Class DoJo

I just looked it up and "DoJo" refers to a martial arts training place. What that has to do with this website--ClassDoJo.com, I'm not sure. I gather the reference is to teaching in a disciplined environment, which is the goal of ClassDoJo. DoJo is a classroom management tool which is free, easy to use, might work well with your current style, or might transform your class (as seems to have been the case in a number of the testimonials given at the DoJo site).

 

Speaking of testimonials, here is what Matt Gillis, the music teacher CES/CHS has to say about Class DoJo:

As a teacher who grades based on participation, I find Class Dojo a very handy tool to make quick assessments. Since it's customizable, I can change behavior assessments to something more appropriate for my class. I just leave the page open and make note of what I see without losing valuable teaching time.

 We all want to monitor student behavior, the trouble is documentation. I know who misbehaves and who is an exemplary student, however, actually tracking and documenting student behavior can be so much of a bother that it tends to be overlooked. Class DoJo can simplify this task. I've seen many a teacher use the chalk board to put slashes by student names to note positive or negative behaviors. DoJo is an online program designed to advance that practice into the technological age. Each student has an avatar (you know, a little symbol) with their name on it. If these are projected on a SMART Board, one simply has to click on the student’s avatar and a window pops up with a list of positive and negative behaviors, i.e. "talking out of turn", which can be clicked on and recorded. The settings can be adjusted so that the avatars display 1) only the student's name, 2) the name and the total of both the positive and negative points, or 3) a cumulative total of the positive and negative points added together.

 

At the end of the class period the teacher simply closes the class and the site keeps track of all of the points accumulated for each student that day. DoJo can be set to automatically send out emails to parents each week with a graphically appealing report on each individual student.

 

Whoever designed this program really put some thought into making it as simple as possible to use. For example you don't have to wait for a verification email once you sign up for an account. You don't have to enter each parent's email address (the parents go to Class DoJo and enter the code you give them, then their email address is automatically registered). You don't have to send out emails to the parent, the program does it automatically. You don't have to spend a lot of time learning the program, I simply experimented with it for a few minutes, but you can view a two minute tutorial to learn it as well.

 

There are some features of this program that the students might actually like. Students can go to the site, type in a code, and view graphical report on their behavior - it helps them to specifically see what their strengths are and where they can improve.   When they sign up, students can design their own avatar. One middle school teacher described how one class wanted to see the class report on one of her other classes, when she showed it to them she had an epiphany. She challenged her classes to have a DoJo war with her other classes, classes earned rewards for being the best class in specific areas. Her students seem to have responded with enthusiasm and they were somewhat excited about tracking their own improvement.

 

One reviewer seems to be appalled by the idea of using the projector to display student totals. However, he still recommends the program. He recommends it just because it does such a good job of streamlining the tracking of student behavior for the teacher's records. To read his review click here.

 

Before closing, let me note that there are both Apple and Android apps for DoJo which allow you to track behavior from your mobile device.  Finally, to get a better idea of how DoJo looks, her is the video which can beused to introduce it to students

 

Text Messaging Your Students!

There.  That title should get your attention.  In my last post I promised to review ClassParrot, however, I’m going to break my promise.  ClassParrot couldn’t find a business model that worked and went out of business.  But, their idea was that teachers could increase communication with students and parents through safe and secure texting and I believe they are right on the money about that—well maybe not “money”—how about they were on the “mark”.  ClassParrot would give teachers a certain number of text messages per month, for free, and then charge teachers who wanted unlimited texting.  Perhaps that didn’t work for them because a number of other sites are willing to provide unlimited texting for free.  So, allow me to review three of those sites instead.  Even after going out of business, the ClassParrot site still provides this bit of information—only 22% of Emails get opened, whereas 98% of text messages get opened—now which would you say is a better way to reach students?

 

Here is a quote from a blog by Anna Otto (which you can read in its entirety here):

There are several web-based texting sites that allow you to text students while avoiding the legal risk of exchanging personal contact information with them. You won’t know your students’ cell phone numbers, and they won’t know yours. All of these types of sites let you send messages through their website, some also let you text straight from your phone. They’re great if you’d like to help students remember to study for an upcoming test, remind them to bring in certain supplies, let them know about date and time changes for club/athletic events, and more!

 

Not only am I too cheap to have a smart phone, but, believe it or not, I have texting blocked on my feature phone—I mean I am really a skin flint.  So, perhaps I’m not the best one to be doing this review.  But, here goes….

 

Celly (http://cel.ly/) – as in cell — a cell could be your first block Biology Class, the athletes on a football team, a study group, or the kids going on a particular field trip.  Celly seems to be a wonderful vehicle for organizing protests—it has been used a lot by the occupy Wall Street movement.  I’m not sure how it works or looks on a phone, but, if students go to the Celly website they’ll find they have opportunity to open their own cells or to join up or drop in on hundreds of other cells—not just Occupy Wall Street, but lots of Occupy sites seem  to show up.  This makes the point that you can set up as many cells (or classes) as you like.  You can join Celly and set up cells either on your computer or on your phone—oh, they also have an Android App (no iPad app at this point.)  The easiest way to have students join your cell is to have them send the text “join” to the group and enter the correct code.  You can set up cells: 1) that anyone can join, or 2) anyone who provides a description of themselves of which you approve, or 3) only those who know the password can join.   Once they are in, you do not see their phone number and they do not see yours. 

