New Technologies

In my current position, while I am surrounded by psychologists, counselors, and mental health workers, I am the only teacher in the house. So, for this assignment, I reached out via email to teachers that I know from all over the country. It was interesting to me, that many responses that I received listed software tools such as Keynote, or iMovie as new technologies that they were using. Teachers in my previous district have required every students to have an iPad, and similarly, when I asked about Web2.0 tools, they responded with apps that operated more as software, meaning that they often lacked the creation, share-ability, edit-ability, collaborative qualities that I associate with Web 2.0.

Two of my former Project Based Learning classmates and partners responded too. One mentioned using GlogsterEdu and GoogleEarth with his 3rd graders. I use GlogsterEdu and GoogleEarth regularly with my students, so when one of my other partners responded about using something called ClassDojo, I thought that I would take a look.

My former partner J.D. said that he was using ClassDojo for behavior management. ClassDojo allows teachers to track positive and negative behaviors in the classroom for classes or individual students. He decided to look into using this tool, because he thought that it would appeal to the elementary and early middle school age-group, and because it could be used on different devices such as iPad, iPhone, android, computer, or any device with internet access. Promoting positive behaviors, while diminishing undesirable behaviors, helps to create an environment that is open to learning.

J.D. said that the only obstacle to using this web-based behavior management tool, has been deciding which device to use to track behaviors. Since it can be used on so many different devices, this seemed more like a plus, or an individual classroom issue, not a real problem. Naturally, I wanted to see how ClassDojo actually worked, and how the device issue might be a problem in the classroom. I created a free teacher account on my home computer, created my class, added positive behaviors to promote, and negative behaviors to lessen, and the next day, I logged in to my new account from my classroom computer. I also downloaded the app to my iPhone, and asked both classroom aides if they would mind adding the app to their individual phones. They both gave it a try. One has an Android and one has some other kind of smartphone with Internet access. For the last two days we have used all devices with the same login and have been giving both positive clicks and negative, as necessary, for observed behaviors. In our small, self-contained setting, devices did not seem to be an issue since they all fed into the same daily report. Whenever one of us gave the students a positive click, a chime could be heard in the classroom, and whenever a negative click was issued there was a resounding gong. Periodically, I showed the totals on the SmartBoard, and also allowed students to check-in with me privately to review their results as they requested throughout the day. While the tool did pique student interest, it did not seem to alter their behavior tremendously during the two-day trial, but it does seem like an excellent way to track behaviors, produce reports, and even share those reports with others.

The advice my old partner J.D. gave, was to be sure to have a clear goal on how you would want to use the data. He said that he started using the program too close to parent-teacher conferences for the data to be useful for him. I am in a different setting, however. I have to give reports on behavior everyday for logs, and weekly for wraparound meetings with the family, psychiatrist, psychologist, and state agencies. I need a little more time with ClassDojo, but I think that since the kids seem interested, that I would like to see them try to improve their overall percentages of positive to negative clicks. The tool gives this data, and rather than reward a student for having the best behavior, I think that I would rather work out some sort of incentive for improving individual week to week behavior by something like 10% of baseline. We’ll see how it goes. Thanks to J.D. for sharing this innovative new webtool.