Happy Summer, educator friends!
I hope you all are enjoying your breaks (if your school is on such a schedule). I just came back from the ISTE conference in Denver. If you've never been, you should go! (San Antonio 2017!) It was a religious and technological experience. I learned a lot from the conference, which will likely furnish future blog posts. However, in the spirit of mindful and zen-ness, today I'll be talking about Class Dojo today.
What is Class Dojo?
Class Dojo, for those who have not used it, is a positive behavior management resource that is available across all platforms (iOS, Android, Desktop, Laptop, Mac, etc. etc.). I tend to use it on my mobile device for the mobility and immediacy of the feedback.
With Class Dojo, students sign up, create avatars, and receive behavioral feedback from you on a day-to-day and macro basis. You design and assign behaviors that you can reward and behaviors you can "punish" (or behaviors for which you can deduct points). From your (the teacher's) daily point awarding, students receive points and can see their trending behavior. For middle school students and below (and I've even used it at a high school level), the kids love to "Do it for the Dojos" (to quote my colleague Carolina!). They also love to create their avatar creatures and take great pride in this task. As a teacher, you get a great overview of your classes (as seen below).
With Class Dojo, in addition to rewarding points and getting some great reports, you can even message parents, take pictures of student work, and soon you will be able to compile student portfolios! You can group students and award points to the groups and you can use "Stories" to display the inner-workings of your creative classroom. Essentially, Class Dojo is very close to a one-stop-shop.
How to Get Started with Class Dojo?
1. Sign up for Class Dojo. It's free! (www.classdojo.com then to "Sign up").
2. Once you've signed up, log-in to www.classdojo.com
3. Once you've logged in, you can fiddle with the settings and your profile. Your start screen will look like mine below.
4. From your "dashboard screen" you can add classes. The options you have, once you click the "Add Class", you have to name your class and specify grade.
5. To add students, you will type in their names. It is a little tedious, but I promise, Class Dojo is well worth the time investment!
6. You can then prepare invites as PDF files which you can then pass out to students on the first day. In fact, when I was late on handing them out, students were clamoring for them.
7. The next step is establishing the behaviors, both the "Positive" and "Needs work". I usually align these with my class participation rubric. You can even customize the icons for that. Piece of advice: keep the behaviors few and student-friendly.
That's it! You are ready to Dojo!
Using Class Dojo
1. On your phone, iPad, desktop, you can do the following from the class view you can do the following:
a. Award full class points
b. Award individual student points
c. Award group points
d. Add students (by hitting the plus button)
e. Take attendance
f. Select a random student (which I do instead of hand raising now)
g. Set a timer
h. View score reports
i. See your class story (if you take pictures of your class on Dojo)
j. Send messages to parents (if they sign up)
k. Adjust settings
In short, you can do A LOT. See my graphic below.
Usable Information
When you go to reports, you will see a screen similar to what you see above. With that screen, you can see the following:
-Whole class progress
-Individual student progress
-Pie charts to illustrate behaviors
-Narrative "events" on when you award a student/class points
-Attendance records
You can adjust this data's time frame as well. You can also view it in a spreadsheet. I find that it helps students, not on an analytical level, but on a holistic level what to see what their participation looks like in class. I also found that parents liked the feedback to foster those conversations at home. As a bonus, it also helps me to fill out their participation rubrics at the end of the marking period.
I'm attaching a few videos below to supplement what I've written above.
-Student introduction to Class Dojo video (to play in class)
-Getting started and using Class Dojo
-My video review of Class Dojo
I hope this has been helpful and that you love Class Dojo as much as I do! Soon they are launching portfolios, which will be an exciting addition!
Happy Dojo-ing and Until Next Time
-Scott
