I am so grateful to my district for obtaining a site license to BrainPop.  Students seem to thoroughly enjoy the method BrainPop uses to present content.  In the last few weeks, all students have been assigned two BrainPop videos a week in the Digital Citizenship category. Below is screenshot of all the videos in that category.

Due to benchmark STAAR testing on Tuesday and Wednesday, I did not have students in the computer lab for technology.  On Thursday and Friday, the third, fourth, and fifth grade classes watched the last three BrainPop videos together on the white board while using Edmodo as a backchannel.  According to Wikipedia, “Backchannel is the practice of using networked computers to maintain a real-time online conversation alongside the primary group activity or live spoken remarks.”  The students were on the floor with their laptops.  They had logged in to their Edmodo account and selected the grade level chat room as the group to post in.  While watching the videos, they were able to post their comments and reply to each others’ comments in Edmodo.  Below is a screen shot from each grade level chat.

Fifth Grade:

Fourth Grade:

Third Grade:

Using Edmodo in this way served several useful purposes.  First of all, the load time on the videos is much quicker when only one computer is accessing the website instead of twenty-four individual computers.  The most powerful purpose, though, is to give students the opportunity to practice what I have been preaching to them all year.  Before posting or sending anything over the internet, ask yourself these two questions:  “Am I willing for the entire world to see it?”, and “Would I want that shared/posted about me?”  Below is a short clip of the exercise: