Underground edmodo groups – seeking out the cool stuff

I love stuff that is DIY, organic and underground. Sounds as though I like potatoes that have been grown by a child without fertiliser, doesn’t it? Well I think you know what I mean. At least I hope you do!

I’ve been using edmodo since 2009 and was there to watch the birth of the very first official ‘communities’ – you can see them here. As with pretty much all edmodo features, these communities were created because of user-requests. Before the official communities we keen educators created edmodo class groups for professional development – so we could connect and share resources, ideas and experiences. The cool thing is that despite the booming communities (the Language Arts community has well over 4000 members and it’s growing every day!) there are still smaller guerrilla-style groups being created by educators for a variety of purposes. I love this about edmodo – it really supports the Do-It-Yourself principals that I thrive on.

So whilst I use edmodo every day for my classes, I also use it extensively for professional development and connecting with educators from all over the world. Right now I have well over 100 groups that either I have created or I am a member of. Tomorrow I am presenting at the ASLA Conference on ‘Building your PLN’. I will be showing twitter, blogs and of course edmodo – to present I will use a purpose-built edmodo group full of activities and folders of take-away goodies for the attendees. I also wanted to give these teacher-librarians a chance to join some of the wonderfully varied underground edmodo groups created by keen educators.

Below is a name and brief description (if I have one) of a number of underground edmodo groups. If you are interested in joining one, click on the name of the creator and request a connection on edmodo. You can then send them a DM and ask for the group code to access the group. I can’t promise all are open and active still, but I know many of them are. Good luck!!

1. Teacher Librarian Edmodo group  – Cassandra McGin
2. Dedicated to Global (connecting students from around the world – a bit like penpals) Christine Lindsay
   
3. Oz edmodo (created to connect Australia educators but now so much more than that – lots of sharing for all subjects and ages)  Viviene Tuckerman
4. Using technology to teach spelling/vocabulary – Amy Compton
5. Subject English Collaboration (created to connect Australian English/language arts teachers) – Bianca Hewes
6. HSIE in NSW Stage 4, Stage 5 and Stage 6 (there is a group for each stage of the Australian NSW social studies syllabus) – Steve Gibb
7. HSC English – Module C ‘History and Memory’ (created to connect Australian teachers who teach this module in NSW) – Bianca Hewes
8. EdmodoCon (originally created for the inaugural Edmodo Conference but now lots of sharing from educators around the world)  – Lucia Giacomantonio
9. Education Gamification (over 1000 educators discussing games in education – especially gamifying the classroom) – Hyle Daley
10. Pen Pal Group (connecting young people around the world as pen pals)- Billy Spicer 
11. American Sign Language -  Brandy Cabe
12. Coast to Coast Poetry (connecting students and teachers from around the world to write poetry) – Mark Curcio
13. Anat/biology teachers unite – Robbie Case
14. Educator Authors  (for teachers who have dreams to be published writers) Julie Riddle
15. Novel and Guides - his group will include links to other Edmodo Groups that will focus on specific novels. The groups will contain links to resources including quizzes, activities, links to videos, and more!  – Hyle Daley
16. Promethean resource share – Michelle Wendt 
17. UOW PDHPE Students/Teachers – Elle Smith
18. PLANET PALS – Hyle Daley
19. Games for Change group  Betsy Whalen
20. Early Career Teachers in the Northern Sydney Region (Australian group) - Lara Giddings
21. Teacher Exchanges – Miles MacFarlane
22. ESL/EFL & 21st Century Learning  – Brett Gosselin
23. Sharing Educational Apps: For teachers to trade ideas using apps, and to support iPad integration in the classroom.   - Jon Samuelson 
24. Grammar Gallery – Denise Louthain 
25. Secondary Read 180 – Erich Dorzab
26. ccGlobal – connecting students from around the world to work collaboratively on global projects – Liam Dunphy 
27. ‘Science Aus!!’ – connecting Australian Science teachers – Ms Lauren Dubos
28. Google Apps for Education Group – Panther Paws

IF YOU KNOW OF ANY OTHER UNDERGROUND EDMODO GROUPS – POST A COMMENT BELOW WITH THE NAME OF GROUP AND THE CREATOR