Introducing ClassDojo Translate

Firstly, a quick apology for my lack of blogging. I am not going to make excuses, and I won't make this long, because I have an exciting thing to talk about! But yes, I am sorry. It did occur to me on several occasions that I'd been slacking off, and had I done anything about it? Nope... But that's in the past, and we don't dwell on the past, do we? ;)

ClassDojo Translate

New feature time!!! Woohoo! So exciting. As the name suggests, ClassDojo has now introduced a translate feature, enabling families to translate announcements and messages into the language they are most comfortable with. 

While we may be teaching students in English, and they eventually leave school with a solid grasp of the language, that is not the case for everyone. Many families emigrate from non-English speaking countries, and some may have school-aged children who grew up speaking their mother-tongue. ClassDojo Translate breaks down language barriers and enables everyone to communicate with each other. Pretty nifty, yeah?

We all know that being able to engage families in education is pretty important, and CD has consistently been helping us along the way. We've been able to : connect families, without requiring e-mails or phone numbers; we can share with them their child's progress in class, and take snapshots of learning as it occurs; and now we're able to communicate more effectively. 

Currently, Translate is only available by accessing CD on the web. It'll soon be making it's way to Android and iOS. I hope you love this new addition to ClassDojo as much as I do, especially as this is one particular feature that addresses a matter I am too familiar with. 

Thanks for continuing to be awesome, ClassDojo!

Say hi to Class Story!

As of last Thursday (06-08-15), ClassDojo launched their latest feature: Class Story. It's a new, and fun way to share with everyone what you and your kiddos are up to! Class newsletters aren't so hard anymore. Reminders just got easier. Sharing success stories is even more exciting now. Wow!

Along with the usual text that you'd normally send, now you can include photos and videos too. You can still see which parents have read it, and they also have a heart to click on if they like a post. I do like that one.

What I most love about this feature is that I can send reminders with a picture! I do this because it takes away the "pestering" feel that reminders are often associated with. And you know what? You could get really creative and send newsletter items over Dojo. Saves you some time, but also ensures that everyone's going to read it!

As a specialist teacher, I love being able to communicate with parents who I don't get to see all that often. Sometimes though, I do wish I was back in the classroom so that I could implement some other amazing ideas I have (what do you mean? Of course they're amazing!). I'm sure the parents would love to see those! But alas, they shall have to keep dealing with my Science posts. Which really, aren't all that bad...

I do apologise that this is such a short post :( And I do remember that I promised more on Groups as well. So you know... They will come!!! In the mean time though, go get re-acquainted with Dojo :)

Twitter for Teachers

Part of my role as a ClassDojo Ambassador is to participate in and host Twitter chats. I was surprised by such a thing. Before this year, my experience of Twitter was that it's just another procrastination destination. I had created an account years ago, and never did anything with it. Until some months ago. Now I am hooked! It is an amazing platform for connecting with educators all over the world. I have learnt so much, and have definitely drawn inspiration from them.

There are so many Twitter chats you can join, and  also build your own PLNs. I am currently participating in #dojochatANZ, #aussieED, #asiaED, and #includEDau. Fantastic educators, and a range of topics each week.

Now, not to blow my own horn or anything, but I am super proud of #includEDau. Along with another Tweep (which I learnt is what you call Twitter users), whom I met through #dojochatANZ (see?? Networking, not time-wasting!), we started #includEDau as a chat to focus on students with disabilities, and to support educators in creating inclusive classrooms. We've only been live three weeks, but the feedback has been amazing! I never realised we would gain momentum so quickly. 

Anyway, just wanted to share that last little bit, hehe. But seriously, if you're an educator, I highly recommend it as a networking platform. Get out there, don't be afraid to ask questions. After all, aren't we life-long learners? Here's a reminder ;)

ClassDojo Groups

Could ClassDojo get any better? Of course!!! #growthmindset

I am so excited to share with you a new feature of this already amazing tech tool. CD now has a grouping feature, allowing teachers to group students for seating arrangements, reading, maths, abilities... Whatever you want!

