EdTech review: ClassDojo

A versatile tool with a lot of potential for in-person and online classes

I have a strong technology and engineering background but my approach to technology in the classroom is one of caution. Too often, technology adds to the teacher workload without any appreciable improvement to learning, internet can be unreliable, students don't always have access to smart phones and tablets, they may not have space to install a new app, the learning curve for yet…another…app, and so on. So, when ClassDojo was talked about a lot by my peers, I approached it with a critical eye.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rGW3ePdDAw

Class Dojo is primarily a behavior management and communication app originally designed for the in-person classroom. With the global push towards online and remote teaching, ClassDojo has added features to make it a versatile tool for hybrid and remote classrooms. Please, just let them behave! ClassDojo uses a versatile skill and point system to shape classroom culture through behavior management. The teacher chooses positive behaviors (called skills) they want to reinforce in the classroom. There are default skills that are presented at classroom setup to make the busy teacher's life easier and can be changed at any time. Skills can also be chosen by the teacher based upon class need or SEL (Social Emotional Learning) targets the teacher wants to focus on. For classes where the students help create a social contract of rules for everyone to follow, this is a great integration; the skills that students agree on can be added. If ClassDojo is deployed schoolwide, the school can add skills that are important to foster a positive school culture. During the course of the schoolyear, the teacher can mark when they observe a student demonstrating a skill. The number of points are chosen during the skill setup and can be changed at any time. Negative behaviors or actions stand out more than positive ones, this is part of the nature of being human. This system of creating a list of positive behaviors to focus on and awarding points when they are observed can help teachers become more mindful of positive behaviors in the classroom. A not uncommon classroom management strategy I have seen is creating "Houses" (like Hogwarts Houses) or teams and awarding the House points based upon certain accomplishments or behaviors. This dovetails perfectly with ClassDojo through the ability to create groups and awarding points to the entire group with the added benefit of less physical work creating large posters, finding space to hang these posters in shared classrooms, preventing vandalism to the posters from other students, etc. There is also a category of skills called "Needs Improvement" where negative behaviors can be set up. There will be a hurdle to convince students and parents that these are not bad things and that everyone has things they can improve upon. Points can be set up from -0 to -5 points with -0 being good if you want the student to be aware of an issue but don't want to penalize them. There are arguments that the negative reinforcement of losing points from "Needs Improvement" marks should be avoided when possible because students, and people in general, respond better to the positive reinforcement (praise, acknowledgement, rewards, etc.) than punishment. The ClassDojo point system is setup around the idea of turning in or spending the points to obtain a reward. The website has some ideas (extra computer time, using fun pens in class, etc.) but teachers can setup the options they want. The teacher will make an entry in ClassDojo saying how many points were spent to get what. Through the student and parent apps, only an individual student's points can be seen to protect privacy. The teacher can see everyone's points and has the option of displaying this on the TV during class. This is generally frowned upon unless the teacher has the goal of humiliating or singling out students who are struggling because they have extra life challenges other students don't have. Parents can check in on their child's points and behaviors at any time through the parent app. "Needs Improvement" behaviors of -0 points could be an effective way to make parents aware of problematic behaviors without needlessly punishing the student. The teacher can also limit what information is shared with the parents to avoid problems with helicopter parents and parents who are overly obsessed with spying on their children. Communication is key (and never stops) ClassDojo facilitates teacher-parent communication through Class Stories, direct messages, and Student Portfolios. Using Class Stories is amazingly comfortable for people who are familiar with Facebook or Instagram. The teacher can share posts about what is happening in the classroom, photos, and videos in a social media feed that can only be accessed by registered users. Special events and notices can be created and shared to keep parents abreast of class parties, final exams, and holidays. No communication platform would be complete without the ability to send direct messages…but this must have been designed by a teacher! One of the most blissful features for any busy teacher is the ability to set quiet hours: weekends and specific hours during the week where notifications will be turned off for the teacher's mental sanity and parents will receive an automatic response that it is the teacher's quiet hours and the teacher will respond later. Parents can also set their ClassDojo account to automatically translate messages into their chosen language (looks like this is done through Google Translate) and parents can choose to receive messages either through the app or via email. An added bonus for teachers is the option to see if a parent read a message. Something else that can be shared with parents is the Student Portfolio. Photos and videos taken during class, student work, and completed activities can all be added by the teacher to the Student Portfolio. This makes it easier for the parents to follow along with what their child is doing and gives the child something they can easily show off and be proud of. For classrooms where students have a physical folder or notebook that contains student work, this provides an option that is less likely to get lost or damaged and can accept more types of media like videos. Keeping them busy in and out The easiest way to get things to add to the Student Portfolios is creating activities. Creating multimedia activities develops a rich Student Portfolio with video recordings, annotated photos, drawings, and voice recordings. All very handy activities for home assignments or field trips. A common complaint I hear about LMS (Learning Management Systems) is teachers have worksheets and printed assignments curated over the years but there's no easy way to integrate them. Despite not being an LMS, ClassDojo has tackled this problem. A recent option when creating a new activity is uploading scanned pdf worksheets to send to students. Now teachers can start off running and take their time to develop new digital activities…if it's necessary at all. Students with special needs and teachers with preferred operational styles are not ignored. When creating assignments, the teacher can write the instructions or add an audio or video recording of the instructions. Versatility at its finest to address the needs and comfort of everyone! The monsters are cute…and they're invading the classroom! Students get their own cute monster avatar in ClassDojo. At account creation, the student can accept the automatically pre-selected monster, select from approved pre-generated monsters, upload their own monster, or customize their own monster. Extra monster customizations are available to students whose parents have purchased a ClassDojo Plus subscription. The teacher can also assign monster avatars to students. Uploading custom monsters is a huge plus. The pre-generated monsters are very cartoony and some feel too childish for older students. Providing students an option to upload more mature or appropriate avatars expands the applicable age range of ClassDojo from Kindergarten through Adult. Uploading custom monster avatars could also be a good option for spending points: students can spend points to be able to draw their own monster and have the teacher take a photo with their phone and upload it to ClassDojo. For classrooms that use Houses or team to award points, custom monster avatars could be uploaded in the House colours or logos. A major criticism I've come across is ClassDojo avatars erase differences between children and create a colour blind learning environment which normalizes whiteness. While I can attest from personal experience that a colour blind environment blinds people to problems and inequities that minorities face, I don't see that as an inherent issue with ClassDojo monsters. First and foremost, ClassDojo is a tool to help with behavior management; it is the teacher's responsibility to make differences visible in the classroom. There is also the option for students to customize the monster avatar to represent themselves using multiple colours and body parts; it's hard to accept the argument that an avatar designed by a student to represent the student is not representative of the student. The ability to have students design an avatar to upload, or even have their own faces photographed, provides even more options for an avatar to properly represent a student. How many apps do I really need? There are many useful apps out there for the classroom. There are so many that it is easy to fill up the phone and a lot of time gets wasted switching between apps and waiting for things to load. There are many useful tools built into ClassDojo and the influence of teachers is clear. One of the best tools is the ability to assign random groups of a chosen size…with certain students set to never be in a group together. An excellent way to keep known distractions apart while not having to spend brain power on creating groups. Taking attendance is easy in ClassDojo. Open the list of students and click on the ones who aren't there. The students can be easily added to the class from a Word, Excel, or csv file and the daily or periodic attendance can be easily exported as a spreadsheet and sent to the school administration. Quick and easy to take attendance, less papers to lose, and a digital copy is available for reference at any time. Need a random student? It's time for the teacher to choose a volunteer? ClassDojo can do that for you while making sure not to choose anyone who's absent that day. Reduce bias (even in trained teachers, boys tend to get called on more often than girls), speed things up, or even turn it into a game to see who gets chosen. Classrooms can get quite noisy, especially during quiet small group work. The built-in noise meter can let everyone see how noisy the room is. This can even be tied to giving points, the whole class can get points if the noise meter never makes it into the red! Timers are already useful but they tend to walk off or take up skydiving (but without a parachute). There's a built-in time for these situations. It's always handy and never dreams of skydiving (or other extreme sports). Two related tools are Today which can display a message, thought questions, or other prompt for when students come to class and a tool to display the directions for the current activity. It is so refreshing to be able to silently point at the screen when someone asks, "Teacher, what are we doing?" than to explain the directions thirty times to a class of twenty. Follow the money An important question whenever it comes to a free app, especially one designed for children, is "How do they make money?" In the beginning, ClassDojo was financed through venture capital. As they became established, they started offering extras through a monthly or annual subscription service called ClassDojo Plus. They do not sell student data to third parties but they seem to use the data they collect to design services to address customer needs like extra lessons, more monster customizations, and the ability to access past student portfolios. Finally, we're done Surprisingly, I find a lot of promise in ClassDojo with very few downsides. It is a tool that needs to be used effectively by the teacher to improve the classroom. There seems to be enough use and teacher workload reduction that I'd not only consider using it in my classroom but I'm recommending my school launch a pilot program using ClassDojo to see how it works in our particular environment. References Class Dojo Monster Edit Tutorial ClassDojo for Teachers: Everything You Need to Know in 20 Minutes | Tech Tips for Teachers Portfolios Overview: a tutorial for ClassDojo teachers 🗂 MY BEHAVIOR MANAGEMENT SYSTEM | Class Dojo, Golden Tickets are & Warm Fuzzies! Big Ideqs (ClassDojo) Online Tools for Teaching & Learning: ClassDoj Tool Snapshot ClassDojo raises concerns about children’s rights ClassDojo’s second act comes with first profits ClassDojo, an app to help teachers and parents communicate better, raises $35M https://classdojo.zendesk.com ClassDojo | Product Reviews | EdSurge