So I love technology and there's no denying it that kids these days really respond to it. I am also ALWAYS looking for the new 'answer to classroom management.' So when I saw class dojo I was totally excited!
Class dojo is a great FREE program that helps monitor classroom behavior. You set up each student in the system. You can even arrange them to correspond with your seating chart in the classroom. Then you can give them points based on their behavior, good and bad! They get and receive points that are instantly displayed. You can even customize what they gain or lose points for (the behaviors). However, like any technology there are positives and negatives to the program.
Positives: The program is extremely user friendly! It's very easy to set up your own class. Ted students can login at home and see their progress. Parents can login and see their student's progress. You can take attendance with the program. There are some really informative reports that you can print/show to parents. I could even see these reports being used for RTI purposes.
It is very motivating for the students to behave when the whole class sees how many points they do or don't have. There is even a cute video that you can show the kiddos that explains how the system works.
And did I mention that it was FREE?!?
Negatives: You have to project the program through the whole day. I personally have tons of other things that I need to use that technology for throughout the day. However, I could see it being very effective in the upper grades where there aren't as many technology additives.
The whole class sees how many points each other does or doesn't have. I also felt like they were just watching the class dojo screen instead of paying attention to my lesson or their center....
