Behavior Management: Class Dojo update

I know that a lot of you asked me to do an update on how my Class Dojo classroom management system was going. I saw this linky party and thought it would be a great opportunity to give you all an updated review of Class Dojo and how it works in my classroom. To read the original post, click {here}.

ClassDojo is a free website found {here} at www.classdojo.com that you can join as a teacher. You just input all of your students and then each student has an avatar. Then as the teacher you can assign points to teach student or take away points. Every time you give or take away points, you tell the system why. For example, if little Suzy is being super creative, you could give her a point for creativity. If Johnny is talking out of turn, you can take away a point for disruption.

After a month of using ClassDojo, these are some of my favorite things:

1. I can use this app wirelessly on my ipad or iphone. When I am sitting at my guided reading table with a group, I can add or subtract points from certain students. The program makes a sound for a positive point and another sound for a negative point. The negative sound scares the kiddos so much! It snaps them all right back to working. I don't take away points very often, but it has to be done! When I give or take away a point, the student's name, +1 or -1 and the reasoning shows up on the Smart Board if the website is displayed

2. There is now an app for ClassDojo! Before you would add the website to your homepage, basically making a bookmark. Now there is an app for FREE in the app store. Just search "ClassDojo."

3. Did I mention it was free?!! FREE, PEOPLE! You don't even have to print anything. No laminating required. And the kids just l-o-v-e it.

4. For any parent conferences, I can print out a "report" that I run off of ClassDojo that breaks down the points each student receives or loses. It would look like this:

Student Report from ClassDojo

5. You can have multiple classes. This is great for middle school or high school teachers. For me, I teach a different class for math class, so it's great to be able to have a separate "class" with a different roster to implement this classroom management plan.

Example of the main screen on ClassDojo. Just click a student to add or subtract a point from their total!

How I use ClassDojo in the classroom:

• ClassDojo is displayed on my Smart Board most of the day (as long as we're not doing something else on the Smart Board and then even then it is minimized.
• Once students get 30 points, they can change their avatar. I even added some cute clipart for the kiddos to use as avatars but the provided monsters and critters for avatars are beyond cute!
• I keep the sound on. I saw some people turned the sound off, but I like the sound.
• You can use this program with or without a Smart Board (or any interactive white board). Just display it on a computer screen, ipad or iphone for students to check periodically.
• At the end of the month, I give students tickets for the amount of points they've maintained and they put these tickets into a raffle. Last year I didn't use Class Dojo, but I did a system where the students with the most points won a prize and then it was the same 3 students over and over again. With the raffle, even if a student only gets 1 point the whole month, they could win a prize!
• I had a substitute yesterday. I wrote all the students names on the white board and she tallied up points for them and then I added them to the students' totals when I returned because I didn't want to give the sub my password, but that is completely up to you. You could have a generic password so that subs could log in. But overall, it's a super easy system for substitutes to understand. Just a simple point system. Can't get any less complicated than that!

I am seriously IN LOVE with this program. I am so happy that I discovered it through pinterest. It is such an easy way to manage my classroom. Just go try it out on their website now. They have a pretend roster set up so that you can start playing with the site immediately. You won't be disappointed!