Edmodo at a local middle school

My son uses Edmodo at a local middle school.  His teachers and classmates are using Edmodo, but not to the full extent which is available, and which has been documented in the posts thus far.

(I won't repeat that documentation here, and I necessairly should not identify the school or teacher names below.)

In any case, there is an attempt at making a community, especially by a few of the teachers.

One teacher uses it quite extensively, posting assignments with worksheet pages so that students have less of an excuse for not having completed their homework.  If they have a computer at home, they can access the worksheet if it was not taken home.  Of course, not all students actually have a computer at home.

If I were using Edmodo in this fashion (which I would), I would want, for reasons of equity and fairness, to find ways to deterine (without embarassing the kids) who did and who did not have access to a computer and printer at home.  A teacher might well need to make extra effort to accommodate such students, so that they were not disadvantaged compared to others----particularly if the teacher were actively integrating many of the other Edmodo features into the curriculum.

One teacher does not use Edmodo at all, as far as I can determine.  Three teachers use Edmodo to provide additional information on assignments on an occasional to regular basis.  One teacher has apparently told her students that she will check Edmodo every night before a school day up until  a certain time (8:00), and she regularly answers student questions.  She also has after school help sessions once a week, and has occasional extra after-school academic activites.

Judging by the number of questions asked by students, overall there is an under-use of Edmodo by students for direct academic use, other that to find out what the homework was. (Exception: the one teacher who clearly has incorporated the use of Edmodo as an active tool.  There is more discussion of academic content on that part of the Edmodo site.)

There is a fair bit of use of Edmodo to chat between students about peripherally school-related stuff.   There is some posting of computer-created games by students who have learned how to make games.

The site is password protected, but I do have concerns about the lack of consistent use of a policy on identification of names.  My son was actually using his real first and last name.  I talked to him about this issue.  Some students are using first name and last initial, which is probably the minimum anonymity I would like to see.

Grading appears on another school system site called the Portal, so that feature in Edmodo does not appear to be of use.  There is no way that teachers are going to put grades in both places.  I note that the grades section does seem to have a graphing capability so that grades can be graphed over time.  That might be a useful feature, one which is not found in the Portal system.