Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are now seen by many educators to be an essential element of modern teaching and learning. They are ubiquitous in further and higher education. In England and Wales every school is required to have a VLE and in Scotland, all schools have access to Glow Learn, a free VLE provided as part of the Glow system. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that very few teachers are using VLEs for anything more than an online resource store.

First, what do VLEs offer a classroom teacher? Although there are many different systems, the key elements of a VLE include:

• complete courses can be made available for anywhere, anytime access
• admin facilities control access for learners
• self-marking quizzes can be created
• easy communication between teacher and learner is facilitated through email, instant messaging, forums, etc
• differentiated resources can be targeted at specific learners
• learners can collaborate and support each other
• assignments can be sent electronically to the teacher
• details of grades can be kept and easily accessed
• little web experience is required to make good use of the VLE
• courses can be shared and reused
• many VLEs are completely free

It’s clear that a VLE can offer a great deal to support learning so why are many teachers reluctant to use one?

I think that one of the problems is the very fact that a VLE can offer so much. To many busy teachers, the rewards of using a VLE seem to be outweighed by the time required to get to grips with what often appears to be a complex system. If the VLE is run by the local authority or school,  individual teachers may feel that it is being imposed on them and don’t always see its relevance to the classroom.

What many teachers want is something better than a simple online resource store but not as complex as a fully formed VLE like Moodle.

For these teachers, edmodo might be the answer.

edmodo has only existed for about three years but already has about 6 million users worldwide. (To put this into context, Moodle has about 60 million users.) As it is still comparatively young, edmodo is still being developed and lacks many of the facilities of its older rivals but this is one of its strengths. It may lack features but it is simple for an individual teacher to use with a class.

Some of the features of edmodo are

• it has a design similar to Facebook so it is attractive to learners
• edmodo can be accessed from smartphones
• learners can receive messages on their mobile phones if wanted
• the teacher has full control over who can access particular courses
• parents can be given limited access to their child’s information
• resources can be stored online
• assignments can be set for different groups or individuals
• teachers and learners can see when assignments are due
• assignments can be annotated by the teacher and returned electronically to the learner
• self-marking quizzes can be set
• learners can communicate with the whole class or privately with the teacher
• all communications are visible to the teacher
• grades are kept for assignments
• a calendar can show events and deadlines for a group
• the service is free
• good support is available

 

There are still some rough edges to edmodo. For example, it is currently not possible to schedule assignments so you have to post each assignment as it is required rather than create a batch of assignments at the start of a term and make them available at regular intervals. However, it is clear from the chat on the edmodo forums that requests from teachers are considered seriously and development is ongoing.

 

edmodo seems to be a useful stepping stone between simply storing resources on a website and working with a full blown VLE.

There are many tutorials on edmodo on schooltube. The video below was created by a teacher as an introduction to edmodo for her pupils and gives an outline of what a pupil sees in edmodo.