Not saying it isn't funny, but the sheer amount of time they invest in that kind of shit is hilarious. I'd like to see a count of how many man hours are used to make swastikas in Habbo.
The thing that irks me is the 12 year olds who'll raid anything someone links to, even if they don't deserve it. Some faggot at my school decided it would be a great idea to post the Edmodo class code for our History class on 4chan. They spammed it with CP, almost got my (pretty cool) teacher fired until the district figured out it wasn't her fault. That shit just isn't even remotely funny.
I use Edmodo daily with my classes. All homework, all class resources, all reminders are all posted there. I even try to summarize what we did that day so students who were absent can keep track.
I use Google forms when I want to collect information from my students in a format that's easy to track and reorganize.
I use PhET for their simulations and a Physics Teaching Technology Resource from Rutgers for their video experiments, though I'm far more likely to use them in class than to assign them as outside work, and it doesn't quite count as online since the laptops I have are so old they cannot support the software needed to connect to the school network. Everything has to be transferred via USB drive.
My school has a BYOD policy in place, so I can have the students use their phones if I see a reason to do so.
I personally don't have any kind of digital presence set up for my students, aside from of course email. I don't think it is really needed, also because I often respond right away if students have an easy question, about per example the homework. I'm also the kind of person who forgets to post things on social media, so eeh... I'd probably forget about any "teacher account" too.
However, if you want a place to post things like homework, I can recommend Edmodo which is made for teachers and students to interact online. It's basically facebook, but with less personal information. You can make different groups for different classes too.
have you heard of edmodo? This might be a good site to check out and see if there are already schools looking for culture exchanges. Sounds like a great program. good luck with it!
I once tried using a website like that. It's as useful as you make it. If it's not essential, students won't get in the habit of using it. General resources and review materials are hardly essential. Now, if they have to do an assignment with those resources, or with a certain function the website offers, you can leverage them into exploring what the site does.
Have you heard of Edmodo? My wife and I use it with amazing results, it's like facebook for school. Social media.
So, there is educational value in a facebook clone. Edit: Which means there is educational value in facebook if you wanted to just make a school group, have them make individual profiles, break it down by classes, etc. Saying there is no educational value in ANYTHING is terrible teaching practice in my opinion. Anything can be used educationally.
Lots of times our printers go down in the computer lab. I then have my students upload assignments to Edmodo, which has my classes broken down and all. Amazing tool, I don't know where I would be without social media in my class.
I haven't used it in a couple years, but I think you could get what you're looking for with Edmodo. Students do NOT need an email address to join your class. Here is a page that talks about how students join your class. Notice step #3 which specifically mentions that students don't need an email address. And this page talks a little bit about Edmodo Discussions and how you'd use the platform for students to respond to one another.
Wikispaces? You can use it to make class websites that students can interact on and even contribute to.
That said, there are tons of options in today's digital education landscape.
Google Classroom is amazing, but you need to be affiliated with a school that has signed up for the program. Then again, the new Google Sites is a vast improvement over the old version and you don't need any special access to use it. I highly recommend checking it out, especially if you are looking for a single point of access for multiple students that may not necessarily be in the same "class" together.
I used Edmodo before migrating to Google Classroom.
I've used Edmodo for online discussions over the past two school years and it's worked really well. It's easy to use, familiar (looks like Facebook), and useful (students can hold discussions, post links, turn in assignments, take surveys, etc).
I've also learned quite a bit about Wikispaces through my graduate classes, and I may try using that next year.