Diving into the online world allows you to surface with many fascinating tools that can be incorporated into an online classroom to build communities, foster learning, and develop engaged and motivated learners. Edmodo is a social media type site that is perfect for bridging that desire for students to be social and interact with their peers along with diving into their school work and staying on task. New Learning Times published a summary of the tool. Demetri Lales created the article title Edmodo. The article starts out with a quick description and then dives into the pros and cons of using the web based tool. Some of the identified pros include collaboration and communication among teachers, teachers awarding badges, students selecting an emotion related to the assignment. More importantly, Edmodo offers the security and ease of use that is needed for the education setting. The con described in the article was related to the available lesson types. Lales stated the system would be more valuable if teachers were able to customize their content and add more visual and engaging elements. After looking this aspect of Edmodo, it did look simple. I signed up for an Edmodo account at the start of this course. I recently received an email stating that new changes were coming based on the feedback they received. I will be looking to forward to see if this is something that will be addressed https://newlearningtimes.com/cms/article/554/edmodo Lales, D. (2013, April 09). Edmodo. Retrieved from https://newlearningtimes.com/cms/article/554/edmodo

This student did an amazing job with her new blog and putting her deep thoughts into text to share with the world. These are the comments I left for her. https://ty4thoughts.wordpress.com/2019/03/31/my-trip-to-malta/comment-page-1/#comment-39

This link, https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/40457263/posts/11220, is to a teachers page where she shared the link to several student blogs. This was the teachers first year teaching this blogging course and she and the students seemed to really enjoy it. While reading through the student’s blogs, It was neat to see how each student took the assignment in a different direction. Travel, beauty tips, and movie reviews to name a few. I was impressed on the amount of time the students clearly put into their work. It was not just a quick blurb to fulfill an assignment. They took their time and constructed thorough posts and kept up with their blogs for several months.  One of the biggest things I noticed is that the teacher had them chose their own NON EDUCATION topic. This was a big move because it allowed the students the foster that desire to write for the sake of writing not because school said they had to. I thought it was perfect.

This link https://ty4thoughts.wordpress.com/ will take you to a talented young student who’s blogs are filled with emotions, deep thought, discomforts and aspirations. Tyhara seems like a bright young student who is destined to do great as she analyzes the world around her a bit more deeply than most.

Being an online teacher has opened many tools and opportunities to change the way I do in my classroom. The methods for obtaining student engagement and motivation are completely different than in a brick and mortar setting. Web technologies such as social media, wikis, blogs, and gaming platforms can shape the foundations of your web classroom. As I have dove into researching Edmodo, I see it as a social media platform that is centered on education. I think students will really feel comfortable with it and open to sharing on the discussion page. There I can also post assignments and assessments as well. I even liked that the teachers can award little badges to build a bit of a competition and or recognition incentive. I am not a fan of blogs. I do not plan on utilizing them in my classroom, and the system my school uses provides a similar sort of platform that a wiki can offer. So I don’t see the need for them either. I do frequently use many web based tools in my online classroom such as YouTube videos, online games, webcams, and interactive online labs. They tools are a great way to enhance learning without spending a lot of money on supplies.

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.