Laura Trimarco–EDIM: Integrating Social Networking into a Project on Continents

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

"Globe Trotters" is a third grade project-based-learning unit we are currently building in support of the Common Core Geography Standard 2.2: "The concept of regions is developed through an understanding of similarities and differences in places." Our objective is for our students to develop a sense of wonder and respect for cultures other than their own, and to excite their motivation to explore the world independently.

The major project for this unit is a student-created glog advertising a particular country and advocating for travel to that country. We will be "selling" these promotional products to local travel agents as a means to honor and celebrate the cultures we are studying. The unit will last approximately five weeks, and I have created an EDMODO group that students will use as both homework and classwork assignments.

I am loading the EDMODO library with third-grade appropriate resources: teacher-created glogs which include the content necessary for the students to complete the assignments; and two child-friendly on-line dictionaries. As the unit progresses, I will add more resources (hopefully those created by the kids themselves), and deeper, more thoughtful questions. The first week of assignments is designed to 1) excite kids about both the content AND the social networking process, and 2) familiarize kids with social networking procedures, protocols, and netiquette. My intent and design is for this to be meaningful, engaging homework for the students, but I know that not every kiddo will do this as homework, so the Edmodo pages will be open and running during "project" and literacy periods in the classroom. We will also use this Edmodo group as a "back channel" to process information from the films and videos we will watch in support of this unit, as well as to "ask questions" of the guest speakers we have scheduled to come in to present to the students. All of this adds an immediacy and relevancy to "active listening" and the students will be crazy about it, I'm pretty sure. To support the efficacy of this, we will spend quite a bit of time pre-unit on building our keyboarding skills.

Formal instruction that will support the procedural aspects of social networking will include lessons on the following:
1) Intro to Edmodo and demonstration and practice (using laptops or computer lab) with using the program. We will all participate in a short classroom discussion around the question: "If you could visit one country in the world next week, which one would it be and why?" The objective is for students to provide a thoughtful, complete answer to the question, then continue with a thoughtful response to another student's post.
2) Netiquette: Students must use appropriate language and be respectful and thoughtful of one another. Students should report inappropriate language or behavior to the teacher immediately.
3) How to access and use the Edmodo library.
4) How to "answer" or "reply" to questions and posts. Emphasize reading and responding to other students' posts...this is a SOCIAL activity.
5) Networking Communication Rubric: what are the expectations for using the network, and how the
students will be graded on using the network.

I will assess the students' proficiency in network communication through a simple, but formal rubric. I will check-in to the conversation in the evenings and note anecdotally who is participating, level of participation/depth of thinking, etc., and provide support in-class mini-lessons as needed. When we get to the portion of the unit where students are using Edmodo as a "backchannel" in support of active-listening to a video or guest speaker, we will have procedural and etiquette lessons around that, as well. Because many of my students will be completely new to Edmodo and social networking, I anticipate spending considerable time on procedures and protocols...and on emphasizing the SOCIAL in social networking. I think Edmodo will be a very concrete tool we can use to help kids internalize the skills of collaboration and communication.

Here are some screen shots showing one week's worth of homework/classwork, the Edmodo library, and the assessment rubric I will use to inform both my instruction in social networking, and my assessment of the students' growth in the key areas of collaborating and communicating.

Social Networking Screens: