I am in love with Ed!

Edmodo that is.   Do you know about this site?   If you don't,  you NEED to.  It will make your school life so much easier.   It will make your class hang on your every word.... okay,  not really,  but they will LOVE it too.    If you don't know Edmodo - let me introduce you to my love.

The first thing you will notice is that Edmodo looks like a lot like Facebook.  KIDS LOVE THAT.    They can send each other messages,  build profiles and post on each other's wall - but you are like the Great and Powerful Oz and you can edit their walls or take down anything that is inappropriate (or just really badly spelled).  They take a learning style quiz when they set up their profile, so you have that available to you at any time - and so do they!

You can post messages to your class that they can get if you are there or not,  or if they are there or not!  You can post assignments,  apps.,  links to websites you want them to go to,  polls, quizzes, assignments,  IT IS AMAZING!  And you can see who is working.... WHAT?  For real peeps - you can see who is working and who is not, which can make a sub day a completely new experience. You can be sitting there waiting in your dentist's waiting room, and see that  Mr. Giggly Britches is not working on the brilliant Freckle Juice quiz you so lovingly created.  Just call the sub and ask to talk to him.... it will blow his mind, and make him believe you really are like Santa and can see him when he is being bad or good, so he better be good for goodness sake. Ho-Ho-Ho!  

And Mr. Ed...my love,  he CHECKS and GRADES the quizzes and gives you a little graph of how everyone did on each question.  You can see in a glance who has not turned in the assignment or see who is struggling and call them to work with you right then and there.... not after their papers have been riding around in your car for three days and they forgot what story you were reading in the first place!  You can reteach,  review, erase their quiz and let them retake it all in one class period.   They you can just print it out and copy it into your grade book.  No paper, no copies,  no big glue-y, shredded paper blobs in the bottom of your school bag.  HOLLA!

And building a quiz  or assignment on Ed is as easy as can be.  You simply choose build quiz,  select the type of quiz you want to give,  type in the questions,  and answer choices and click on the right answer.  Assign the quiz (to the whole class or a small group or one kid, whatever!).  You can assign a time for them to take it - or keep it more open.   Once they take it,  it is automatically graded and accounted for.  And the assignment gets saved for you to use next year (no more tearing through your file cabinets or opening every single Google Drive folder searching for your Community Helpers Quiz). A-W-E-S-O-M-E, awesome, awesome - Toe-ta-lee!

There are tons of great apps you can preview and download (some cost money,  but you can make "money" by completing teacher surveys and stuff).   I often find a video or game about a topic we are going to be studying,  write my class a message and provide them with the link on Edmodo.com,  then ask them to type a response or answer some questions or a poll about it for bellwork - totally frontloading for the day.   My second graders can do it without a word of instruction from me and have been able to since the second week of school.

There are a lot of wonderful teacher resources available too.  You can join interest groups,  share badges, and materials with teachers around the country.   You can link up with other classrooms,  or teachers that you know.  

I swear,  I don't work for Edmodo...(totally would if they offered - LOL) but it is my very favorite classroom website this year and I want to share what I love!  Go try it out if you don't already use it!  It is ABSOLUTELY FREE!   If you do try it,  please find me and link up with me!

I have a lot of pictures to go with this post.... but I can't attach them?   Not sure what is going on,  but I will add them when I am able.