractive and easier to use. The only major area where Moodle seems to trump it is as a connected system for a large organisation.

[old34]

Long but worth the read, IMO. (Skip to the end if you want just the data.) Been meaning to post my review of Edmodo since school ended. Here it is:

Edmodo Wrap-up:

So the semester is now over. I thought I’d summarize how Edmodo worked out for me. I used it throughout the semester in my classes and for a couple of my projects.

I wound up my Edmodo class at the end of the semester checking quiz results and awarding badges to various students for various actions/results. I didn’t use  (as I promised them I wouldn’t) Edmodo activities or quizzes in the calculation of their final scores, but a look at the final scores I calculated and matching it up against their activity on Edmodo draws some very clear parallels. Those who participated more tended to get higher scores.

To review: I set up an Edmodo group for all my classes at the beginning of the school year. Despite some naysaying here at the Saloon, and without much pushing from me, all 125 students (25x5 classes) had joined by the third week. 100% entry participation.

Edmodo has an extensive badge system for awarding badges to students for various things. Students will be engaged by the Badge System (after all Chinese students love to compete for anything) and just spend Sunday nights going through whatever you’ve assigned and give them Badges. It’s actually fun spending an hour or two going through the quizzes and polls and posts and rewarding students with badges. I found I got a lot closer to students individually this way.

Over the course of the semester, I awarded badges to students for various reasons: a good suggestion, taking a quiz, extra badge for acing the quiz, etc. In fact, when I originally started it, I had no intention of doing quizzes but I realized about ¼ of the way in that I could set non-credit quizzes to assess what they had taken away from the previous lesson. Surprisingly, more than 100 of the students would take the non-required Edmodo quizzes I posted. Depressingly, they did much worse than I would have expected, but it very much informed my teaching as to: (a) what to review with them; and (b) how to present the material in the future. The Quiz function itself was a real teaching tool to help in assessing retention. When you set up the quiz in Edmodo, you provide the system the correct answers. As each student “turns in” their quiz, the system automagicaly grades it and posts the score in your class grade book. You can review earh quiz, and the student’s answers, and post a private comment to them.

(Aside: Though I never used it this year, I'm going to be teaching some writing classes next semester, and Edmodo has an Assignment/Annotation function whereby you set the assignment, students turn it In through Edmodo, and you can parse, annotate and grade it through Edmodo and send it back to them.)

During the course of this semester, I was also going to do a couple of projects with my students. One of the projects came by way of interacting with teachers from around the world. Another huge benefit of Edmodo. A school in Washington state (US) was doing an International Economic Forum (similar to a Model UN) and their "China" representative group (like, three guys named Josh) needed info about China. Their teacher contacted me through Edmodo and I  told my students about it, set up an Edmodo group for those who were interested and the group got about 20 of my students to join and they had some interesting discussions between the US and CN.

Too, I decided to start another project. This time, it was the "Chinese Menu Translation Project." I think it's been mentioned here at the Saloon, but by way of background....a year or so before China hosted the 2008 Olympics, Beijing decided that maybe China should standardize the English translations of Chinese dishes for the hordes of foreigners who would descend upon Beijing in 2008. So the set up a committee (of course) to do this. I remember seeing the story all around the Chinese internets way back then. I wanted to volunteer as I have done a lot of this. But I wasn't in Beijing. Still, I thought, this is definitely a good thing. And they promised a gold-standard translation team with "foreigner" input.

2007 passed. 2008 and the Olympics passed. 2009 passed. Nothing. Then, in 2010, the committee completed their work. Two years too late. But there it sat-not very widespread. (embarrassed that they missed their deadline by 2 years???)

Finally, this year, they published it as a book available in PDF for free. I downloaded it the moment I found out about it.

BAM!  It looks beautiful and the translations are (mostly) dead-on accurate and culturally-attuned. But as a guide for westerners coming to China to help them order in Chinese restaurants? TOTAL FAIL!

It's only in Chinese characters and English translation. For example, 北京烤鸭-Beijing Roast Duck. If you're sitting in a Beijing restaurant and tell the waitress "Beijing Roast Duck" she'll give you a smile and a giggle and a 听不懂 (ting bu dong). The whole damn list had NO pinyin. You have a 50-50 chance of muttering, "Beijing kaoya" to a Chinese waitress and she'll understand you.

So, the heavy lifting having been done by the Beijing committee in doing the actual translations, all that needed to be done was to add Pinyin. Seemingly simple, but I insisted that tones be added too. I announced the project to my Edmodo classes and fully 42 of my 125 students joined my new Edmodo Translation Project. Using Edmodo as the main communication method, I divided the whole Beijing project  (+3000 menu items) into 6 parts. The students then divided themselves into 6 groups with 6 or 7 in each group responsible for one part. They assigned one Team Leader for each group and they were responsible for posting their group’s work to the Edmodo project so all work was posted online. Each group was then responsible for checking other groups’ work. Errors were posted on Edmodo and the original group had to go back and correct their own. (Most errors were in tone marks, the students were really diligent in checking each other’s work.) Finally, each group posted their final work. I assembled all 6 back into one document and gave everyone one more chance to check it.

I was very impressed with how this worked out through Edmodo. It really helped to organize everything and co-ordinate among the 6 groups and their group leaders.

I could go on and on (I already have) about the benefits of using Edmodo for my students, but I just want to add one more thing: Once you’ve joined and set up your class, Edmodo has a number of communities of teachers you can join (e.g. Language Arts, Writing, etc.) where teachers pass ideas back and forth and reach out to other teachers for collaboration. The International Economic Forum I mentioned earlier was one such opportunity.

