Do you edmodo?

Do you Facebook?  Edmodo is a the classroom teacher equivalent -- in terms of looks and ease.  It follows the same format and is incredibly easy to use, even for the biggest technology newbie!

http://www.edmodo.com/

Definitely one of the best online sites to enter my classroom and student homes this year.

For a couple of years, my district pushed the use of Wikispaces, an online set where a teacher can build private "pages" for student responses and activities.  The concept of Wikispaces was great, but when only given one 45 minute per day planning period, the set-up time for it was just not manageable.  Students needed to be individually invited, and to do so required a list of names to be sent to the publisher to be approved.  New students could not be added at the drop of the hat.  And the grading of them... unless you were superiorly organized, it was incredibly difficult and time-consuming.

A coworker introduced me to http://www.edmodo.com/ , and I was hooked from day 1 with its absolute ease!  The benefits of it:

1.  The biggest -- one code is assigned PER PERIOD.  This ONE code that students receive allows them to access the website and set-up their own user account.
2.  The teacher has absolute administrative control over the website, and can view student log-ins and passwords if they are forgotten.
3.  An onsite interactive calendar!
4.  Unlike Wikispaces, one assignment can be entered, and then the teacher can choose one or more periods to assign the assignments and for them to be copied to.  No more individually entering of assignments.
5.  Assignments can be given a grade for just the student to see, right where they entered the assignment.  You can also look at "grades" and see the total accumulation of student grades.
6.  Parents can also receive a code to look at the assignments on the webiste, without compromising student confidentiality.
7.  Web links, photos, document links, customization -- all are extremely easy.
8.  All new students need is the code for their prospective periods, and they are instantly ready to go after they set-up their account.

I put http://www.edmodo.com/ into motion in February of this year, and it is something that I absolutely plan on integrating fully next year.

Numero Uno

My husband has been pushing me to do this for a long time, so I am finally ready to make the jump and enter the world of blogging.

The main purpose of this blog is to provide ideas and activities that are "ready to go" for language arts middle school teachers.  Having been a teacher for fifteen years -- all of it in middle school language arts -- I know and understand the continuous and endless search for activities and lessons that will truly engage my students.  Hopefully some of the posts on here will assist some of my fellow warriors in this war we call "Learning!"

I would also like to note that most of these activities stem from collaboration with or from the absolutely incredible minds of several colleagues that I have had the wonderful opportunity of working with throughout the last fifteen years.  Textbook resources and professional development are wonderful, but in my world, nothing has ever compared to the knowledge and ideas gained from the absolutely brilliant people I have had the pleasure of working with in the last fifteen years.