Class Dojo is an app that provides teachers with new ways to manage their classrooms using an iPad or iPhone. This app is simple for teachers, students and parents to use, while tracking student's attendance and behavior. It provides parents the opportunity to see what goes on in the classroom and what their child is doing on an everyday basis. This app is a lot like Instagram, but for teachers to share pictures and activities of their students with the parents.

Step by step for an Educator:

  1. Go into the app and sign up as a teacher.
  2. You will have to create a username and password.
  3. Then you will search your school and add your school.
  4. After you have found your school, you will be able to add students and make their profiles by clicking the big plus sign button.
  5. To view a profile, you just click under each child's name and there will be a profile of the student with their different awards they receive during class.
  6. For each child's profile, the teacher can add or take away certain awards and it can stay in their profile to be tracked whenever.
  7. In the story tab, the educator will be able to invite parents to join their classroom and parents will be able to view pictures that the teacher posts of the students.
  8. Under the messages tab, the teacher will be able to message the parents of the students.
  9. And of course the notification tab sends alerts to the teacher with messages and other notifications.
  10. At the top of the classroom tab, the teacher will also be able to select different groups to split the classroom up in for different activities. All you have to do for this is slide the bar from students to groups.
  11. When clicking the check in the left corner of the screen, teachers are able to award their students and the award then goes into the student's profile.
  12. The camera icon at the bottom of the screen will allow the teacher to take photos of their students and share them with the students' parents.

Video Guide

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zeoth1denkh7sb2/Recording%20%232.mp4?dl=0

Common FAQs

Q: Does this app cost anything?

A: This app is entirely free.

Q: What if a student is in more than one class?

A: Students can add all of their student codes to the same account and track their progress across multiple classes. It’s simple!

Q: Is student information protected?

A: Of course! ClassDojo takes privacy very seriously and they never share any of their students’ personal information. Check out classdojo.com/privacycenter for more information.

Q: What if students forget their username or password?

A: Click on the class that the student is in, click the settings button and select “Connect students”. Here, you’ll see your students’ usernames and have the option to reset their password if necessary.

Q: How do parents connect with multiple classes?

A: Parents are able to enter multiple parent codes to their account, letting them connect with all of their children’s classes.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

    • Teachers can keep track of their students behavior by giving them profiles by tracking their abilities to help others, staying on task, participation, persistence, team work, and how hard they are working. Their is also a negative tab that can take awards away from the students.
    • This app/website allows teachers to interact with the parents of their students in a fast and easy way.
    • It allows parents to physically see their child's progress by looking at the photos the teacher posts of the students.
    • Parents can also see their child's progress and awards throughout the year by looking up their child's profile.
    • This app/website is also an easy way to contact teachers quickly and easily with any questions throughout the school day.

Cons:

    • Class Dojo may be a helpful way for teachers to regulate a classroom's behavior, but the students aren't really learning from this app.
    • This app can embarrass other kids who got points taken away or didn't get points and since everyone can see student profiles, it can embarrass a child.
    • Parents can see other students' profiles, which can lead to unhealthy judgement.
    • Some parents may get upset if their child is not in every picture that the teacher posts.

Lesson Ideas

Grade level: 6-12 Subject area: English

Standard: Writing Produce Clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose and audience. (Grade specific expectations for writing types are expected)

Assessment:

  • Students are evaluated on the clarity, which helps them meet the purposes of writing their own descriptions of their monster.
  • Students are evaluated on their abilities to write effectively for the purpose of presenting their monster to an audience.
  • Students are evaluated on their abilities to independently create a telling brain frame, which is a way to organize thoughts for a writing assignment.
  • Students are evaluated on their clarity that they independently use for their telling brain frame about themselves to write a description for the purpose of presenting themselves to a future employer or college admission's officer.

https://betatestinglabdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/lesson_plan.pdf

Grade Level: 5th grade

Standard: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.1- Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.1c- Pose and respond to specific questions by making comments that contribute to the discussion and elaborate on the remarks of others.

Assessment:

  • The teacher will start a class discussion about positive and negative behaviors.
  • Then teacher will play the Class Dojo introduction video (found on the Class Dojo website – www. classdojo.com)
  • After the teacher will explain to the students that they will be using the ClassDojo system to keep track of their behaviors throughout the year.
  • The teacher will inform the students that their reports will be sent home weekly to their parents via email.
  • The teacher will then share with the students different behaviors he/she has come up with. Students will brainstorm ideas of behaviors to add to their assignment that was previously chosen by the teacher.
  • Students will then have to create a list on the smart board of different behavior ideas.
  • The teacher will allow students to vote on the top choices that will be added to Class Dojo.
  • After they have chosen behaviors, students will log onto Class Dojo with their individual student pin and their parent’s email address.
  • Students will then be allowed to explore the site and customize their own avatar, which is a little monster\\.

https://www.polk-fl.net/staff/grants/pefgrants/documents/VanMetre.Natasha.pdf