edmodo – a major milestone and a big thank you

First, I would like to say thank you for the support and understanding that you have shown over the last couple of days as we have worked through the issues raised as we rolled out our new platform. With this new rollout, we will be able to continue to support the tremendous growth that we have been experiencing over the last several months. You have shown us why you are the best users in the world and we deeply appreciate it. While there are far too many to mention, I’d like to thank Bianca in Australia, Veronica in Tucson, Robert in Florida, Danielle Stiles of Illinois, Brian Sharland of the UK, and all of the rest of you for helping us resolve issues so quickly on the site. Your feedback was invaluable.

Second, I want you to know that we set the auto refresh rate on the stream temporarily to 30 seconds as we optimize our databases and web servers to handle the load properly. Notifications will also be turned back on Wednesday evening.

On Saturday, March 20th, we deployed the kernel of what is the foundation of edmodo going forward. With this deployment, you will start to realize and see new features and services added at a rapid pace going forward.

With the warmest regards,
Chuck, Jeff, Nic, Crystal, Jason, Galen, Ash, Carlos, Ale, Diego, Gabriel, and Angie.

March 24, 2010 | Filed Under general | View Comments

Edmodo Undergoing System Upgrade Saturday 3/20 at 9pm PST

Edmodo will be offline for a short period to undergo some system code and server upgrades starting at 9:00pm PST Saturday 3/20/10.

Here are some highlights that will be available after the new system upgrade:

Edmodo will now be fully internationalized. We started with Spanish support. More languages can be added very easily and quickly in the future.
Group names in Edmodo no longer have to be completely unique (yay!!!!)
Improvements to our backend search system
Users will now be notified of direct messages in the spotlight
Files tab will be deprecated in preparation for something much better! In the meantime, if you need to access your files, simply click the link to filter by Files from the right sidebar.
Edmodo architecture will be more scalable and fault tolerant with the ability to add more servers to support Edmodo’s rapidly growing user base
Ability to add features and bug fixes at a much quicker pace

The changes to the end user will actually be fairly minimal and many may not even notice the change. At this moment in Edmodo’s life cycle we feel this update is extremely important to to support our growing user base and allow us to add features more quickly.

With any new system there are bound to be bugs even though we have worked very hard to make the transition to the new code as smooth as possible with extensive internal testing. We ask that you submit any problems you may have to the Edmodo support group after we come back online late Saturday evening (Sunday for you east-coasters).

March 19, 2010 | Filed Under general | View Comments

Edmodo gets a new home page redesign

We just launched a new homepage which outlines the benefits & features of Edmodo. We would love to hear your comments and what you think of the new redesign.

If you click “Tour” on the homepage we now have a video tour of Edmodo which you can view below.

March 2, 2010 | Filed Under general, video | View Comments

Edmodo on ABC News Chicago: Techno Teaching

Edmodo was featured on an ABC News Chicago segment entitled Techno Teaching. Here is a clip of the video and a link to the full article. We had fun recording this piece and even more excited about the teachers and students ABC featured using Edmodo. I just want to thank ABC News Chicago for letting us be a part of this segment.

February 9, 2010 | Filed Under general | View Comments

Teacher’s Corner: Robert Miller’s Edmodo Experience

Note: The following post is a guest post by Robert Miller, who is a 5th grade teacher at Port Orange Elementary in Port Orange, Florida. Robert Miller is an Apple Distinguished Educator, BrainPOP Advisor, and one of NSBA’s 2009 “20 to Watch”. Robert can be found on twitter @RobrtMiller and at his class website http://www.maxclassonline.net if you would like to contact him or see the cool things he is doing with his students to enhance their learning experience.

This year has been one where I found myself moving away from the static teacher showcase web page towards web applications leading my 5th grade students into a more interactive online experience that does not end at the two o’clock bell.

This past fall, I discovered Edmodo referenced on my Twitter feed and after reading the homepage and researching other teachers’ usage, I knew immediately that Edmodo would be an anchor in my classroom’s online experience. As it turns out, Edmodo is now our main aggregate for both classroom communication (both with me and with student peers) and the collaborative portal for works and projects.

Jeff asked me to share some of the ways my 5th graders and I use Edmodo in our classroom. I, too, have picked up many tips from other educators on the Edmodo Group available to all of us and I encourage you to continue or start to share your best practices!

Many Language Arts programs are using Literature Circles… Have you ever thought about creating an online component? Although I believe the face-to-face discussion is the most exciting way to share a great book, some students just cannot wait until the next day and often they share a few thoughts the night before in their private Edmodo Lit Circle Group… Each group-of-four loves to have their own private room!
Here’s one that I gleaned from the Edmodo Group: Create a “Recess” Group that will draw in your less-than-motivated students. This is a room that they can do their “chat posts.” My students and I have set prior parameters for such a group and I have found that some will log in for the Recess Group but stay for my actual content and peer collaboration.
My class webpage has a sidebar of web application links to which my students can jump (VoiceThread, Animoto, GoogleDocs, GlogsterEDU, Pixton Comics, etc.). Edmodo allows for each some sort of embedding or linking to a student project or showcase. Students can chose to share their projects/assignments and collaborate with classmates to make them better in one location… I love it!
I am teaching my students proper digital netiquette by making myself accessible in the evenings with Direct Messaging. We discuss what is important to interrupt me after school and what can wait until the next day. If a student has a burning or important query/issue, that student may “DM” me knowing that I am going to receive a text message immediately of their post. They can expect a response soon thereafter. This function has solved delays, deadlines, and parental questions and alleviates disruption and the flow/progress of the next morning’s routine. Students who DM me with frivolous or irresponsible questions (“Mr. Miller, what page was the math HW?”) are addressed personally in the morning.

