Edmodo Part 8: Parent Accounts

This post is the next in a series of posts to help schools and teachers that I work with get started with Edmodo.

Parent accounts on Edmodo are a great way to communicate with parents and offer a level of transparency for your class. There are two ways parent accounts can be useful for your class.

First, with their Edmodo account parents can see what assignments and grades their child has. This enables them to stay on top of their child's work and be actively engaged in their education. Parents can only see their child's work and cannot see posts in the main Edmodo message stream for your groups. This ensure a level of security and privacy since there is no way for an Edmodo parent to interact with another child other than their own.

Second, teachers can send messages to parents by posting Notes to the Parent's Group. Instead of typing up and printing out a weekly newsletter describing classroom events and activities, teachers can simply post this same information to the Parent Group.

This 3 minute video describes what Edmodo looks like from a parent account.

Parent accounts are easy to set up. Here is a sample letter you can send home to parents describing Edmodo and how it will be used in the classroom. The second page has directions parents will follow to create their account. Since each parent account is tied to their child's account, they will need to enter a unique code. To get that code, follow these directions.

1. Open your class group and click on the Members tab.
2. Click Member Options near the top of the page.
3. Click Print.
4. Select Parent Code and click Generate Page.

After printing the codes you can hand write them on the handout above prior to distributing to parents.

Just like with your student groups, you can send Notes with or without links and attachments, and even schedule them. To send to the parent group, start typing the name of your student group and you'll see group_name (parents) in the list.

How do you know which parents have created their account? Go to your group page and click the Members tab. Each student who has a parent with an account will have a little "Parent" icon next to their name.

You can find more detailed instructions on Parent Accounts in the Edmodo help files.