While reviewing the NETS for Teachers two of the standards really seem to align to some goals I have for my classroom next year. They were Standard 2 Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments and Standard 3 Model Digital-Age Work and Learning. The two specific sub-standards that plan on focusing on are, design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity and communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital-age media and formats (International Society for Technology in education. 2008).
Goals:
Use edmodo to deliver content to students utilizing videos, websites.
Use edmodo to improve communication with both students and parents.
Actions:
The first step to delivering content to students and improving communication with parents is to create an edmodo page. The next step that my teammates and I plan to do next fall is sign parents and students up for edmodo at our back to school night. To deliver content to students I plan on using edmodo to list the daily objectives, agenda, and homework. I will also use edmodo to share usefull links to videos, tutorials, practice websites and assign some tasks. To improve communication I will use the email and text feature to remind students and their parents about upcoming due dates, big projects, and provide feedback on assignments submitted through edmodo.
Monitor:
To monitor my progress I will need to see if I am not overwhelmed with updating edmodo daily. I will also need to monitor the use of edmodo by students and parents to help determine if it is worth while using. Observe if students seem more engaged in class activities using edmodo. Observe if parents are more involved in communicating about their child's progress.
Evaluate and Extend:
I will collect data on the rate of assignment turn in and overall grades to see if edmodo is helping to improve upon these two categories. Determine if more class activities and assignments can be incorporated into edmodo.
International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National education standards for teachers (NETS-T). Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/Libraries/PDFs/NETS_for_Teachers_2008_EN.sflb.ashx
Hi Nick.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea about using edmodo as a way to help list objectives and assignments, and, also as a means to communicate with students and parents. My high school recently purchased and started using a program called “Power School”. This program allows parents to log in and see up-to-date grades and download assignments. There are also e-mail features and a lot of other useful tools it offers, but as of right now my district has not enabled those features. I think they are trying to take it slowly. I say that to say this, if Power School does not “pan out” to do what I am hoping it will, I might take another look at edmodo next school year; so, thanks for sharing that information!
From your post, it sounds like you have great goals and steps to successfully enact your GAME plan. I thought I would share two sites that have a lot of education videos that can be used to help students who were absent or are homebound. Also, they are good to use as “refreshers” before new lessons. I have also shared them with students and other teachers. It is worth a look to see if you would like to include any of them on your edmodo page. You may have already heard of the sites, but in case you have not, the two sites are:
www.brightstorm.com
and
http://www.khanacademy.org/
Best of luck next school year with edmodo. Good post.
Tonya Todd
Nicholas,
ReplyDeleteI have tried something similar with a program called Engrade and as you suggest in your post I was overwhelmed by the prospect of updateing the grades and commenting daily for students to receive feedback. One thing I worked on to keep the work load down but the engagement high is a set a schedule for when I would be posting grades (every 2 weeks). I would make sure to have all assignments posted and available for viewing every two weeks and would remind the students to check it out. One thing that is nice about engrade is that it would let you know when each student logged in. This way I could track who was and was not logging in. I do not know if Edmundo has this feature but in order to monitor your progress it might be a very helpful tool.
Cheers
Chris
Nicholas,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post. In particular, I was delighted to learn about Edmodo. I was not familiar with this Web 2.0 tool, so I spent some time exploring the website. I think it has excellent potential to meet your NETS-T improvement goals.
Using your Back to School Night to sign parents and students up for your Edmodo site is a very creative way to handle one of the implementation aspects of this technology. King-Sears and Evmenova (2007) emphasize the importance of handling the various factors involved in making an activity run smoothly, reducing wasted instructional time, and increasing student achievement.
Additionally, I think you are very wise to watch your time commitment carefully to ensure you are not overwhelmed and that the parents and students are truly benefiting from this new technology tool. Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer (2010) stress the importance of monitoring your action steps to determine if modifications to the plan need to be made in order to meet your goals. Good luck!
Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
King-Sears, M. E., & Evmenova, A. S. (2007). Premises, principles, and processes for integrating TECHnology into instruction. Teaching Exceptional Children, 40(1), 6-14, Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Tonya thanks for sharing the video websites. I think that they will provide some great material to post to my edmodo page.
ReplyDeleteChris, thanks for reminding me to check into the capability of seeing when students log onto edmodo. A feature like that will really help me monitor the usefulness of my page.
Sheri thanks for your comments. I agree that back to school night will give me a great opportunity to introduce parents and students to my edmodo page and get them all on board from the get go.
Nick:
ReplyDeleteI find a few similarities between you and I when it comes to creating an educational environment for our students that enables them to manage and keep up with their learning. I have experience with both Engrade and Edmodo, but feel that Edmodo could really assist my student's ability to interact with one another.
I think one of the biggest obstacles that teachers must overcome is the disconnect between themselves and that of their student's parents. I feel like phone calls can sometimes be beneficial, if I'm not spending 45 minutes on a call regarding the student's life up until the present day. Having another way of communicating with parents and giving them the ability to monitor their son or daughter's schooling takes a load off of a teacher's shoulders in terms of the relationship between the parent.
Best of luck with everything,
Ryan Schupp