ClassDojo for Teachers: Everything You Need to Know in 20 Minutes | Tech Tips for Teachers

hey everyone and welcome back to teacher fyi so in today's video i'm going to be talking about one of my absolute favorite online tools that i have used as a teacher which is class dojo it is just such a helpful tool when it comes to classroom management and building class community and keeping our students families more connected during the year if you've used it you know what i'm talking about and if you haven't i do hope you consider it because it really could make your life much much easier so since the beginning of the year class dojo has added so many amazing features and i'll be diving into how to use it the coolest features and tips to really customize it for your classroom so let's get into it all right so this video is going to be broken into four sections class dojo setup classroom management family communication and student portfolios to make your life a little bit easier i am going to be adding timestamps so that you can go to each section directly oh a quick plug if you haven't already please consider subscribing to my channel i do upload new teacher tips every week and please make sure to click that little like button so that this video can reach even more teachers now let's get into class dojo setup if you are new to class dojo it is a classroom management tool where each student is assigned their own avatar and you can reward students points for different skills and values and i'll walk you through step by step how to set that all up so the first thing you're going to do is go to that class sojo website create your teacher account with your school email and then once you're in it's time to create your class so go ahead and click add new class now give your class a name so this is where i like to put a funding for our class if you have a class mascot or a school mascot you can tie that into your name for now we'll just put teacher fyi and select your grade level right down here you can select what points you want to share with parents you can always changes in settings later i'm just going to keep it as share positive points only okay now it's time to add your students you can add each student one by one but i want to save some time so i have found it to be easier just to select import from word i have all of my students names typed out on this google doc so i'm just going to copy and paste all the students names and now they're all set with first name and last name it looks good so let's continue and save and here's our class so don't they just look adorable this is the classroom homepage where you can easily select a student to reward their points and each student is assigned their own little dojo avatar now stick around because i'm going to show you how you can customize these little monsters in a bit first let's set up some groups so if you have students in teams table groups or use a health system you can click groups and then select the students you want in each group you can give them their team name right now i'll just put number groups and click create group i'll repeat this until all of my groups are done now i can easily click on a group and reward the entire team a point so this just makes it super easy rather than going in and selecting each student one by one now if you're ready to really add that extra level of fun you can completely customize these groups with mascots or color coding when it comes to these little dojo avatars you can really have a lot of fun with it so let me show you how to edit them now i'm going to go to the top where it says options and select edit class then i'm going to select one student at a time i'll start with alexis here so i'm going to select your avatar and then i can change your avatar to another dojo monster so they also have this whole menu of other options there are critters or holiday themes here is valentine's day that might be cute for this week there are just so many options if it's a student's birthday you can change their avatar for their birthday you can also import your own avatars by scrolling to the bottom and clicking create new set this first set will probably look familiar if you are a teacher in 2021 if you know you know so let's import some crewmates from the ever so popular among us so i downloaded the crewmates into a folder on my computer so i'm going to upload those images wow just looking at these makes me so excited for my students to see them honestly doing these types of things automatically makes class dojo a win for older students so now i can save the set and i want to color code my student groups with these crewmates so now i'll edit each student's avatar to the color that goes with their group [Music] look how awesome that is i love it now i can reward points to all of these little crewmates this is what the classroom home page will look like if you are rewarding individual students points and then you can switch back to groups when needed if you have a house system you would do the same thing so i downloaded these images of the hogwarts harry potter houses and now my students have their mascot as their class avatar so for today's video i'm going to stick with the classic dojo monsters so i will switch them back to their original avatars now it's time to enter our skills which is setting up the points that we're going to be giving our students so again go up to the top click options edit class and then click skills so these are the positive point choices to reward your students and you can completely edit this to fit for your class so right now since i'm teaching remotely i would include skills that we're working on like using the chat box appropriately sharing out working as a team in breakout rooms so to do that we'll click add skill and then for now let's just write uses chat box then they have a ton of image options this one looks good click save i'll add another one this time completed assignments now for this one i want to change the point value to five points and click save now if i reward the student for completing assignments they will get five points so you can really make this about whatever skills you are working on in class with your students so if you want to set a different goal each week and change the point value to something that you are really working on with your students like cleaning up or teamwork then go for it because that's what's really going to be motivating for your kiddos now over here is the needs work if you want to take away points from your students like if they're missing an assignment or off task you can edit those skills the exact same way so let's have a little chat about that needs work button my number one tip for class dojo is to only use the positive points now hear me out i really encourage the use of