Bye Bye Edmodo... We Will Miss You

Everything that Begins has to End Some day. That day has come to Edmodo. If you Don't know what is Edmodo, this post is of less relevance. If you are teacher or student using Edmodo then its a shock. Shock is an understatement. 

Edmodo is closing its doors on 22, Sep 2022. The official web page has this announcement (screenshot enclosed).

For those who don't know what is Edmodo: It is a Learning Management System (LMS). It is great platform to keep in touch with your students, in a simple, neat and clean format. It was a Free Tool. No Hassles. 

My association with Edmodo started wayback in 2010-2011. Long long before the recent buzz on remote learning during the recent Covid19 pandemic. 

The first batch was Web Technology M.Sc 2010-11. 

Data Visualization (2022, M.Tech and MCA) course has become the last in the Edmodo line-up for me:

From then with each subject I have utilised Edmodo. My workflow was like this:

• Create a Class Group for each subject. 
• Share the Class Code with the students in the first week of that course and ask them to register. 
• In many subjects, I have followed a pattern called "Class Minutes" where following each session, one student would update the summary of what we discussed during that class. Other students will comment on it. It was very well received by many batches of students. 
• Collect all the Assignments through Edmodo. 
• Share the recent updates regarding that Subject in Edmodo (Both by Me and Students)
• Conduct Poll and Quizes. 

After the onset of Covid19 Pandemic, Edmodo became like the hot line of communication with the students. Everything was running through Edmodo. I never tried Google classroom, as Edmodo was super cool and was doing everything that I expected from a LMS. 

I have recommended the usage of Edmodo to hundreds of teachers across our country, during various seminars, orientation and refresher courses. Many have responded enthusiastically. They shared their positive experiences of using Edmodo. 

After this announcement, many of these teachers have pinged me and shared their grief regarding this unexpected development. The major lesson learned from this is that, 

However good a closed source software may be, it is always better to go with the open source tools.

What is more painful is that it will be a complete shutdown. All your data will be unavailable after 22, Sep 2022. If you are a Edmodo user, you may do a backup. Detailed instructions here:

Everything has an end except human greediness and arrogance. 

We will miss you, Edmodo.