I am so excited to add this new section to my blog– As teachers we all know that we learn from the kids, just as they learn from us. This blog section is dedicated to just that!

This is how the story begins. After a long week of “AUP stalking” I was finally able to take my kids to the computer lab in our library! They logged in for the first time, changed passwords, as we do every year, and fumbled with multi step directions some too! Then the fun began… My kids logged on to Edmodo for the first time! This is my first year using the program, and I am so excited- and have been since June! Having them all log into my class and begin exploring polls, and free response questions was such a neat experience to witness. Thanks to Venita Jones, our MTA teacher, I also have pictures of them working on this for the first time. 

Edmodo, if you are unfamiliar, is the equivalent to facebook, but in the classroom form with safety and security built in! Students and thier parents will both be a part of this experience this year, and I am thrilled to be part of it!

So you are probably wondering what I could have learned from them by simply taking them to the lab and logging onto a program. Well…. TONS… First what I saw was the tiny little eight year old bodies as big grown up minds! I didn’t have to tell them anything once they logged on… They did it all alone, UNLIKE the whole changing your password extravaganza that took about 20 minutes and millions of questions along the way. Hmmm.. So lets see… these kids can get onto a social media type site and navigate independently… Guess maybe we are underestimating our students a bit eh! I rarely give a task the first month of school that doesn’t require a great deal of very detailed instruction, but Edmodo (a site they have NEVER been to before) is no problem at all. Tech savvy maybe? Ok that that was lesson ONE…

Lesson two from my kiddos looks like this… I arrived home, pretty excited about the experience and wanting to reminisce so I pull up Edmodo through the app on my Ipad. Guess what I see? Two of my kids have gone home on a FRIDAY night, with no direction to do so, logged on, added a profile picture, and answered questions on the page! Yes, you read that right… they went home and did something for school that was not asked of them…  Then this morning I see a third student has been on this weekend. All of this as self directed activity! WOW!

My final plug for this site is simply this… Social Media takes a lot of hits in this world, with one being a disconnect from face to face interaction. Let me say I have spent five 7 hour days with these kids, and in simply reading their responses on Edmodo, I learned more about who they are, what kind of personality they have, and how they communicate. Powerful ? I would say so!

I am so excited to see this in action… What a fun kick off to our year!