positive points only to really motivate our students and encourage them in the skills that you're working on in class if we have that one little friend in our classroom that needs a lot of extra reminders that i really encourage finding alternative behavior plans strategies and really strengthening those relationships rather than taking away those points because that same little friend probably already has a harder time earning those points and so to take away any that they have earned can be really discouraging so let's use class sojo as a positive classroom tool rather than something that students can get disheartened by when looking at that point value it also makes a sad little noise when they lose a point and nobody wants that so let's build that positive classroom and back to where i was so then you can select if you want to share points with your families and you're set now you can click all those little avatars and start recording points for your new skills [Music] the last part to set up is inviting your students families so there's a few options to get them invited you can share one class link really easily or you could type out each email and it will send out an invite link or you can download parent invites where it gives them a code i usually first send out the class link and then follow up with parents that they didn't sign up yet with those parent invites which can be translated into multiple languages which is really helpful at the beginning of the year i make it my number one priority to get every single family connected on class dojo so i will send multiple emails if they are not signing up i will walk them through the steps of downloading the app on their phone and setting it up during conferences if i need to because honestly i have only heard good things from parents once they have class dojo so yes be that teacher that won't leave those parents alone until they are connected because they will love it now when it comes to rewarding your students points and classroom management i really recommend going over with your students exactly how they can earn class social points and what they are working towards i also discuss with my students that sometimes they will earn that point and sometimes they won't i don't want them to think that every single time they pick up a piece of trash that they're going to get a point because yes that's being a very helpful classmate but it's also just being a kind human and we're teaching our students how to be people in this really big world that doesn't always have extrinsic motivators so i still use a lot of positive reinforcement with language along with those class dojo points alright time to reward some points so if i click little david here i can click add posts and add a little note about how hard he was working in breakout rooms i could even attach a photo if i wanted to and that immediately gets posted on david's portfolio that we'll talk about later on [Music] now say you want to reward multiple students for the same skill select multiple down here at the bottom and select multiple students at a time if you want to give everyone a point you can click whole class point my students have always loved when they earn a class point they always cheer when that happens because they're just super proud and it's moments like that where we just really feel like family and working together you can also select multiple and then just select all students i really like this feature and it works as my alternative to taking away points i tell my class exactly what i'm looking for this is awesome to use during class assemblies or walking quietly in the hallway for example i tell them that they all have a chance to earn a point for walking quietly in the hallways and keeping our hands to ourselves and now everyone is excited to earn a point and if you see that neville and carol have the sillies and oops tony join in i'll just unselect their names and give everyone else the point i love this because it's not taking the points away from those three students it's just rewarding the students who are demonstrating that behavior then i would pull those three students aside and just remind them that i'm excited for them to earn that point next time and give them a little pep talk when first setting up class sojo definitely go over with your students exactly how they are earning those points but also exactly what they are working towards this is an awesome opportunity to decide as a class what those rewards are going to be every year you have different students which means different personalities and different interests and so rewards that motivated your class last year might not motivate your class this year have this be a conversation with your students and decide those rewards together because you want it to be something that they're actually excited about and even now virtual class rewards for example are going to look very different than rewards in the classroom there are so many great examples online of class sojo reward charts that are being used by other teachers here is the one that my students created to use this year in our online classroom filled with their virtual class rewards you will want to decide how often students are going to be able to redeem their points is it going to be every friday every month whenever they want you will want to go over that with them definitely have fun with it it's a great opportunity to build a strong class community with your students as they decide what rewards they're really working towards as a class i sometimes have a special double dojo day where students have the opportunity to earn twice as many dojo points for awesome behavior and yes you may want to use these on days leading up to breaks holidays or classroom observations but say hermione is ready to redeem her points i will click her avatar click redeem points the amount of points her reward costs and then write a little message that says what reward she chose click redeem and you're done this last piece of classroom management features i'm going to go over is the toolkit so there's a lot of great tools to use some of my favorites are the timer that i can easily project onto the screen or my computer as i share my screen during zoom calls right now the random student selector is definitely the one i use the most i also really like the group maker you can select how many students you want in each group you can also select the option to not group certain students together this always makes me laugh because only a teacher would think to add this feature into a group maker i love it now i know bruce gets a little angry when working with tony so if i don't want bruce and tony to work together i can say that in my group maker so that every time i make groups they will never be in the same group i