Teaching How to Post and Learning Academic Content

Teaching how to post and learning academic content along the way, is the real intent I have when I utilize Edmodo class pages with my students. Kind of a cool little event has occurred, in that I just opened a "Science in 5th grade" Edmodo page for all the fifth graders at our school. Even though I teach a 4th and 5th grade combo class, I've been helping review the fourth grade science information with all the fifth graders in the school, who will soon take CST tests in Science.  The test content covers two years of information. 

When faced with reviewing all the information in physical and earth science, I proceeded to make movies of reading the chapters and lessons in the book. I made movies of experiments we did in class, covering the information I was reviewing. There were too many movies to share with each fifth grade rotation, so I posted all movies on Edmodo and gave out the secret code to join. 

What is interesting to see, and think about, is that the homework assignment of watching one movie a night, and posting one fact from the movie under "reply" has become a social and academic activity. With the motivation of impressing their peers, students post spot on facts about the movies. They have to devise a different fact from the others. Just by reading each other's posts, and having to make one comment a night, the concepts are being reviewed, beyond the classroom setting. Students are interested to share and read each other's comments. The Edmodo experiment I've embarked on, has surpassed the hypothesis of students simply watching the movies. They are learning from each other!