CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
B. Some Pertinent Ideas
3. Concept of Edmodo
Edmodo is a social networking based learning platform that is intended for teachers, students and parents. Edmodo was first developed at the end of 2008 by Nic Borg and Jeff Ohara and Edmodo itself, arguably an e-learning program that implements an easy, efficient and more enjoyable learning system. Edmodo is one of the fastest growing social networks in early 2011, as evidenced by the presence of around 1 million users in it. Only a few months later, users increased to 7 million people and finally in 2015, there were 50 million Edmodo users from various parts of the world.
b. Features Available on Edmodo
There are lots of features offered by Edmodo to support the learning process. Following are the features found in Edmodo:
1) Polling
Polling is one feature that can only be used by the teacher.
This feature is usually used by the teacher to find out student responses about certain things. This Edmodo feature is a very good way to get instant feedback about an event that has just happened, a task, and so on. Polls can be use to make students understand the meaning of the science just learn.
2) Gradebook
The gradebook feature is similar to student grades. With this feature, teachers can give grades to students manually or automatically. This feature also allows a teacher to manage the assessment of learning outcomes from all students. The rating can also be exported a file. In the Gradebook feature, the teacher holds full access to this feature while students can only see the score in the form of graphs and direct ratings.
The gradebook feature is very helpful for making a quick and organized value record. The teacher can easily add the assessment period to the Progress Book, add assignments and values using the computer, and then monitor the values of each student easily.
Organized data also makes it easier for teachers to monitor the progress of each student, his progress in the learning process, and the ranking of students in a class.
3) File and Links
This feature serves to send notes with file attachments and links. Usually these files have the extension .doc, .ppt, .xls, .pdf and others. At times, when explaining something, sometimes the teacher needs additional material such as pictures so students can better understand the lesson given.
Only in a short time, the teacher can upload images, videos, texts, or anything that he thinks can increase students' curiosity
when learning. If an additional material has been stored on the computer, the teacher can use the file feature to upload it so that students can see it. While if the additional material is still on a particular website and its size is large enough to download, the teacher can provide links that students can access to understand a lesson.
4) Quiz
The Quiz feature can only be made by the teacher, while students do not have access to create quizzes. They can only work on the quiz questions given by the teacher. The quiz is used by the teacher to provide online evaluations to students in the form of multiple choices, short entries and description questions.
The teachers can create a quiz by inserting pictures or even videos as a supplement to quiz questions. The teacher can also save quiz questions in the Library to Edmodo, so that later they can be used again in the next class. After doing the quiz, students can find out the results quickly and can do Retake quiz if they feel the value is still lacking.
5) Library
With this feature, teachers can upload teaching materials such as presentations, pictures, videos, reference sources, and others.
This feature also functions as a container to accommodate various files and links that are owned by the teacher and students.
This library feature is very useful for teachers who are overwhelmed with having hundreds of files on school computers, or a long list of bookmarks for web pages that are useful as learning material. Edmodo Library provides unlimited capacity that allows every teacher to be able to store, sort, share and organize various documents in just one account. Documents contained in this virtual library can then be accessed anywhere and shared with other teachers.
6) Assignment
This feature is used by teachers to give assignments to students online. The advantages of this feature are equipped with a deadline time, attach file feature that allows students to send assignments directly to the teacher in the form of document files (pdf, doc, xls, ppt), and also the "Turn in" button on assignment assignments that function to mark that students have completed their assignments.
In this feature section the teacher can also be facilitated by his role. Assignments or assignments previously given to students in the previous period, can be given back to students in the following period. Tasks for these students can be stored in the Library to be used again in the future, so that they are not wasted or just scattered. Fellow teachers can also share assignment material given to students so that assignments are more varied.
7) Award Badge
To give an award to students or groups, teachers usually use the award badges feature. The badge given will certainly show the student's positive track record. Teachers can easily provide badges for outstanding students who have done quizzes and other assignments with excellent results.
This badge can also be a motivation for students to do various tasks well. The existence of an award makes someone more eager to do something. The teacher can also arrange to give badges for several students at once. Unfortunately, badges can only be given from teachers by students, not to other fellow teachers. Even so, some Edmodo badges are given automatically to the teacher, for example if the teacher is the first teacher from a school that joins Edmodo.
8) Parent Code
Every time a student creates a student account in Edmodo, the student will automatically get a unique Parent Code that can be used by his parents to also create a special account for parents.
Every parent only needs one Parent Account, which can monitor all groups followed by students. If a parent has more than one child, the parent only needs one account that can monitor the learning process of all his children only from that one account.
With this feature, parents can monitor the learning activities of their children. To get the code, parents can get it by clicking on the name of the class / group of their children in Edmodo or can get it directly from the teacher in question.