virtual classrooms

I opened a web site for my students through Edmodo - an educational community that allows teachers to create groups, invite students, post assignments, polls, quizzes, and materials as well as communicate with each other through general posts.

I had it on my mind for quite a while, but was only able to initiate the site this year.  The biggest benefit has been putting worksheets online so that any student who loses or her pages can download a new one.  I've also been uploading Powerpoints and videos I've shown in class for students (or parents) to review as they wish.

I made one large group - which I have yet to see whether it was a good move or not.  So far, students are joining and posting "hi" or "hi everyone" or "hello" with lots of exclamation points, no capital letters, and their name and avatar showing with their message.

One student posted, "hi, i'm ipek" to which another student replied: we know.

I hesitated to do this in the past because I was afraid managing such a site would require too much work - but with the smart phones and apps, messages come directly to my devices to which I can quickly delete or access to reply.

I also used the Edmodo support community to address a problem I had uploading a picture example of an assignment.  The picture kept uploading in a rotated position.  The response was immediate, and my help came in the form of a screencast showing me how I should rotate my picture 90 degrees on photo editing.

Granted, the support wasn't helpful - as I do know how to rotate a picture, and the orientation of my photo was vertical pre-upload, but I was still thrilled to have almost live help.

I will see how this goes, but it's satisfying to incorporate more and more digital learning as I know this is the direction teaching has moved.  It also is creating engagement outside of the classroom in a virtual environment where students may feel more comfortable to experiment.  I especially like that I can connect to the students who want my feedback, but maybe I haven't found the chance to address them in the classroom.

This is a topic to be continued . . .