What is Edmodo ?

a. What is Edmodo ?

Edmodo is a web 2.0 website that was develop by Nick Borg and Jeff O’Hara. This website gives teachers and students an easy way to connect and collaborate in real time. This website allows user to sign up or login as a teacher, student, parent or school administration.

b. Describe the functions of Edmodo 2.0 web learning portal.

Teacher has more option to monitor their student performance online. It makes everything seem easier. Edmodo.com is a website that also connects the teacher with their students’ parents. If anything went wrong, teacher can contact the parents and at the same time, the parents can monitor their children behaviour and performance.

c. How can Edmodo 2.0 to be useful for your class?

Edmodo is comfortable use because it is quite the same with Facebook and i-Learn Portal. I can use in my class because it has an awesome features where you can post text, polls, videos, links, quizzes and assignments all directly through Edmodo. It has a calendar feature so students can keep track of due dates and major events. It has a digital backpack for unlimited storage of files, documents, photos, etc. My student can retrieve all the information from this website. It helps with going paperless where assignments can be turned in online, which means no stacks of papers in the back of your car. We use it in conjunction with Google Drive and it works brilliantly. It’s mobile friendly also. Edmodo has free apps for Android and Apple products, which means students can check it on the fly. Edmodo allows you to create small groups in an instant, which is great for differentiation in the classroom. We’ve used it to make reading groups, tutorial sessions, and for breaking down our classroom into smaller, more manageable sections. Plus, we’ve used it to individualize the lessons for students with specific learning needs.

d. Let say you want to use a web 2.0 software for story telling project,

which tool you would like to recommend to be use? Why?

I recommend to use Prezi because Prezi producing a cloud-based (SaaS) presentation software and storytelling tool for presenting ideas on a virtual canvas. The product employs a Zooming User Interface (ZUI), which allows users to zoom in and out of their presentation media, and allows users to display and navigate through information within a 2.5D or parallax 3D space on the Z-axis. Prezi presentations do not follow a traditional slide format. Rather, a Prezi presentation is much more free-flowing. Users position their information, images and videos on a large, white background, called the “Prezi Canvas”, and develop a path for the presentation to follow.

e. What do you understand of student centred approach? What are the advantages of this learning approach in using web 2.0?

Student-centred learning (SCL) is a learning approach, which started to be researched and analysed long before the first Bologna Declaration of 19 June 1999 (Bologna Process, 1999) as one of the possible pedagogical approaches for higher education.

"…[With] student-centred learning, students are responsible for planning the curriculum or at least they participate in the choosing. … [T] he individual is 100 percent responsible for his own behaviour, participation and learning (Brandes et al, 1986, p.12). "

Student-centred learning, as the term suggests, is a method of learning or teaching that puts the learner at the centre (cf. MacHemer et al, 2007, p.9; Boyer, 1990). With the application of an SCL approach in higher education, there is necessarily a shift in focus from academic teaching staff to the learner. This approach has many implications for the design and flexibility of curriculum, course content, and interactivity of the learning process.

Web 2.0 services and technologies foster a more open approach to learning. The advantage of this learning approach in using web 2.0 is easy access and share educational materials, create derivative works, republish and redistribute these works provides access to a wide variety of learning materials and enables teachers and learners a like to meet specific learning needs and focus on specific outcomes. The result is often a more empowering learning experience. This openness expands beyond content. Web 2.0 services and technologies allow users to tap into the affordances of social networking. Here learners construct identities and foster wide ranging relationships resulting in a more community oriented approach to inquiry and practice.

As Web 2.0 services and technologies become more common place and become easier to use, particularly in the educational , educators can shift their attention away from the technology itself to the pedagogy to find the best value and most appropriate uses of Web 2.0 technology in enhancing teaching and learning.(wikibooks.org)