Use Edmodo or Obami as free interactive classroom management tools

What are Edmodo and Obami? 

 

Both Edmodo and Obami are free classroom management tools that help you as a teacher make your classroom into a community. You would use either one or the other. They provide teachers and students with a secure place to post messages, discuss classroom topics, assign and grade classwork, connect and collaborate, share content and educational applications, and access homework, grades, class discussions and notifications.

Classroom uses of Edmodu and Obami

*Both have a user-friendly interface which is easy and simple for all to use
*There are easy-to-use wizards for creating calendars, pages and managing documents
*Teachers can set up and manage small groups for students projects
*Students can post notes, files, links, and discuss.
*Teachers  can post spelling, maths, research and other homework on Edmodo so that  parents can access it
*Students can help each other with homework tasks through using Edmodo
*Reading groups could use Edmodo or Obami to role play characters in the book they are reading.
*Students can ask questions they may feel silly about voicing in the classroom.
*Students can contact the teacher and send messages about homework they might forget to ask during the day.
*Edmodo is useful for project-based learning (see Further Reading post below). This would also be the case for Obami.
*You could post a document, students could download it, complete it and send it back to you, then you could grade it right online. Students could get instant feedback on graded materials.

SchoolNet webinar on Edmodo and Obami

This is the recording for the the webinar that took place on Tuesday August 14th at 6pm. Lisa Gair from The Rock Academy spoke about how she uses Edmodo in her classroom, and Siobhan Louw from Somerset House spoke on how she uses Obami in her classroom. NO: There might be  slight gap in Siobhan’s recording as my internet dropped and I had to log in again. Apologies for that.  Here is the link:
http://meet78641452.adobeconnect.com/p78kokkty1y/

Slideshare on Edmodo

Lisa Gair has kindly allowed me to share the PowerPoint she used with you.

Introduce your class to Edmodo from Schoolnet SA

Further reading
http://blog.edmodo.com/2011/05/27/pbl-edmodo-awesome/
http://edmodoteacherhub.wikispaces.com/Teaching+Strategies