Edmodo - Will I Use It?

Note: This is just a very quick summary of some of my thoughts about Edmodo, and is not intended to be a comprehensive evaluation. You should not make any decisions about Edmodo without evaluating it for yourself.

On July 13, 2009, I attended a webinar which was presented by Jeff O'Hara, co-founder of Edmodo.

Edmodo is a website dedicated to "micro-blogging for education". Some of its main features are that it allows you to to set up classes, post notes (optionally including embedded content) to those classes, have online discussions, post (and have students submit) assignments, and post items on a calendar.

My first reaction was very positive, and I was hyped to use it to replace many functions of my website and online daybook. I particularly liked it because of its notification system -- students could be notified of updates via the web, twitter (via direct message), email, and/or text message.

I particularly liked that students could be notified of updates via text message, as many of my future students are rural, and according to some of my colleagues, do not have high speed Internet at home. But most of them have cell phones, and many students seem to love sending and receiving text messages...

I also liked that items can be made public, so parents would be able to see assignments and deadlines. This is obviously important for improving student success.

But much of those positive characteristics came crashing down on me the past few days because of two critical discoveries:

1. SMS messages cannot be sent to Canada. Edmodo had promised to fix this by this past weekend (and did not), but I am starting to prepare my online content for my classes today. Without SMS capability, many students will lose out.
   
2. Calendar events cannot be made public, so parents will not be able to see deadlines unless they are made public as part of a note.

Some of my other serious concerns are:

1. Calendar events cannot be moved, only deleted and recreated. I often have to move items on my daybook because of unforeseen circumstances. This isn't a critical item, just a limitation.
2. Other users are reporting that they are not getting regular notifications. In one case for me, I was not notified (via twitter) about an item for eight days! I'm sure this is just a bug, but I need a system that I know will be reliable.

Don't get me wrong, Edmodo looks like a great service, and many teachers are reporting very positive things in their classrooms with it. But I'm not sure that, at this time, it's a better tool for me than what I have been using in the past, which is a combination of my website, Google Groups, and Google Docs.

I'll check it out again before semester 2 and reevaluate my decision.

Social Bookmarking - New TGJ-Teachers group in Diigo

I've listened to others' recommendations about Diigo being better than Delicious and have to agree. The nice thing is that they can work nicely together, because anything you post in Diigo can automatically be sent to Delicious.

One nice feature of Diigo is that you can have groups to share your bookmarks with. As an experiment, I've created a "tgj-teachers" group where, when you save a related bookmark, it can automatically be sent to members of the group. What I like about the groups is that every morning I am greeted with an email showing me new bookmarks that have been added to that group.

Here is the URL if you are interested in joining:

http://groups.diigo.com/groups/tgj-teachers

Hybrid Auto Training for Teachers - Anyone Interested?

I see on a mail list I belong to (Ontario Transportation Technology Teachers) that there is quite a bit of interest in a PD session on hybrid technology. To help start compiling a list of names of teachers who are interested, I have created an online form that you can fill in with your details.

Here is the form:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dHU1US1sZzdUNHJucVZzXy1tYTNvbHc6MA..

If you are interested in organizing this PD session, please write to me (directly or through the mail list) and I'll give you the private web address where you can get everyone's contact information.

Please forward this information to anyone that may be interested.

Paypal Scam - Update II

Now the creep has the nerve to send me the following message:

"Hey there peter i dont know what is it you are doing but i have not heard from you since i sent you the PayPal payment to you....I will be forced to report you to PayPal if you don't get back to me ASAP..."

I have forward his messages to spoof@paypal.com. It's too bad there isn't a way I could report his email address to a service that would shut it down. Does anyone know if Gmail has an address I can report him to?

Paypal Scam - Updated

Ingenious...

I received an email asking if my MacBook I had posted on Kijiji is still for sale, its condition, and my best price. I wrote back with the details.

I then received a followup email asking if I would ship it overseas, and the person would be willing to pay extra for the shipping costs. If I'd be willing to do it, I can send a money request through Paypal.

It all sounds good.....until I get a very similar email from someone else who also offered extra for it to be shipped overseas.

Unfortunately, I had already sent the Paypal money request, so the scammer's plan was in motion...

My hunch is that I am going to receive an email stating the money has been transferred into my Paypal account, and the email will include a link that goes to a Paypal website which is fake, where they will try to get me to type in my Paypal username and password. I won't bite, of course, as I will manually log into the Paypal website instead and check my balance.

UPDATE

Just as I suspected would happen, I received an email stating that the money had been transferred (and of course it hadn't) and asking me to to ship the item.

Here are the contents of the email:

Dear Peter Been (they couldn't even get my name correct),
Thanks for your affirmative mail regarding your PayPal funds....
We clearly understand your concern about our new service.
We have your PayPal fund save with us Transaction ID :- <# deleted>.
You need to get this item off to the Post Office and there you would be given a receipt to prove postage of item.
On that receipt you would find the Tracking Number/Reference Number which you need in other to get your check.
Forward it to - servicepaypal@mail2royal.com is our new tracking email address used to track and verify all the tracking number we receive in other for funds to be credited.
We only requested for you to send the Tracking Number to us in other to protect both you and the buyer.
This is also part of our New PayPal Anti Fraud Rule for safe transaction on PayPal.
Note : Forward the Tracking Number to us and not to the Buyer.
Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team

The phisher's email address is "charlesdarlington23@googlemail.com", and I received a similar email from "rslinder2@gmail.com" (Rose Linder). If you come across any emails from either of these two, just delete it immediately or forward it to spoof@paypal.com.

I'm fortunate that I had the sense I was being scammed. I imagine there are others that are perhaps not as aware who could have easily been duped by this fraud.

Just as Sergeant Phil Esterhaus from the Hill Street Blues used to say: "Hey, let's be careful out there."