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.