Last weeks post a week late

Sooo, apparently I forgot to click publish post on this last week.  So now what I thought was on time, is actually a week late.  Yep. Story of my life.

   I'm really excited about this post today because last week I posted about Piazza, a social networking site for college students.  My question was if there was one for high school or if Piazza had any interest in expanding to high school.  Then, TA-DAAA, I learned about Edmodo!
    This site, like Piazza, a social networking site for high school teachers and their students.  I love this idea because I always felt that Facebook was an inappropriate way of keeping up with your students.  Yeah you can start a club or something, but there was just too much room for your "sexually liberated" friends post to become accessible to your students. And it's just setting the kid up for trouble when you see their "sexually liberated" friends pics (who happens to be one of your students) on the site.  The funny thing about Edmodo is that it is designed to look and function just like Facebook, which will cut down training time.   There's real time chat capabilities, document sharing, etc.  I love it!
    I have already signed up for an account with the network and have ideas on how to use it with a class.  One thing I have thought about is to let the students know that I will be available between a certain time every night on the site to help with any homework concerns.  That way they can get their work done and I can informally assess their progress and trouble spots. It can also be used for group meetings. There's not enough time during class for group meetings (for projects, etc.) and not everyone can get out of the house to meet their group.  With this program, the group can discuss on-line what they want to do and I can be available for feedback as well.  One of my favorite ideas though is to use the tool for class discussion.  If something is on television for example that is relevant to our class content, the assignment could be to watch the show while on Edmodo and we can hold discussions in real time.  I would able to check everyones participation through the post and also have documentation of what was said that could further enrich the next days lessons.  I am really excited about using this tool with a class.