I've already begun playing with this feature, and I must admit: I'm having tonnes of fun! It's great being able to group students. As a Science teacher, my students are almost always working in groups. Awarding points is now much easier, and it's so handy knowing who's meant to be in which group! Sometimes I forget, and the kids are able to slip one by me... And perhaps that's also because I cannot be bothered getting my lists out to see who's meant to be where... But now, with a click, or swipe, I can very easily do that, and it's not a hassle because CD is always open in my classroom! Whether it's on my desktop, phone, or tablet.

Here's what your desktop screen will now look like. At the top, you have two tabs: one for viewing your students, and the other for your groups. Attendance, Award Multiple, Random, and Timer are now at the bottom - handy for when I am getting shorter students to do those things for me!

OK... Before any of you accuse me of being obsessed, let me just say that while I was testing this feature, I didn't want to use any of my existing classes, because we were on holidays, and I didn't know what groups they'd be in for the following term. So I created a test class, and what better anime than Naruto?? They're already in groups! Shikamaru also happens to be my imaginary child, for when I need to try things with the parent account...

Anyway, moving along! You may have noticed that you can also see each student's monster when they're in a group. How nifty ^^

Another wonderful thing about this feature is that you can still award points individually. As you would normally, just select the student you'd like to award, and do so. To award points to a group, you simply select that particular group and then "Award Group". Easy. 

There's bound to be more posts as I get this up and running with my real classes, but this brief intro should have you sold anyway ;) So go check it out, have a play, and fall in love all over again :) You can also visit their page to learn more about ClassDojo Groups, which I can guarantee has much less Naruto-related content ^^;

ClassDojo and Children's University

Have any of you heard of Children's University? It's a great organisation that schools can become involved with, providing extra-curricular activities to broaden students' learning experiences and inspire them to continue studying after school. This is our school's second year with the program, but my first year. Students can earn hours for activities they participate in, and once they have enough hours, they get to graduate! Proper ceremony with gowns and mortar boards. Pretty cool! Anyway, this post isn't really about Children's University (CU). It's more about how ClassDojo can help you with Children's University.

You might be thinking that it's not really any different to how you may already be using CD. And I suppose if you wanted to, you could use it for tracking behaviours and encouraging particular skill sets. But my "light bulb's" (anyone get that reference??) a little different... Inspired by school holiday activities organised by CU, I came up with an idea of how I could link the two. After all, as an Ambassador, isn't it kind of my job to do this? Have ideas and share them? If you know me at all, you'd realise how hard the first part of that job requirement is for me to do, haha. But I had one! And now I can share it :)

So by now, I've created a class called "Children's University". The names of all participating students are listed in there. This part is all the same, as if you were creating a new class. The only thing I might pick on (sorry, CD), is that there isn't a "multiple" option for selecting a grade. CU is open to kids aged 7-14, so you can imagine that there are many grades within this class. I just selected 7, as that's the highest our school goes to.

This is where things change a little. Instead of having behaviours and skills, my "Positives" became activities the students can participate in, each weighted at 1 point, to represent 1 hour. These are activities run at school by our lovely teachers (thanks!). I have also got one called "Holiday Program", which is for when students attend one of the activities organised by CU, obviously in the holidays. These are often held at the participating university, hence the mortar board icon. This is weighted at 4, again, to represent the number of hours students can earn. You may have noticed two other activities. These are called "Other" because students can also earn hours for participating in sports, and attending other CU certified events, not necessarily run by CU, or our school. These are weighted at 5 and 1, to help add on tonnes of hours! Very handy, as one particular child racks up at least 10 "Other" hours per week! In the comments, you can write what those activities were, which is very handy!

Now the whole reason I started a CD class for CU wasn't actually for recording their hours, because when signing up to CU, students are given a learning passport, which you stamp for their hours (how fun!). I created a class because I really wanted to use the messaging feature. Oh how I love this part of CD! Sometimes, students forget that they've returned forms to attend school holiday programs, and so I thought: "I wish I could remind them closer to the date, rather than continually pester them on the last day of school..." And that's when I had my light bulb moment. I CAN do that! Duh! Using ClassDojo. At the time, I thought I was rather clever for thinking of that, haha. All these students are already familiar with CD, as I use it in Science, and some of their parents have accounts, so it wouldn't really be that hard to introduce it to the rest of the CU cohort.

