I have been gradually introducing web 2.0 tools to my ELLs throughout this first month using our smart board, but due to time and technology constraints I had not gotten the students in front of actual computers yet. I figured our media center visit last Friday would be a good time to encourage them to use our Edmodo. I must admit, I bribed them with an extra credit point on our test to actually post something on Edmodo or our Wallwisher (via Edmodo). Bribes aside though, I was pleasantly surprised to see them all actively engaged. While many of them were more interested in changing their profile pictures I watched as one of the higher level ELLs read the lower ELLs posts as they appeared and corrected their mistakes. At first I told him to just worry about his own English acquisition, but then I turned around to see him standing over one of the newer boys explaining a grammar mistake that he continually makes. I’ve never seen that in my class before. Even when I encourage peer editing, they will barely skim the surface before announcing they are done. Only time will tell if hearing this explanation from his peer will work better than hearing it from me, but I’m willing to bet that it will. Also, the Edmodo quiz option is quite useful as it breaks down the percent of correct/incorrect answers by question for your entire class in easy to view pie charts. It is a quick and easy way to tell if there is a certain concept the majority of students still do not understand without spending any time grading AT ALL. In addition, the students can go check their answers as soon as they are done and see the correct answer.
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