We can work IT out

This is hopefully the first in a series of posts about using Edmodo.

You may recall from earlier posts that I was wanting my maths class to have an online presence.

In the Help! post, I was wondering what tools to use to be able to manage and interact with my class. I started a maths blog last week (which will develop as we go along – and to be honest, I’m not really sure what I actually want its functions to be, yet) and will show the boys for the first time on Monday.

I had signed up to Edmodo towards the end of the 2008 academic year, but didn’t think it was worth starting at that stage. I had some inkling of what it was and looked at the edmodo blog but I wasn’t confident what would happen when I used it.

So, this morning, I have explored.

Setting up an account is quite straight forward, so I won’t delve into that. It was also quite easy to set up a group. Click on ‘create’, type in the name of the group and click “create”.

When you create a group, you get a code to give to your students. They go to the Edmodo home page and create a student account, where they will need to enter the code to become part of the group.

What I wanted to find out first, was who gets to see whose messages.

To test this out I created two different student accounts – it was handy having access to three computers to do this.

When a student creates an account they have a username and also their own name. The username is what they use to log in with, but when the write messages (posts), it is their real name that you see. I was hoping it may be thier user name and that this would help keep them anonomous, but it isn’t really an issue, as I’ll explain shortly.

The student window is basically the same as the teacher’s window but with a few less options. It has the central message box at the top and any messages appear below this.

One of my reasons for wanting an on-line presence, was so that students could communicate with me at anytime. We know that some students don’t like asking for help in front of their peers, so using Edmodo can help with this.

When a student types a message, they then type who they want the message to go to, in the box below. In the image, my test student typed the letter ‘B’ which brought up to choices that contain that letter: (1) Colin Becker (teacher) or (2) Year 7 B1 Maths (the name of the group they belong to).

If the student chose to send the message to the teacher, then no other student would get to see that message – this is great for anonymity. If the student chose to send it to the group, then everybody gets to see it. As far as I could tell, students are unable to send messages to students.

Last pointer: I continually forgot the usernames and passwords of my ‘test’ students, and forgot the invite code for the group. A single click (left-click) on the little pencil brings a pop-up menu where you can access some admin options and change the colour associated with the group.

I hope to write further posts on how I’m using Edmodo with my class – I really aren’t sure where it’s going to go.

So, you might like to subscribe to my blog to keep up with my Edmodo journey.

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Photo: source Some rights reserved

During last year there were many times that I wished I had recorded my maths lesson for students to refer to later. Not that they were great lessons, just because it would make for an easy reference for students.

I was also dabbling with ActivStudio (IWB software) and made a few flipcharts for the class. But not having daily access to a classroom with an IWB, I didn’t get that far.

This year it is looking likely that I can access a room with a class set of computers and an IWB for most of my maths lessons. So, time to get going with the video snippets.

Rather than have a camcorder recording me in front of an IWB or whiteboard, I thought I would use the video function in ActivStudio3 to record the teaching point.

It took me a few goes to get it how I wanted, then I discovered a neat trick. Instead of re-doing the flipchart to record it, I used the undo tool in ActivStudio, then when I got to the right bit, I just kept pressing redo and my objects would instantly appear in the correct place.

Step 1: Create the flipchart, undo some steps and then record the actions you want to teach about, using the video tool. The file is saved as a .mov file (on a mac). Note 2.5 minutes of video = 3.4Gig file.

Step 2: Import the saved movie into iMovie. Use the voiceover to record the audio as the movie is playing. Export as an avi file. File size is now 27.5MB.

Step 3: Use iSquint (freeware) to reduce the file to be suitable for iPod. File is now 3.2MB and can now be uploaded fairly quickly to blog.

If you would like any further details, just ask, or maybe you have a better method you could share?

Photo: source Some rights reserved