Maybe you too, see the endless possibilities of Edmodo in your classroom. Might any of you be partaking in classroom-to-classroom/school-to-school groups (something I and another distant teacher are exploring)? Are any of you finding the Edmodo Assignment Post/Gradebook a time saver? (Support Comments lead us to believe that Gradebook is going to be further improved in future updates). I hope that you are finding Edmodo as an enriching web 2.0 resource as I do and I look forward to reading and implementing your shared classroom ideas.

As I tell my students, “Great idea! Want to share? Go Edmodo!”

Note: We just wanted to thank Robert for taking the time out of his busy schedule to share his experience with Edmodo. We are also looking for others to share their experience’s with Edmodo. Feel free to contact us and share your experience.

February 2, 2010 | Filed Under Teacher's Corner, general | View Comments

Shared Tags

A couple weeks ago we quietly launched a simple new feature on Edmodo, that was the direct result of teacher input. Shared Tags enable you as a teacher to selectively share certain tags with your students.

To share a tag, first click the “Manage” link in the upper-right of the Tags Panel.

This will take you to the Tag Management screen, where you can mark any of your tags as “Shared.”

Any student that belongs to a group you created will instantly have access to the shared tag, using the “Shared” tab that will appear in their Tags panel.

Only teachers are able to share tags. Let us know what you think in the comments, or if you have already started using Shared Tags. Thanks again to our users, for providing us with another great feature idea. Keep them coming…and stay tuned for some very exciting new features coming soon.

January 29, 2010 | Filed Under general | View Comments

Re-Tweet this to enter to win an ipod touch from Edmodo

UPDATE: The current Edmodo Twitter giveaway is over. Congrats to @mmiller7571 for winning the iPod touch on Twitter.

Edmodo ipod touch giveaway

Edmodo has a booth at the Florida Education Technology (FETC) Conference in Orlando, FL this week. We are doing a few iPod touch giveaways at our booth and if your here at FETC you should stop by our booth (booth 844) to say hi, get an Edmodo Demo, and enter to win one of many iPod touches.

If you are unable to make the FETC conference this week we are also doing an online giveaway on twitter too. To enter to win on Twitter, you must follow @edmodo & re-tweet this blog post and you will be entered to win. We will announce the twitter giveaway winner on our blog after the results are compiled. Tweets will not be entered after 9pm EST on Friday, January 15 2010. The announcement will happen as soon as we get a chance to compiled all the tweets and use a random number generator to pick a number.

January 14, 2010 | Filed Under general | View Comments

Edmodo Mobile Webapp Updated

We just updated the Edmodo Mobile Webapp. New Post and Logout links have been added to the top of the web app. The post tab has been replaced with a Groups tab so you can view just posts from an individual group instead of only all your groups at the same time as is with the Home tab. The new post link at the top of the page replaces the functionality of the old Post tab. Here are some screenshots of the updates in action. Let us know what you think and would like to see added in the comments.

January 3, 2010 | Filed Under general | View Comments

Edmodo Mobile Web Application

The number one feature request we have received for Edmodo is an iPhone/iPod touch or mobile web app. This is something that has been on our agenda since we launched Edmodo. Tonight we would like to give everyone an early holiday present and announce the beta of the Edmodo Mobile Web Application at http://m.edmodo.com.

The Edmodo Mobile Web App has been designed to work with the iPod touch and iPhone at this time. It may work on other platforms but they have not been tested as of yet. The mobile web app is pretty basic and will be revised over time based on feedback from you. In the web apps current form you can view posts, reply to posts, vote on polls, post new notes, and view what’s new in your spotlight. The basic goal of our web app is to make it easier to post or reply to someone when your not sitting at a computer.

We would love to hear your thoughts about the Edmodo Mobile Web Application in the comments. Let us know what you think and what kind of future enhancements you think we could make.

November 27, 2009 | Filed Under general | View Comments

Edmodo Polls: You can now post polls to your Edmodo groups

We just launched Edmodo Polls for teachers. Edmodo Polls is a simple system that allows you to post polls to your Edmodo groups to get quick anonymous feedback from your students effortlessly.

Lets do a quick overview of how easy it is to add a poll. First click the “more” link in the Edmodo post bubble. Next, select Poll and the post should look like the following screen shot. You type your question, and at least 2 answers. If you need more answers, just click the “add answers” button.