Class Dojo

A piece of technology that I found would be beneficial to the teachers is an application call Class Dojo. Attending a teacher panel provided by the School of Education I noticed that two out of the four teachers are using Class Dojo in the classroom right now and they had many good example on why it is beneficial for everyone when teaching. One of the teachers had stated that her behavior system in the beginning of the year was not working and that is when she found class Dojo and how much it has helped her classroom behavior in the past 3 months. This is an application that is free in the iTunes and android store and can be beneficial for the teachers, students, as well as the parents.  Class Dojo  can be accessed on the computer as well as an Ipad, phone, or tablet as long as you have a log in you can give positive and negative feedback during your class time as a teacher. This also allows the parent to see how their child is acting in the class. Once logging into class dojo the teacher can print out an access code that can be given to the parents and child to see their process during the year.

Some of the features of the app include, giving positive and negative remarks such as bringing in homework, preparedness, also Class Dojo gives negative behavior such as not having materials, or that the students show signs of bullying, or off task. This allows the teacher to have the application open on her desk and when something either positive or negative happens she can click on each student individually or together and see how the class goes for the time allotted with what would happen negatively or positively. There is also an undo bottom, or award multiple students that will give them a working hard star, or click on all students for being disrespectful or not doing their homework with a running total. All of these aspects of the app allow the teacher to go back and see how the class is doing from the past week or since the beginning of the year, the parents can also see how positive or negative the class is behaving during the school day.

Other features include personalization of the student Dojo, attendance, time keeper/timer, also progression through the year. Once the teacher gives the students the log in they can see all the negative and positive points that they are getting in the class which can be competitive and make the students work harder and watch how much they can grow and participate in the classroom. Once the teacher gets going the class dojo this can help the teacher stay on task and know where the problem areas after a period of time.

This can also be a way for the teachers to have communication with the parents by either sending them a direct email or putting down a concern for their child. If the teacher puts in a concern the parent is emailed or notified by the application and that will allow the parent and teachers to say connected and always know what is going on in the classroom with their child and the percentage of growth or behavior tracking system.

I would use this in my future classroom as a beginning resource to see how it would work with the class that I would be currently working with. Being a new teacher I know it would be a good idea to let me the parents in on what I am doing with their children and know how they are progressing in my class. Also showing my students that technology will be incorporated into the class can hopefully give them a better understanding on how to use it and hopefully appropriate way to use it in the school.

Out there in the technology world there are going to be people who dislike technology, and would like it not to be in the classroom. I feel differently and think incorporating it into the schools would benefit in ways that has not been done before. This application can not only help out all the teachers and their behavioral systems, but also let the parents as well know what’s going on in the classroom on a day-to-day bias. This is defiantly an application that will help me in my future classroom, as well as other applications that will not only benefit myself but all my students as well.

References

Bishop, Alesha. "A Parent's Review of ClassDojo." Getting Smart A Parents Review of ClassDojo Comments. Getting Smart, 22 Aug. 2014. Web. 30 Jan. 2016.

"Learn All about ClassDojo." ClassDojo. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2016.

Grodex, Thomas. "Class Dojo Set Up and Tutorial." YouTube. YouTube, 29 Oct. 2013. Web. 30 Jan. 2016.