Now that I've done that, I can send reminders about activities and events, and students can also check how many hours they've got, if they ever forget to bring their passport to an activity. As I have CD on my phone, it's with me all the time, so even if we can't stamp their passports there and then, we can at least record the hour(s) on CD, and stamp it later. How ingenious! Perhaps I should talk to some CU people about this, hehehe.

So now, I shall write up some letters and attach each parent's code, and hopefully after the first few weeks of school returning (10 days of holidays left), we'll have everyone signed up and ready to be bombarded with reminder messages! And also photos of their kids participating in the activities. I am so excited to get this up and running!!! I only wish I had thought of it sooner.

Definitely not 9-3

Yeah, sorry guys. As surprising as it may sound, this blogging business is still very new to me, and as such, it's not always at the top of my list, nor is it on my mind. It's been an incredibly busy end of term; generally is when reports are due! Which leads me to the topic of this post.

A lot of people don't seem to realise how hard teachers work. We don't just rock up to school, teach a few lessons, then go home and relax. Gosh, if only it were that easy! But then, no one would be learning anything, would they?

So you're a busy person too, I get that. You work 9-5, that's a whole 2 more hours! Woah... But, you probably get to go to the toilet whenever you like, don't you? And I'm sure you're not scoffing down your food in 20 minutes because you have to get back to work. 

Oh, you take work home too, do you? I'm sure you do! I can't imagine any professional who ever leaves work at work. You can't help it. There's always stuff to do, isn't there? Even if you're mentally planning, you're still working, yeah?

Remember that presentation you got asked to work on? That's due in a few weeks from now? You're bed-time reading is consists of research and data, you're spending evenings creating slides that will captivate your co-workers and hook them in. Sometimes you wish you had more time to do everything you wanted, or the technology to do a really fancy presentation.

Now it's all done, your heart races as you head off to the conference room. Luckily, everything went well. Slight hiccup with getting the projector set-up, but you've learnt that next time, you'll just rock up a bit earlier and check everything beforehand. Fortunately, that's not for another couple of months, phew!

So hard, isn't it? Could you imagine doing that everyday? Except you're presenting to a group of 28 10-year olds. Some of them have difficulty sitting and listening for longer than 5 minutes, others need to have fidget toys. Then there's the couple who find the whole thing utterly boring and start chatting amongst themselves. How on earth do you cater for all these different needs? Some a lot more complex than others. How do you make sure you're engaging everyone? How do you know they're paying attention, that they're actually actively listening and learning?

Sometimes, people need to take a step back and think about all this, before accusing teachers of having it so easy. Short days, plenty of holidays... If you're really that jealous, I'd welcome you into my classroom to have a go one day! We need those holidays to gather ourselves and prepare for the next term. To recuperate and recharge. Also, there's quite a few professional developments to attend. Those short days are as long as kids can learn for, before they turn into mindless zombies. Teachers do a lot of prep before and after school, there's meetings to go to, phone calls to make, sometimes trips to other places to pick up resources.

We're still working long after the kids have gone. And you know what? We wouldn't change a thing. We do this because we love it. The only thing we ask in return is some appreciation for the effort we put into educating your kids.

Hello, online citizens!

QUESTION
Have you got internet yet?

GUESS
Making an educated guess here, and saying "yes", based on that title.

TEST
Well, I've been able to stream anime without any hiccups, I've been loading a bunch of videos, and downloading tonnes of stuff, all without a hitch... So yes, I have internet! One of the most exciting developments in my life recently, haha.

After a bunch of phone calls, and my patience being tested on several occasions, I am now back "on the line" (imaginary stickers for whoever can work out where that quote's from).

So just a quick update to say hello, I'm back, and will now hopefully be making regular posts here.

Have a great week, y'all!

Yeah, that was a bit weird to say.

Cut off from the world...

Question

Where has Dina been?

Guess

She's made another blog and abandoned it again...