At the very end of the semester, against my better judgment, I posted two polls (it has an anonymous polling function, too) just for kicks to get some metadata:

I think using Edmodo in  class was helpful.
      Strongly Agree 35.48%
      
      Agree 51.61%
      
      Neither Agree or Disagree 12.9%
      
      Disagree 0 vote(s)
      
      Strongly Disagree 0 vote(s)

No one hated it and 87% agreed (35% strongly so). The teacher cannot see who answered the poll nor what they answered so this was done anonymously.



My final score was........
      Too high 8.82%
      
      Too low 11.76%
      
      Just right 79.41%

Not sure what was up with the “Too high” crowd. but I was happy that only 12% said, “too low.” And, of course, 80% satisfaction is a high number in China where people seldom seem satisfied.

In the end, I’m really happy I stumbled across this Edmodo resource and absolutely satisfied how it worked out through the semester. It’s definitely become part of my teaching package. It’s easy to set up and has lots of useful features as well as the ability to make connections. It’ll take about ½ hour to get used to and after that, it’ll run pretty smoothly. And judging by my students poll results, they’ll appreciate Edmodo and your efforts.

http://www.edmodo.com

[randyjac]

Thanks, 34, for that follow-up. This thread is an example of why Raoul's is so effective.

Old34 has inspired me to share my experience teaching basic writing to 195 English major students this past semester. With the assistance of my BW (Beautiful Wife), I set up QQ groups for each class and asked them to submit their work through those. QQ groups do not come close to the functionality of Edmodo, but at least I avoided a hernia lugging around all their essays. It's also an easy way to communicate with the students. Of course, they all have QQ already. 

[mlaeux]

Edmodocon is just two days away (August 8th).

You can sign up at http://edmodocon2012.eventbrite.com
 
Here's the line up http://www.edmodocon.com It looks promising.

Also, you can check out Edmodocon 2011 at http://blog.edmodo.com/2011/08/15/edmodocon-2011-educator-toolkit-and-recorded-sessions/ If you want to check out the archives and training maerials, you first have to sign up and then request to join the Edmodocon2011 group.

[mlaeux]

The Huffington Post just wrote an informative piece on Edmodo.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/c-m-rubin/the-global-search-for-edu_61_b_2729435.html

And, here's a link to a nifty little blog post written from an administrator's point of view regarding district wide edmodo use.
http://lasdilearn.blogspot.com/2012/12/edmodo-in-action-improving.html

[mlaeux]

Here's a fantastic way to boost your student's self confidence using edmodo.

http://blog.edmodo.com/2013/02/20/elissa-malespina-created-a-compliments-group-to-boost-student-self-esteem/

It's very similar to what O34 shared with us around the holiday season.
http://raoulschinasaloon.com/index.php?topic=8039.0

[becster79]

Just curious....which of these (Edmodo or Engrade) does everyone think would work in a primary school setting? Or would they even work at all? The kids at my school start getting IT courses from grade 3, though they don't take ipads etc to school like in Australia. I thought it might possible be cool to incorporate this somehow into their IT lessons at least. Might be good to have that link between class and home, though the kids, and not parents know English.

[mlaeux]

which of these (Edmodo or Engrade) does everyone think would work in a primary school setting?

Both - I use Engrade as my grade book because Edmodo requires you to start a new class every time the grading period is over, with that being said, I still prefer Edmodo's grade book format over Engrade.

I thought it might possible be cool to incorporate this somehow into their IT lessons at least. Might be good to have that link between class and home, though the kids, and not parents know English

Edmodo can be incorporated into all of your classes. 

When I initially set Edmodo up, I decided to set up a general class that I use to post announcements regarding upcoming events, reminders, expected behaviors and so on. Then I set up the subject area classes which I use to post assignments and such.

Here is a quick list of a ways I use Edmodo in in my classroom: 
1) I use it to post games that reinforce skills we are working on in the classroom. The students play the games and post the scores. I have a specific format I want the students to post their responses in, otherwise the posts may be incomprehensible.   

2) I post homework assignment reminders. I also require them to write their homework assignments down on a log that goes in their homework folder.

3) I post announcements.

4) I assign reading assignments where they must post a response to the text.

5) I also take advantage of the publishers free apps. I use Spelling City and Backpack TV almost daily.

6) My parents received a code and can see everything I post, as well as, everything their child posts.

7) I provide feedback and answer questions.

I use it to provide positive reinforcement and praise for a job well done.

9) I award badges like crazy. Those little babies are teaching gold!

Or would they even work at all?

Yes, most definitely. Check out the roll out kit and the prerecorded seminars.
http://help.edmodo.com/

[old34]

I'm still Edmodo's biggest fan and have continued to use it this year after the reviews I wrote last year above. My students all continue to like it too (new university, new city).

One thing I CANNOT overemphasize, which I mentioned in passing above, if you're going to use it with a Chinese class, decide at the outset how you want the students to join, name wise. Edmodo is western centric and when students join, they have to use a "First Name" and "Last Name". In my first attempt 1.5 semesters ago, I neglected this issue and I had students joining with all manner of name combinations. English First Name, Chinese Last Name; Chinese First Name; Chinese Family Name; Chinese Family Name first and Chinese Given name last.

Within various Edmodo functions, reports are rendered in different ways. Some sort by first name and some by last name. If you want your Edmodo life to go easiest, and match up with your hard copy records, I STRONGLY recommend you lay down this rule with your students: When they sign up, use their Chinese Family Name as their First Name and their Chinese Given Name as their Last Name (and if they insist on adding their English name, add it as a parens after their Given Name. That way all of your various lists in Edmodo will sort by Family Names. I even went so far this year as deleting 3 or 4 students who joined not following my directions (e.g. "Wendy Yang" thinking she was cool) and made them re-register following my instructions (e.g "Yang Wenting"). Managing 150 students across 5 classes was very easy once that was sorted.