edmodo blog logo
Create your accountBack to Edmodo

One teachers Edmodo experience with a student

August 13, 2009Teacher Stories11 commentsEdmodo

Edmodo has been an integrated part of my students’ school life for a number of weeks now. My class is a relatively small grade five group of 10 boys and 9 girls. We are part of a rural school in Queensland Australia with just over 230 students spanning grades 1-7. The school is wonderfully equipped with ICTs having IWBs in every teaching room and a ratio of 5:1 PCs to students.

My class would be nicely described as ‘that’ class – I’m sure you know what I mean. The general hobbies of the students outside school largely revolve around farm-life, motorbike racing, rugby league, and pig-hunting (yes, grade 5). Any use of the computer at home is generalised to gaming, surfing the web and chatting.

Edmodo has had a dramatic effect on my class – with an interface that mirrors the best Web 2.0 has to offer – it has captured the imaginations of my kids and driven them further to succeed in their work.

A case in point

A particular student of mine (that we shall call Fred) is the type of boy who survives on Coka-Cola, chips and his X-box. In grade 5 he has seen every horror film imaginable, knows far too much for his age, has no inner-monologue, is completely hyperactive but dislikes sport, plays his X-box for hours before school and long into the night, and just does not ‘get’ school – I love him – he’s great. Fred isn’t particularly naughty nor does he lack intelligence. He’s just got too much outside school to appreciate what is in school – it’s a waste of his time.

English is a particular headache for Fred as he is a decent speller and can read and write – ‘so why do I need anything else?’ This began to change a little bit last year when I started to integrate computer games into literacy but Fred had still never handed in an assignment or a single piece of homework in the 6 months I’d taught this class… until last Friday.

On Friday we started looking at alliteration and alliterative sentences/poems. In class we covered the classics ‘Sam the slippery snake slipped and slid across the slimy swamp’ and paid attention to alliteration in The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. Towards the end of the lesson I was asking the students to think of their own alliterative poems and to give them some thought over the weekend (I never set weekend homework)

The bell rang, class dismissed – teachers race each other to the staffroom for a frosty beverage – another week done.

I opened my laptop mid-drink to check some emails, read some blogs, update Twitter and while I was there – have a play with Edmodo. This is what I saw… at 3:30 on a Friday…

Poem submitted on Edmodo

Now I know he didn’t quite get the point and it’s not truly alliterative but let me reiterate – Fred has NEVER handed in a piece of homework, Fred does not ‘do’ school, Fred does not get supported outside school to complete work… Fred sat next to his X-box and instead of killing bad-guys he signed onto Edmodo, wrote me 4 poems that I didn’t ask for and then spent the next hour or so chatting to his classmates online about what we had done in school that week. They left encouraging messages in reply to his post and I sat there open-mouthed at how good I knew that would make him feel… all thanks to Edmodo.

Previous post Edmodo Store T-Shirts & Mugs Next post Small Interface Change… Big Improvement

11 comments. Leave new

Claire Jones
August 13, 2009 9:25 am

Wow! That is truly impressive and shows the power of web2 in education. Well done and keep going.

Reply
edmodo
August 13, 2009 9:35 am

Thanks, when we hear stories like this, it really moves us and inspires us to keep doing what we do every day. It shows us we are making a difference in the learning of students.

Reply
macgasm
August 13, 2009 10:59 am

Nice, sounds like some we deserved credit. Congrats.

Reply
electricchalk
August 14, 2009 3:17 am

Great case study thanks to Edmodo…but also you! It's a case study of tech used by an innovative educator who has obviously built great relationships with his class.
Thnx for the post.

Reply
Edmodo 4 – Negatives? « Mr Finlayson
August 16, 2009 11:56 pm

[…] http://www.edmodo.com/blog/2009/08/13/one-teachers-edmodo-experience-with-a-student/ […]

Reply
School 2.0 Bookmarks (weekly) | School 2.0 in SA
August 22, 2009 6:36 pm

[…] One teachers Edmodo experience with a student […]

Reply
assa
August 31, 2009 8:03 pm

waha

Reply
Instructional Media or “What’s an Overhead?” » Blog Archive » Communication, Collaboration, Publishing- Web 2.0 hits the Classroom, but are teachers ready?
October 3, 2009 3:12 pm

[…] provides sufficient support to get started, and there is a Blog too, for further ideas, and even some testimonials. I liked this one about a student who began to engage in his schoolwork through the teacher’s Edmodo site. Initially, the site could be used for an […]

Reply
itjobs1
December 2, 2009 6:14 pm

Thanks, when we hear stories like this, it really moves us and inspires us to keep doing what we do every day. It shows us we are making a difference in the learning
http://www.staffingpower.com

Reply
Stacy Hunter
January 7, 2010 2:52 pm

I appreciate the impact of the program and am equally as struck by your commitment to the forever challenging 'no school' kid. Awesome!

Reply
Bulgarie bijoux
August 2, 2015 7:57 pm

En connaissant les faits ci Bulgari bague réplique -dessus, vous p bague b.zero1 ouvez faire beaucoup plus des décisions éclairées lors de l’achat de gros bijoux en argent sterling et surtout, éviter les escroqueries. Il ya ocBulgarins quand les gens font des bijoux en argent de faux et les vendent Bulgari bague à un prix très bas. Si vous savez comme

Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Subscribe via Email

Enter your e-mail address:

Follow Us

Email
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Pinterest

Popular Post

Three Ways to Empower Your Students in 2017

August 25, 2017

The new school year is here, and you might already be feeling overwhelmed. Not to worry! There’s plenty of great classroom tips and new teaching methods to go around in 2017, and we’ve got a few of them for you straight from EdmodoCon 2017!

My Tweets
Any text goes here