Test

I've been having issues with my internet connection for the last month. For a while now, my partner and I have been living off 6gb/month, using a dongle. We've finally (took us long enough!) realised that that's not going to cut it, especially when one of us watches a lot of anime... So during our transition phase from dongle to "real" internet, we've kinda been cut off from the online world. Especially as we normally reach our quota within a week of it being reset... #firstworldproblems

You can imagine that as a teacher, that causes a few problems! And also as an avid anime watcher, there are huge problems in that department!! But hopefully we'll be back online and I can catch up with things.

I've been missing participating in Twitter chats, and seeing what my online PLN is up to. I've been missing being able to check the weather at a few taps on my phone. I most certainly miss my animated crushes *sigh*

One of my favourite arcs in this anime.

And like most teachers, I miss Googling things the night before, haha. I kid. I only do that sometimes. Like... How do you explain an exothermic reaction to 8-year olds, in language that they'll understand?

According to my ISP, I should've been online 2 days ago. But still nothing. So here I am, on Mother's Day, ignoring my mother and writing to you lot instead. 

So nyah; I did not abandon my blog. But I am also not abandoning my mother, so toodle-oo.

ClassDojo

QUESTION
What is ClassDojo?

GUESS
Well... A dojo is a Japanese word, meaning a room where one learns martial arts. Is it a martial arts class? That would be fun!

Oh, perhaps it's a place where we pit classes against each other! Nah, that sounds ridiculous.

TEST
Well, the link has led me to a site that looks nothing like a martial arts learning centre. Nor does it quite look like a place for classes to battle it out... Let's ask Dina.

***************************

What a good idea! I can most certainly tell you :) In a nutshell, ClassDojo (CD) is a classroom/behaviour management tool. And oh my goodness, it is amazeballs. Does anyone say that anymore?? I know that's the first time I've used it...

I have been using CD since I've started teaching. It's been great for motivating and keeping my students on track. I am able to go back through their history and look at comments I've made about their day at school, and points I've given.

Huh?? Comments? Points? Slow down!

Sorry. I'm not going to go through every single step, or every thing you can do, as that would take me more than a post to complete! But I will show you a quick snapshot of some things you can do.

My homescreen on ClassDojo.

 Above is a screen shot of what my homescreen looks like this year. I have got 19 classes (I teach Science across the school), and within each class, is the name of every single child that walks through my door. That's a lot of kids!

Students can earn points in any way you choose. I have set my "behaviours" as skills I'd like them to use in Science. It is totally up to you what you choose your "behaviours" to be. Then it is a matter of giving the students their points.

Our Science skills.

You have the option of adding comments with each point you award, as a way for you to record in more detail what the student did. There is also an option for writing a general comment at the end of the day/week/whenever you want.

Parents are able to sign up to see their child's account, which will show their points and comments. Students can also sign up and change their monsters (like avatars) from home.

Fun stuff! Oh, and it also has an app! Available on both iOS and Android, woohoo!

So yes, in a nutshell, that's what CD is. And I love it. I cannot imagine teaching without this tool, and the incredible amount of positive feedback from colleagues, parents, and students is a testament to how amazeballs (sorry, that'll be the last time!) it is. Once you begin, you can totally be creative with how you use it. There will certainly be many more posts about ClassDojo in the future, so be sure to keep an eye out for them!

Hi, everyone! Again...

Here I am, at another blog. I've had a few over the years, but could never stick to it. Perhaps this time will be different. Only time will tell.

This new blog has been inspired by the scientific method, in case you haven't worked that out yet. Long story short, this year, I'm teaching Science. I don't imagine all my posts will follow this structure, but I will endeavour to try make most of them do so.

So, my first question is: Why am I bothering to start a new blog?

And my guess is: Well, actually, I already know, and that's because this year, I have become a ClassDojo Ambassador, woohoo! What's ClassDojo, I hear you ask? Weeeell... Look out for my next post! Hehe.

As a result of this title being added to my name, I have been inspired to finish off my e-portfolio (started a year or two ago), and part of that involved creating a link to a blog - because I wanted to. Except my problem was that I didn't have a blog anymore... Soooo, made a blog! And here it is.

Hopefully I'll be able to connect with you guys more as time goes on. You can also find me on Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest (every teacher needs a Pinterest account!). I suppose this is now the test: whether I can keep this up or not. Pretty sure I'll be able to this time!