Edmodo

Edmodo is a learning management system that is free for teachers and students. They make money from in-app purchases but there are hundreds of free apps with unlimited use available with your free account so that's amazing. There is a premium version available now but none of it is required to make the most of a very valuable set of tools freely available to empower you and your students. There are apps for both Android and iOS so that's great. I'm about to bounce between the two I believe and was glad to hear it. It's advertisement free so there's no safety or liability issues for kids which is great as most freemium pricing model based software as a service must utilize ad revenue in addition to in-app purchase revenue to maximize their company growth. And it's easy to invite them as well as manage everything in your account. You can utilize multimedia in your posts as well as create FAQ's or help guides, quizzes, polls and send snapshots to your students easily. It can't really be set up much easier than this. It's also easy to access as you can give your students a code they present to you in the back-end they can use to login. The user interface is very simple and features intuitive to use. It's not too busy or overwhelming in terms of look and feel in any way. Their are ample statistics available in your Edmodo account. You can check out which quizzes were taken, which assignments are given, how many students are logging in and more. The stats appear in real time so you know what's happening at all times of the day. The usage statistics regarding Edmodo are impressive. It's used by over thirty million people so that's a tenth of the population almost which is a huge user base. Which lends to the peace of mind acquired by using a platform that is very stable and reliable and secure such as this. By having a centralized location for all of your communication using digital content students can interact in specific, active ways that contribute to their education and Edmodo does a sound job of this. You can delegate assignments and the corresponding materials and have online discussion about them or collaborate in groups to discuss various points of view. While students can create content and post assignments on the platform as well.

It may take more time out of your day to initially teach students how to use the program because it's a hands on system and there are certain symbols and paths to take which may take some practice. It seems you cannot set weighted grades at all which is not a huge deal but certainly a factor at times depending on the situation. I also don't believe parents can have a back and forth conversation with teachers which respects the parent and teacher boundary of course, though there may be reasons when exceptions would be useful.

Edmodo is a great way to facilitate post-classroom activities which extend learning beyond the borders of the classroom. Students can collaborate and are required to complete assignments and perform critical thinking based around conversations which are hosted online and then discussed in the classroom or elsewhere. It's a great way to involve parents in their children's education. Yet it's mindful that it doesn't allow parents more than is required to maintain a healthy student and teacher relationship. Overall, this is an amazing platform for a learning community and engaging discussions along with parent role based access, group functionality, security and cool analytics and the ability to help students think about issues outside the classroom is great value and benefits everyone using it.