Class Dojo: An Interactive and Fun Way to Monitor and Reinforce Behavior

Ask almost any teacher what their primary growth area is, and in what area they primarily have issues in, and if they're being honest, they'll most likely say behavior. How do you handle 21-35 kids all at the same time? It's not easy. It's not easy to deal with negative behaviors in a constructive way,

and it's really not easy to notice those students who are doing the right thing, and reinforce the positives. I'll admit, I've struggled with it over the years, and have tried multiple approaches to behavior management.

I feel as if I've been successful, but there's always room for growth. For the last few years, my school has been using the clip chart system of behavior monitoring and reinforcement. It's a simple concept, students start everyday at the green "ready to learn" spot, and can be moved up for positive behavior, and down for negatives.

There are consequences plainly spelled out for moving down, and the teacher can have different rewards for moving up (the graphic shows what this looks like).

I am fully on board for using the clip chart, and have found success with it, even in the 5th grade. BUT, there's always room for growth. I've also noticed from observation that many teachers don't properly utilize (or utilize at all) the clip chart, and this lack of follow through can create issues in a school, where everyone should be using the same method.

OK, anyways, that's not really what I wanted to get in to today. I wanted to show you a great behavior management system that's online, is easy to use, and is just all around fun. And yes, you can use it on a computer or a tablet.

Class Dojo is a neat behavior management software that you can project in your classroom, using a computer, an iPad/iPod/iPod Touch, an Android smartphone, and any other tablet you can imagine (more or less).

Each student has their own avatar, and by clicking on it, you can assign points or remove points. All of this is tracked, and you can view data at the end of each day showing how students are doing. This is easily readable and can be shared with parents either by printing it, or by having parents sign up for their own parent account to view their child's behavior.

I find Class Dojo to be interesting in that it's so transparent. You simply project it, assign points, and students get immediate feedback. It's also a great way of staying accountable (I know that's hard sometimes).

I've used a behavior notebook in the past, logging times I've had to discipline children, just for administrative purposes. Class Dojo takes care of that by keeping all the data together for each child.

Now, I know what you're asking. Yes, it's completely free, at least for right now. So go ahead and sign up, and get to using it. It's very user friendly, and there are tutorials if you're ever confused.

Finally, I'm embedding a few videos to get you started if you're interested in seeing more before you sign up:

Class Dojo Tutorial Video (11 minutes)

Using Class Dojo (4 minutes)

Back To It and Some Great Teacher Oriented Android Apps

Today was the first day back to school for the kids. It was a nice, much needed break. Obviously I took a break from both work and my blogging, I just needed that time away from it all, and it was well worth it. I'm feeling refreshed and ready for another full semester.

I currently have a lot of little projects I'm working on. I will begin posting them as I complete them. I have so many different things going on now, from work stations to videos to units to webquests, that I won't even begin to list them here.

I've been pleasantly surprised with the steadily increasing readership of this blog, and will continue to keep it going.

Today, I wanted to share the educational apps I have on my phones. I get all of my apps from the Google Play Store (Android OS App Store), and the ones that are listed here are free apps.

My phone runs Android ics (Ice Cream Sandwich), which has so far been my favorite of the Android Operating Systems. I love that you can group apps on your home screen, similar to what Apple does with its apps. I have a group of apps I call Education apps, and they include a few calculators, and some other great tools. Let's take a quick run down of these tools that I use.

First, there are three calculators. The first one is the stock calculator. Secondly, the white icon is a great calculator that has a history function, and is called Seven+WP7 Calculator. Finally, there's a sales tax calculator that I use both when running errands and in class when teaching about the concept of tax (which isn't often, but I put it here anyways).

Next up, there is a great app called simply Common Core (if you search common core, it's the first result). I love this tool, it allows you to search through the CCSS. This has saved me a lot of time when I'm planning on the go, and I recommend it to any teacher who is under CCSS.

On to the second column, with Handcent SMS. I use the stock text messaging app for most of my texting, but what makes Handcent great is the ability to send bulk SMS messages. You see, Android only allows 10 messages to be sent at a time. This is inconvenient if you send daily text messages to your parents as I do. I want to send the same message (a daily run down of homework, things due, important dates, etc.) to 32 people. Well Handcent lets you do just that. This app has saved me a lot of time!

Next up is Goodreads. I love to read, and have a Goodreads profile. It's social networking for your books. This app is great, I can update my status, do reviews, and find new books all from the app.

Next is Embiggen. It's a simple concept: type something in, and embiggen makes it as large as your entire screen. It's a lot of fun to be able to send a quick message to students with the phone. They get a kick out of it for some reason.

The Boosed Grader app is something I've posted about before HERE, it is an EZ Grader app for your phone.

In the last column is BeyondPod, which is a podcast service (I have the paid one, but there is a free one available), and finally TED. TED lists hundreds of the TED talk videos, which are AWESOME.

So there you have it, a quick listing of some great apps for your Droid.