Netiquette

Day 2:

Having been privileged enough to pilot a 1-to-1 laptop program in the past, I have some experience with the online learning environment My Big Campus. However, this year I decided to try out Edmodo instead. This decision was made for a couple of reasons. One, I was introduced to Edmodo at an iPad Academy I attended this past summer and wanted to give it a try. Two, our middle school uses Edmodo, so it just makes sense to be consistent.

Before allowing my students complete access to Edmodo, my class had a discussion on netiquette. Instead of just giving the kids a list of rules to follow, I thought it would be more impactful if they developed the expectations themselves. After creating our netiquette expectations, it was time for them to show me what they know on Edmodo.

Prior to today, my students had already set up their Edmodo accounts. However, I noticed that many of them did not capitalize their names. So, I had them begin by going back into settings and capitalizing their names, since they are a proper noun. In addition, they went a little crazy practicing their first posts. I felt like we needed a clean slate, so I deleted all the "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" and "I like pie" comments and created a new post which asked them, "What is one netiquette rule you learned about today." They were required to respond in a complete sentence. It was amazing to sit back and watch as they started responding. Kids are natural peer editors! Without any prompting I heard comments such as, "****, you did not write in a complete sentence," and "***, don't forget to use punctuation." I couldn't keep from smiling! This was learning at its best- student initiated!

On Day 3, we continued with more Edmodo practice. The students updated more of their profiles. They were able to select how they learn best, a career goal, and their favorite quote. I then had them share their selections.