What Is the Main Use of ClassDojo?

ClassDojo is an app directed toward teachers, parents, and students. It is a social media-like platform that connects the three target groups, improves classroom behavior, and helps build the students’ character. It facilitates communication, behavior improvement, and proper grading.

So, how does ClassDojo work? What is its main goal? As a teacher who wants to improve in-class communication and relationships with parents, you’ll find ClassDojo extremely convenient.

Here are some of the elementary aspects of this brilliant app.

What Is ClassDojo’s Main Use?

ClassDojo’s main use is encouraging positive behavior in students. To achieve this, ClassDojo incites teachers and parents to communicate with each other more frequently. That’s an essential aspect of any child’s development route and the main goal of the platform.

ClassDojo doesn’t strictly focus on classroom management, although it does bring more than a few benefits in this respect to the table. It’s more about building healthy classroom culture, turning the classroom into a positive environment that facilitates growth and prosperity.

ClassDojo doesn’t discriminate. It is available on computers, smartphones, and tablets. Plus, you can use it on projectors and interactive whiteboards.

The Three Target Groups

There are three primary target groups in ClassDojo: teachers, parents, and students. Each group benefits from the platform, in the short-term, as well as in the long-run. However, depending on which group we’re talking about, ClassDojo benefits can differ.

Teachers

Promoting positive classroom behavior and strengthening school-to-home communication is the essence of ClassDojo. ClassDojo resorts to the Dojo Point system to improve classroom behavior. The app also features a messaging system for teachers and parents to strengthen communication between them.

Several teacher resources are available, such as tutorials that help the teacher learn the basics of ClassDojo. You also get back-to-school night presentations, parent letters, as well as video tutorials that you can send to the other two target groups.

To set up the teacher profile, go to the official ClassDojo website. You’ll be prompted to name the class and assign a grade level. You’ll also get to come up with class values. By default, ClassDojo offers six positive class values. These are: Helping others, Participating, On task, Perseverance, Working hard, and Teamwork.

On the other side of the spectrum, you have five pre-existing “needs work” class values: Disrespect, Off task, No homework, Talking out of turn, Unprepared. Of course, as mentioned earlier, these values are entirely customizable. As a teacher, you can select any of these or come up with an entirely new set and use it instead. Or, you can combine the pre-existing values and your custom ones. As you can see, classroom creation is entirely up to you.

These class values are crucial, as they are used to assign Dojo Points. For instance, a student can earn three points for perseverance and lose them for being disrespectful.

One of the fun perks of ClassDojo is that each student can be assigned a unique Dojo monster. This monster will appear on the student’s ClassDojo personal page.

If the teachers want to simulate an open class, they can invite parents to join their ClassDojo classroom. They’ll send an email or a text message that contains the unique access code to access their student’s profile.

There are three main areas on ClassDojo’s teacher page: Classroom, Class Story, and Messages. The first tab helps you track class points, student points, as well as create reports. From the Class Story tab, the teacher can post messages and photos that will update the parents on the goings-on inside the classroom. Finally, the Messages tab allows the teacher to communicate with the parents. Teachers can send messages in the email form, or as in-app texts.

Parents

Parents are the spectators in ClassDojo. They can create their profiles and access their pages, but they only see the information that is relevant to them as parents. They can also access their kids’ behavior information.

Parents can see their child’s behavior graph that breaks down their kid’s performance in this section into sub-categories. Parents can access the Class Story, Messages, Notification, and Your Kids tabs. Parents can also send messages to the teacher.

Students

The students can see their Dojo Points and their progress breakdown. As mentioned, they are assigned their Class Dojo monster, which personalizes the entire experience.

An important thing to take into account is that the students can’t compare their Dojo Points to those of other students. That’s important because the bad-spirited competition is never encouraged.

The students can be in multiple classrooms. Most importantly, however, ClassDojo provides students with many useful and information-rich resources. ClassDojo also features lessons about qualities that often don’t get emphasized in regular classrooms, things like perseverance and teamwork.

Security

Making sure that the children are safe online is one of the foremost modern security goals. Of course, ClassDojo is committed to privacy and safety. The platform clearly states the information that it receives from the users and how it will use this information.

Detailed instructions are available regarding how to change and delete personal information. After a year of inactivity, every ClassDojo account gets deleted.

Pricing

You’ll be happy to know that both ClassDojo’s website and the Android and iOS apps are free for every target group. You won’t have to pay a dime, whether you’re a teacher, an admin, a parent, or a student.

ClassDojo’s Main Use

ClassDojo’s primary use is education and online assistance in the upbringing of children. It is a fully-functional platform that helps inspire children, makes the teachers’ jobs easier, and allows parents the insight into their children’s educational lives.

Have you ever used ClassDojo? Are you a teacher, a parent, or a student? Feel free to join the discussion in the comments below and discuss ClassDojo, regardless of your age.