Continuing Blended Learning Over the Summer

In the last couple weeks of school, I traded classes with the 7th grade math teacher and signed all of her students up for Khan Academy and created an Edmodo account and entered them all into the class "Summer 2013."  All of these students are ones I will have in my classes next year as 8th graders.  My plan was to sign them up, give me the teacher a couple weeks to experiment with Khan Academy in conjunction with Edmodo.  Long story short, I use Edmodo as a means to allow my students and I communication.  Communication about what's happening in the classroom and communication about what's happening on Khan Academy.  It also serves as a great platform for posting assignments, new exercises to try, new videos to watch, etc.  So I started by posting a list of 12-15 exercises appropriate for early 8th grade.  Things we'd begin the year with like adding/subtracting negative numbers, combining like terms, operations with variables, etc.  I spoke to the students about using Khan Academy throughout the summer and the advantages it could offer them when returning to school in August.  I gave them brief introductions in navigating the system for videos, using the hints, exploring exercises, etc.  I have even created screencasts with more in depth explanations of KA and it's purpose in my classroom.  In the first couple weeks, I had a ton of activity on Khan Academy and a bunch of questions, comments, requests on Edmodo.  Many students breezed through the exercises I gave them to start with and asked for more.  Keep in mind that I was not/am not seeing these students in class.  Their learning is entirely self-directed.  It will remain that way throughout the summer.  So I'm curious as to how engaged and motivated I can keep them through communication that is done entirely online.  So far so good.  Stay tuned for more updates.