Busy teachers need practical tools, and busy parents need effective communication lines with schools and teachers. Are you sitting there thinking, ‘I wish there was a one-stop shop for such a platform’? Meet ClassDojo! Many of you will already be familiar with the ClassDojo app, but if you haven’t used the app before – or if you want to use it more effectively – please read on!
With all the capabilities of the desktop site, it is an even more convenient way of managing classroom behaviour and reward systems. The recent development allowed teachers to communicate with parents through the sharing of notes, pictures, icons, and even voice notes with the home.
The great thing is that ClassDojo have listened to the educators who’ve been at the heart of the Dojo experience from the beginning. For example, there is now an opportunity to send a direct message to one parent, or a ‘broadcast’ to all parents, of children in your room. The best thing about the app is that it is device-neutral, as it’s available on iOS and Android.
Quite simply, once you’ve set up your class you can seamlessly award points from your mobile device. Just like on the desktop site, you can reward individual or multiple students. One of my favourite aspects of using the app to award points, is that I can reward points remotely using a mobile device – away from a desktop computer – while monitoring activity around the classroom. When children hear the ‘ding’ of a point from the interactive whiteboard, they know that I’m rewarding points on the go. It’s a brilliant way to give immediate feedback in a non-verbal way. That distinctive sound, when an avatar is clicked, updates in real time – so if you award a point on a mobile device, it updates live on the desktop system.
Using the app in this way doesn’t require any tech savvy. If you are choosing to subtract a point from a student, that sound is very effective at, again, non-verbally acknowledging inappropriate behaviour. The best thing about this entire system, however, is that parents can engage with it from the home.
Parents can check out where their children are losing or accumulating points. Sharing data is really easy through the app. Individual reports on each child can be emailed to each parent, who can connect through printed or emailed invites. Once a connection is made, an email is received every Friday reminding them to check in on a child’s report online. Reports can also be viewed in various ways, daily or weekly. The data is provided visually in a pie chart, and all data from the year can feed into your end-of-year report.
One of my favourite aspects of the app is that you can give a ‘random point’ award, which is nice when everybody is behaving well – adds a real sense of fun to the process.
The app can be downloaded for Android and Apple, and it’s available in over 20 different languages.
Have any of you thought of any personalised ways to improve the app experience? Why not share them here!