ClassDojo integrates electronic whiteboards with behaviour management

ClassDojo is a new, real-time behaviour management software developed for free teacher use. A five minute You Tube video demonstrates how to use the software. Teachers create an account and students create avatars of themselves. Throughout the day, teachers can award points for positive behaviors or take them away for bad ones; teachers can edit the behaviors to suit their needs. Individual student and entire class reports are available to download or email. Statistics can be reset at any given point. The ClassDojo platform can be projected on a screen or displayed on an electronic whiteboard.

A Huffington Post article on the software from February, 2012 includes perspectives from the softwares’ creators, Liam Don and Sam Chaudray. They name several pros of the software from accessibility for teachers of all ages, the choice of teachers within the software to display good or bad behavior instead of just one, and a focus on pupil’s personal development.

A post in Mark Cunningham’s education blog from January of this year agrees with the creator’s viewpoints. Not only does he name and agree with the points made by the creators in the Huffington Post article from February, but goes on to say that the software encourages interactive, peer-to-peer feedback, specifically  when incorporated with an electronic whiteboard. When ClassDojo and electronic whiteboards are used together, students can award points to their peers for success in a task or being helpful, for instance.

Süleyman Nihat Sad’s and Ugur Özhan’s May, 2012 article “Honeymoon with IWBs: A qualitative insight in primary students’ views on instruction with interactive whiteboard” examines how students perceived whiteboard use in primary classrooms in Turkey. Their findings reveal both positive and negative perspectives from students. They enjoyed the practical, interactive, and novel aspects, but disliked the disruptions which arise from power outage, poor color settings, and viruses (2012). The researchers further found in their study that projects and electronic whiteboards rated equally in the metric of interactivity, which they concluded implied electronic whiteboards were not used to their fullest potential (2012).

Besides the possibility that electronic whiteboards are not being used to their fullest potential, another downside of this software is that it requires a device, whether it be a smartphone, laptop, or tablet. No problem for teachers in technology-supporting areas, but this is not a viable tool for those without technology in their classrooms. An October article in Mind/Shift remarks that one teacher consulted about the software had not been able to use it since it requires a device, which is unavailable in his classroom.

References
Sad, S.N., & Özhan, S. (2012). Honeymoon with IWBs: A qualitative insight in primary students’ views on instruction with interactive whiteboard. Computers and Education, 59(4), 1184-1191.

Source links:
http://www.classdojo.com/
http://youtu.be/b5uihmPlbvA
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/02/16/class-dojo-teachers-answer-making-pupils-behave_n_1281462.html
http://www.cunniman.net/?p=1120
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/10/what-works-in-tech-tools-spotlight-on-classdojo/