Edmodo Wants To Make Social Networking A Learning Experience

Learning with the Edmodo stream

A social network for learning? Isn’t the point of social networks to waste time?

Start-up Edmodo, which has 2.5 million users, is taking Facebook-like tools that a new generation of students already know how to use–and bringing them to the K-12 classroom. The service is designed for students to communicate with teachers and each other around assignments and class topics. “Teachers want to help students learn the way they’re already living,” says Nic Borg, Edmodo founder and CEO, and a former Chicago-area teacher.

Teachers can sign up for the service for free, then add their students to the website. Using the service, teachers can write messages about assignments, post related materials for assignments or discuss a topic from class. All these updates are viewed in a Facebook-style stream of information. Students can also turn in digital assignments and teachers can enter and manage grades. For teachers, Edmodo has document libraries on subjects such as Social Studies or Biology where teachers can share materials with teachers from other schools.

What happens if rascally students use the site for, say, non-academic purposes? Teachers can delete comments. But the service can also be a way for students to learn how to use these tools in life, says Borg. “It’s becoming an important part of the learning process so learning appropriate ways to communicate online is important,” Borg says. “It’s absolutely essential they have these skills  when going out in the workforce.”

San Mateo, Calif.-based Edmodo, backed by Learn Capital, Union Square Ventures and Greylock Discovery, is adding some new features for the back-to-school rush. Those include game-like badges–the digital equivalent of the “gold star”–that teachers can give to students. Teachers and students can also design their own badges. The company also added more detailed student profiles, and online quizzes that teachers can administer to students at home or at school. Edmodo also has iPhone and Android mobile apps to view content from classes. They also include a “bump” feature to bump phones together to join an Edmodo group.

As for business model, Edmodo is not charging for teachers or students to use the service, but sees potential revenue in publisher promotions of classroom textbooks or materials. The company, launched in 2008, decided to go “bottom up,” and sign up individual teachers rather than try to sign up entire schools or school districts. That could make it difficult to get adoption among some schools that already have a competing digital service or do not allow teachers to use these types of tools. But the benefit of Edmodo’s approach is that anyone can sign up. And top-down implementations of software can often be ignored, Borg says.

One other plus for students: When their parents yell at them to “turn off Facebook,” they can just say they’re on Edmodo.

 

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Facebook Details Menlo Park Plan

A vision of Facebook’s new home in Menlo Park is beginning to come into focus, with a newly released city report illustrating a portion of what the social networking giant plans to build for its extensive workforce.

The report details the prospective outlook for development on the western segment of the Facebook property across Highway 84 from the company’s future headquarters at the intersection of Willow Road and Bayfront Expressway.

The 22-acre site will be connected to the larger eastern portion of the campus by a tunnel under Highway 84, which would create easier access between sites for employees.

Travel will become even easier if the company installs a proposed moving track next to the walkway.

Last month, the company’s first 20 employees moved from Palo Alto onto the company’s new East campus property, which was purchased form Sun Microsystems in February.

At the beginning of August, more than 500 employees had moved to Menlo Park. And the company is expecting more than 1,400 will complete the transition by the end of the year.

Facebook is currently permitted to house up to 3,600 employees on the eastern portion of the campus, but Menlo Park business development director David Johnson has indicated the company may ask to raise the cap as its workforce grows.

Menlo Park City Council members Tuesday night accepted the most recent report that details some of the plans for the company’s headquarters.

The approved report shows that under the control of Facebook, the thoroughfare formerly known as Network Circle around the perimeter of the eastern campus will be changed to Hacker Way.

City staff is currently drafting the necessary Environmental Impact Report, which will explore the proposed development’s impact on the surrounding area. The report is due to be released in the late fall.

Construction of the five office buildings and one West campus parking garage is not slated to begin until 2013. Improvements on the existing facilities at the larger, 57-acre eastern site are already underway.

The Facebook campus will likely eventually take on the look of many other leading Silicon Valley tech companies in which employees are offered an extensive variety of amenities.

Furthermore, it is expected that Facebook may attempt to develop a community outreach program with local businesses in Menlo Park in which vouchers will be offered to Facebook employees that can be redeemed for goods and services from local vendors.

Johnson said he expected, should such a plan be developed, that it may begin with local restaurants and cafes but could be extended into other industries as well.

The intention of such a program would be to facilitate a relationship between Facebook employees and the greater Menlo Park community, said Johnson.

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