definitely suggest exploring the toolkit to see what will be helpful for you there's also music and options to project messages and the directions onto the board now back at the classroom homepage you can also select attendance i know we need to submit attendance to our school but i do like to use the attendance option on here because if a student is gone that day and i want to reward a class point it will reward to only students who are there so that's a helpful tool using class sojo has really worked wonders for my parent involvement and communication over the years like i said earlier i really make it a priority at the beginning of the year to get every family connected especially right now with remote learning or if you're hybrid or in person there are just so many changes happening constantly that staying connected with those families and having that strong parent communication is more important than ever once they're connected i can click messages and send messages to one parent so if i went to send a message to david's mom i'll select her and send the message i can select all parents if i want to send them all the same message or select just a group of parents i really do see way more parent involvement and communication because these messages are more like having a text conversation with families without giving your personal phone number with my experience families appear to be more comfortable sending me a quick message on dojo rather than typing out a more formal email to me i love that messages are automatically translated into your family's preferred language and you can also see if a parent has read your class messages which is an added bonus class story is another great way to build community and set reminders to families and keep just everyone in the loop about what's happening in the classroom so you can insert links attach pdfs maybe if you have a newsletter you like to send out or post pictures of the class this really is like the instagram of class dojo so to set up an event you'll just click event and then let's add a title for now let's do the 100th day celebration i'll set the date and the time and then right in the description i can just add a little bit of information about the event and you can also include the zoom link or any other links that they may need and i'll change the picture and then select when i want parents to get the reminder i love using class story to celebrate student work and to add photos of our class of course right now that means a lot of screenshots of our zoom calls but it just helps us feel more connected during this time i really like to post pictures of reminders like if there's no school or if there's a spirit week coming up this is great because families can see the class story and students can too they can also like and comment on the post you can also see what parents have viewed each story which is again interesting to check to see who's staying in the loop now this next tip is super important you're going to want to thank me later for this one set up those quiet hours please don't be like me before i knew about this feature where i constantly had parent messages that i was answering in the evenings i would get them on the weekends and i would just open them up because they were just staring at me as a notification on my phone please remember that your evenings are for you take those weekends so let me show you how to set those quiet hours up to set up quiet hours you'll click your profile picture up at the top and select account settings then select mute notifications on the weekends and set up your quiet hours for weekdays then if a parent messages you during quiet hours they'll see at the top of their messages a little reminder that it's your quiet hours and you'll respond to their messages later so just to give you an idea here's what it looks like from the parent perspective when they log into their account they can set up their language messages will be translated and they're all connected with their students profile and portfolio then if a parent messages you during quiet hours they'll see at the top of their messages right up here a little reminder that it's your quiet hours and that you'll respond to their message later student portfolios have a lot to offer and it's a really great way to share your students work with their families you can also create activities and import worksheets that you want your students to complete any work that's completed in the portfolio you have to approve it as the teacher and then their parents are able to see it i personally really like to use student portfolios this year more as fun challenges to build classroom community so every week we will have a photo challenge or a stem challenge or a drawing challenge where students can import a photo of that into their portfolio and then i just put a little slideshow together to share on class story to add an activity you will just click create activity select what type of activity it is write the directions and then assign it to the class zoom portfolios are a great way to share work with their families so that they can also like and comment and see what their students are doing in the classroom so for students to log in there are a couple options depending if they're at home or in the classroom so if they're in the classroom they can enter the class code and select their name and if they're at home you can send the invites directly to their families so this is what the student profile looks like once they log in they can see their avatar class story they can like and comment on their posts again it's like a little instagram for them they can also see how many points they have right here in the green circle and then up here they can click their portfolio and complete activities that they're assigned or add in their own work then right down here they can view their report and see what points they've earned that week which can be really motivating for them thank you so much for watching class dojo is such a great way to stay connected with families and to build that positive classroom with your students i hope you found this video helpful if you did just a quick reminder to click that thumbs up button please consider subscribing for all my newest teacher tips and i hope to see you again next week you

Channel: TeacherFYI

Views: 103,939

Keywords: teacher fyi, teacherfyi, distance learning, remote learning, new teacher ideas, teacher tips, virtual school, teacher technology, online collaboration, virtual classroom, teaching tips, elementary school, edtech, education technlogy, remote teaching, technology for teachers, class dojo, classdojo for teachers, how do I use classdojo?, classdojo

Id: 3oOy5zwsWjo

Length: 20min 11sec (1211 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 15 2021