I recently had the honor of writing a blog post for Edmodo's blog. I had my students increase their historical fiction reading and writing skills by role playing on Edmodo. They developed historical fiction characters from the Great Depression and created a social networking world that would resemble what Facebook would look like in the 1930s. It was extremely successful and a great example of how social networking can be effectively used to teach literacy. I would love for you to check out my blog post on Edmodo's Blog and try it out with whatever subject you are teaching. This approach also made it easy for my students to self-assess themselves and for me to differentiate literacy instruction. See pictures below for more information.
EXAMPLE
This a snapshot of my 5th graders writing unbelievable posts from the perspective of someone living during the Great Depression. They were able to use social networking to show character traits, character relationships, and historical relevance:
RUBRIC/ASSESSMENT
This is the first page of the rubric my students used to self assess themselves throughout the unit. The rubric includes setting, nonfiction skills, character traits, vocabulary, and technology skills. I used the rubric to guide my mini lessons and strategy groups. Again, the badges helped the students focus on the reading and writing skills being assessed in this unit.
EXTENSION
Here's how some of my students extended their learning by writing fake newsletters, scrapbooks, or calendars to make their posts more authentic.
EXAMPLE
This a snapshot of my 5th graders writing unbelievable posts from the perspective of someone living during the Great Depression. They were able to use social networking to show character traits, character relationships, and historical relevance:
GROUPS
Instead of groups, I made families:
BADGES
These are the badges I created. Many of the are just cheesy names that relate to each category from the rubric. The others are badges to encourage strong work ethic skills. The students would meet with me or send me a message when they felt that they deserved a specific badge. They would show me posts to explain why they earn a specific badge. The kids eagerly worked for badges and it ensured me that they were practicing on certain reading and writing skills.
This is the first page of the rubric my students used to self assess themselves throughout the unit. The rubric includes setting, nonfiction skills, character traits, vocabulary, and technology skills. I used the rubric to guide my mini lessons and strategy groups. Again, the badges helped the students focus on the reading and writing skills being assessed in this unit.
Here's how some of my students extended their learning by writing fake newsletters, scrapbooks, or calendars to make their posts more authentic.
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