How to Teach with a Social Networking Site

The world has become smaller due to easily accessible information. Students no longer need to be educated within the confines of a classroom. Teachers are using twenty-first century technologies in order for students to make connections with their own personal experiences. Students are texting facts, blogging news and braving the endless seas of information by surfing the web with their cell phones. But we as educators must step in and prevent students from drowning in an information overload.

I have been a life guard in a computer lab before, where I constantly monitor the students. I have to make sure they aren't wandering in cyberspace, but more importantly, making sure they can't access their favorite social networking site. After wasting all of this time monitoring as opposed to educating my students, I decided to stop fighting social networking sites and embrace them as an educational tool.

This is where I came across Edmodo, which is a web 2.0 tool where teachers not only create a safe educational environment, but an online community where students can learn collaboratively and easily exchange information. Teachers can sign up for the service in just a few moments and design a virtual classroom where students can access from their internet enabled device.

The teacher will now become a facilitator for learning, as each student creates their login, and the teacher gives them a code to join their class. Once students join, they will be familiar with the tools and layout from other social networking sites. Students can now read and comment on my posts, or follow links, files or polls that I have posted within my group.

Once students can navigate through the site, I will post assignments where the students are required to respond to my content and then comment on another student's post. I can quickly tell how many students have turned in their assignments, and I can message their grade to them in an instant. I can also make a collaborative group with other teachers and co-teach assignments from around the world. These are just a few of the features available to teachers using Edmodo, where you can teach with a safe, free online community and let your students solve problems through collaborative efforts and by twenty-first century means.

References: The Edmodo Guide