Digging Deeper into the Mainstays
Edmodo
Edmodo is a website designed primarily as a tool for with-in class communications. It is similar to Facebook in that it is a platform for people to connect. The big difference, however, is that Edmodo provides a safe and controlled environment where students and teachers can communicate for educational purposes.
Why would an instructor want to use Edmodo? Edmodo is free and easy to use. Instructors can easily set up secure access for student groups so they can openly communicate with each other and their teacher all while being monitored by the educator. This platform allows students to connect about educational topics while eliminating the anxiety and fear that teachers and parents usually have in regards to the internet.
Edmodo offers many security features that are enticing to educators. For example, students need an access code to join the group. The teacher has control of the code and can change it at any time. Once a student has joined, they can communicate to the teacher or the group as a whole. Private communication amongst students is not possible. Anonymous postings are not allowed and teachers can delete posts at any time. Teachers can allow parents to have access to their child’s posts and to the teacher.
There are several other things that educators can do with Edmodo other than communicate with students. For example, they can create assessments in the Edmodo quiz builder. They can promote differentiated learning by delivering differentiated content through the use of small groups and shared folders. Teachers can help build digital citizenship skills in their students by enforcing online etiquette skills while using Edmodo. Book clubs for students, as well as outside groups, can be created in Edmodo. Students can practice their foreign language skills, do peer reviews and critiques and share writing projects with each other.
While Edmodo is a wonderful tool for educators, there are a couple of issues that some teachers complain about when trying to use Edmodo. The main issue is that Edmodo does not seem to work as well on iPads. One teacher said that it is difficult for students to upload work on iPads in Edmodo because it is a multi-step process and something always seems to go wrong. Another issue the same teacher mentioned was that for some reason, students often are not able to log into Edmodo from an iPad even though the log in information is correct. For classrooms that are 1:1 iPad, both these issues can be significant issues if wanting to use Edmodo.
VoiceThread
VoiceThread allows people to share videos and photos online with the ability to comment on them through text, video or audio. The site has been around since 2005 with very few changes according to Dembo and Bello (2013). As a result, many educators like it because it is reliable and consistent.
The site is also fairly simple to use which is a plus for a busy instructor. My first and only experience (so far) with VoiceThread was in my first class in the instructional media master’s program. I was surprised at how easy it was to develop a VoiceThread. I really enjoyed being able to listen to the other student’s work while looking at the visuals they included. For me it was such a nice change from reading the normal posts. It was also a fun challenge trying something new. What I discovered was how easy the “challenge” ended up being. Being out of the educational loop for nine years, I have not used technology very much. I was intimidated to try the Voice Thread site at first, but once I created one, I realized how easy it was and how beneficial it could be to educators.
Because of the ability to add both audio and video comments, VoiceThread is a great tool for digital storytelling. It can be used for a simple kindergarten narration of journal entries to a way for graduate students to share information about a topic up for discussion. The ability to comment on a project allows for collaboration amongst students which is a wonderful reason educators would enjoy using this site for educational purposes.
Another way educators can use this site with younger students is annotated journaling. When a teacher wants a student to describe a drawing they have done, the teacher no longer has to manually record the words of the students. A picture can be taken with the webcam and then posted into VoiceThread. The students then record their comments in VoiceThread about their picture. The entry can then be shared with their parents through email.
VoiceThread is also a great tool educators can use with the many different levels of learners they have in their classroom. VoiceThread allows the voices and opinions of all their students to be heard even when a student may struggle with writing or other forms of communication. VoiceThread allows for differentiation within a class.
The ideas are limitless with VoiceThread. Whatever a teacher may want to do that involves audio and video can be done with VoiceThread.
SymbalooEDU
SymbalooEDU is a site that allows up to 60 sites to be organized in a way that allows for easy one click access to the individual sites. With instructors using so many sites for educational purposes, teachers need a way to easily see and access the sites they use often. SymbalooEDU allows its users to design a webmix. The webmix has 60 tiles available. Each tile can be filled with a link to different sites. Once the tiles are filled, a user can click on any of the tiles to get to the site that is linked to the tile. This is a very user friendly, easy way to organize lots of different sites which results in a dashboard that can be used as a homepage. The big, bold tiles make the page easy to view and use.
Educators can use this very simple tool to easily share sites with other teachers or for use in the classroom. They can set up webmixes for a variety of different topics. The children then have choices when exploring from a webmix designed around a certain topic.
According to Dembo and Bellow (2013) symbalooEDU is free to use. Educators do have a choice, however, to pay for a specialized account that allows teachers to “customize their URL, create up to 50 student accounts and tailor the branding of their webmixes slightly more” than the free account. Dembo and Bellow state that the free site is almost identical to the paid accounts.
When educators want an easy way to organize the sites symbalooEDU is an excellent option. The only negative I found about this program is that you have to pay to add more users. Other than that, educators love it!
References
Dembo, S. & Bellow, A. (2013). Untangling the Web. Thousand Oaks, CA.:
Corwin A Sage Company.
