Edmomdo 2.0

Twitter has brought the concept of micro-blogging to the attention of much of the world. The recent Iranian election drama that played out on a world stage, certainly would not have been possible without Twitter. Facebook and Friendfeed have also jumped into the instant update arena to keep up and provide interesting options themselves. In a previous article, I outlined the idea behind micro-blogging and some of the complaints associated with it.

In today’s article, I want to take a look at a great way to develop a light-weight, easy to use, Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

While Twitter is lean and sticks to it’s singular purpose (the 140 character post), there are some challenges to using it in an academic setting. Enter Edmodo.

Edmodo is built in a lightweight fashion without all the bells and whistles of a traditional learning management system (lms) and that is really its charm. It is designed like a teacher would design a simple learning environment. Like Twitter, it contains a micro-blogging interface to allow a feed of messages to be sent and viewed. Unlike Twitter, because Edmodo was designed for use on the Web, it doesn’t use the annoying #, @, etc. While this may be appreciated by many, it brings attention to a rather large drawback of Edmodo. Currently you can receive notifications (the 140 character posts) via email, Twitter, or SMS, however, you can’t publish to your feed via SMS. This negates the huge benefit of using a cell phone. Hopefully this will be included in the near future.

As privacy is one of the major concerns in education, unlike Twitter, Edmodo is based around groups. A teacher creates groups along with an access key for their students. This is an obvious benefit for the classroom and ensures easy collaboration with the necessary privacy for those involved. This group feature is pivotal for the remaining features to function appropriately.

Assignments can be created with due dates. In addition, files can be attached to the assignments. This can be very beneficial if a specific format or template is to be used. As is expected, students can reply to complete the assignment, attach a file, or add a hyperlink in their reply. The last option is great if a blog or Wiki contains the product of their assignment. A calendar provides event notification for the group and due dates for assignments. Grades can be attached to the submitted assignments and in version 3.0 a gradebook is scheduled to be introduced.

Links to interesting or important websites and files can easily be distributed to group members. Furthermore, Edmodo provides a nice storage area for these that can be easily filtered as the list becomes longer. An additional feature of Edmodo, is the ability to create public pages. These are pages that can viewed by the general public and not just group members. In addition, public pages provide the ability for a user to subscribe to their RSS feed. The value of public pages will become more apparent as I discuss possible uses for Edmodo.

Here are several obvious and some not so obvious benefits and uses for Edmodo:

• Allows students to receive and submit assignments online (a core concept of the VLE)
• Privately allows teacher to student and student to student communication. Thereby creating a more collaborative learning environment.
• Provides an easy way to share necessary files and important or interesting links.
• Provides a clear class calendar. No more guesswork as to when assignments are due and what has been assigned.
• Groups can be used for clubs and teams, not just classes.
• Public pages are perfect for letting parents see class assignments, due dates, etc. No more questions about not having homework. Furthermore, if the parent subscribes to the RSS feed, they don’t even have to visit the Web page again, the information is delivered to their email inbox.
• Collaborative tool for teachers as well as professional development. Edmodo minimizes the isolation that teaching all day in the classroom can create.
• Major school news, events, sports, emergency announcements, etc. can be easily sent to all parents and students (Twitter may have an advantage here).

Here are some potential pitfalls or areas that should be addressed:

• Students still forget their passwords. While these can be reset, it distracts from teaching. What about integrating Facebook Connect or OpenID?
• Greater amount of work and time spent in front of the computer for the teacher. In the beginning, the time required to set up a group and create the required content can be rather large.
• No two way SMS posting! See early comments in the article.
• Quizzes or tests are not supported in version 2.0 but are scheduled to arrive in version 3.0.
• New semester or school year requires any information with a date to be either re-created or best-case scenario edited to be appropriate.
• Illegal file sharing, ethics issues involving cheating, etc.

With it’s great privacy features, collaborative tools, micro-blogging, and ability to connect, Edmodo is rapidly becoming one of my favorite tools for creating a VLE. Teachers should strongly consider adding it to their technology toolbox. As always, I appreciate your feedback. Let me know how you are using Edmodo or what tools you use to accomplish these activities.

With the short-term financial outlook for public schools being so bleak, I wonder how these circumstances will affect the way schools educate students. Will these economic conditions change our public schools in a fundamental way? Will America’s schools be forced to embrace the types of disruptive innovation required to keep them economically viable?

With these questions in mind, Michael Horn’s recent blog, Colleges Going Under, caught my attention. As a result of today’ economic crisis, many college administrators are finding their institutions badly undercapitalized.

Are public schools facing a similar fate due to rapidly decreasing revenues?

Evidently, many independent colleges are facing dire economic circumstances as a result of changing economic conditions conditions that will probably reshape the higher education landscape. According to a recent report by the National Association of Independent Colleges, too many institutions of higher learning are undercapitalized. Much like the current housing bubble, American colleges are facing a potential market collapse of catastrophic proportions. The reality of shrinking funding sources threatens their very solvency.

Horn’s analysis is interesting:

When we cite disruptions in the higher education space—such as teaching universities, community colleges, and online universities—a big question is do they have the room to continue to move up-market given the aid in donations and federal dollars established universities tend to receive? It’s a good question. Federal loans and grants, for example, allow families and students to avoid making quality-cost tradeoff decisions they would make ordinarily in a normal marketplace. This has the effect of propping up high-cost higher education institutions that otherwise might lose market share—and stifling lower-cost options.

Over the past few decades, the cost of higher education has spiraled out of control. As noted by Horn, much of the capitalization during this time came from federal dollars and donations which are shrinking rapidly. In the face of today’s economic crisis, can these institutions continue to remain economically viable based on the current education model, or will some sort of disruptive innovation take place that will transform the way post-secondary students are educated?

According to Horn,

This example suggests, however, that disruptive players can ultimately overcome this market distortion. Interestingly, just as we suspect that budget crunches in the years ahead will accelerate the adoption of online learning in high schools, so too will these same pressures likely exert a similar effect in the higher education market.

It seems just as many colleges are facing difficult choices due to the rapidly changing economic circumstances, many public schools find themselves facing similar challenges. As the current recession forces states to teeter on the brink of economic collapse, their governments are making deep budget cuts that will significantly impact the way these schools educate students in the future.

Facing these challenges, will public school leaders embrace the sorts of disruptive innovation that will enable them overcome these challenges? Will these economic circumstances force educators at every level to embrace the disruptive innovation associated with Web 2.0 technology?

I’m not so sure. When it comes to implementing this sort of technology in a meaningful way, it seems public school administrators face too many hurdles. With strong unions, insufficiently trained staff, and a general lack of technology know-how, I find it hard to imagine the traditional public school community embracing the type of innovation required to make a significant difference in terms of student learning and organizational efficiency.

Perhaps the effects of disruptive types of innovation will impact schools at a sort of grass roots level. As educational technology becomes cheaper, more effective, and more easily accessible to both students and their parents, schools will be forced to embrace it or become irrelevant.

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