 

You can then send out group texts from your computer for free.  On your phone, standard text messaging rates apply—but a group text counts as just one text. 

 

Being the cell administrator gives you several options.  You can set things up so:  1) you can text the students but, they cannot reply, or 2) so that they can reply, or 3) so that students also may send out texts to the whole group, or 4) so that students can send out texts “curated” by you to the whole group (meaning if it makes it past your one teacher censorship board it is sent to the group – similar to moderating a blog).  If a student replies to a text with a question, the teacher can then answer that question privately.   Standard messaging rates apply for the students, so you might want to get parental permission for this one.  For those students who may be as frugal as I am and therefore, don’t have texting, replies can also be made through Email. 

 

Of the sites I’m reviewing today, this is the only one where a student can respond to a multiple choice poll and have the answers appear on your website—to be projected on a screen—no, wait, we can’t do that in school—but, the capacity is there.   To assure that your students get plenty of sleep you can shut down the reply capability every night at bedtime.  Celly also allows you to add “hashtags” to texts so that they can be easily filtered and sorted.  Finally, with Celly you can create messages and schedule them to be sent later.

 

Remind 101 (https://www.remind101.com/).  This site is supposed to be the elegantly simple one, and in many ways it is.  You add a class and it creates joining instructions in PDF format which can immediately be printed and distributed.  However, I tried to join a group I created via Email (to see how it worked) and Thunderbird told me my message was not deliverable.   Furthermore, when I tried to schedule a message to be delivered later—something didn’t pop up on my screen allowing me to do so.   To sign up via Email, one needs an Email address.  Remind 101 does have an iPhone/iPad app.

 

Class Pager (https://www.classpager.com/) – this looks and acts a lot like Remind 101—I don’t know which came first, but, one of them obviously viewed the other’s site.  The advantages of Class Pager over Remind—you can set up polls (but not multiple choice ones) and you can respond to students individually.  The disadvantages are that you can only set up one class for free—their business model charges $10/month per additional class and students can’t join via Email—they must have texting to join.

 

In conclusion, if I were to select one of them, it would be Celly.  I’ll grant you it is not as simple to use as the others; however, it seems to work best with my machine, with our filters, and with my restrictions (no Smart phone, etc.)  Now, would I really use it in a classroom?  As a coach or sponsor of an extracurricular activity, I’d definitely use it—after clearing it with my principal first.  As a classroom teacher, I think I’d give it a try, restrict its use to very limited occasions, and see how the students and parents react.  If communication with parents and students is key to classroom success, how can it hurt to try it out?

Fun, Quick Technology Projects from BigHugeLabs

A teacher at NHS showed this to me, and it is worth passing along.  BigHugeLabs has a wealth of tools available that could be used to help teachers create fun technology projects with their kids.  How about having students create a magazine cover summarizing their last Science unit?  Or maybe they could make up "trading cards" for famous Virginians.  There are tools to create lolcats and motivator posters, as well as jigsaw puzzles and movie posters.  Here is a quick Trading Card that I made just for this blog post:

Of course, anything can be added at the bottom of the card. There are many tools available on the BigHugeLabs website.  Take a look, and do something inspiring with your students!

http://bighugelabs.com/

Notebook 11 Review, part three

This will be the final installment on this series of three posts reviewing SMART Notebook 11

Today’s discussion is about some of the features that, strictly speaking, are not part of Notebook 11, rather, they are part of the “gallery” of images and objects which supplement the Notebook.

Gallery 2.0 Beta – Along with Notebook 11 you can download the Gallery 2.0 Beta version.  This gallery has a number of sort filters not available in the “classic” gallery—you can filter by manipulatives, sounds, 3D objects, widgets, pages, etc.  The other big advantage I see is that more attention seems to have been paid to explaining HOW some of the tools can be used.  For example, they have samples of activities which utilize layering to make things appear or disappear.  On the sample page they may include directions on how the page was built, or a link to an online video demonstrating how it was built—that is a big help.  It is certainly a lot easier than trying to figure out how to create these things on your own.

 In reviewing the new gallery, I also learned that in the Lesson Activity Toolkit, one can click on “examples” and then “help”, to find links to online videos and documents on how to use the tools in the Toolkit.  Again, this is a big help.  I remember spending what seemed like hours trying to figure out how to use the balloon pop activity.  The Toolkit is a wonderful supplement to Notebook and one which has been under-utilized in the past—these instructions make it easier for you to create interactive activities which will engage your students. 

3D Objects – While preparing this review I experimented with a number of 3D objects which could be spun around and viewed from all angles (think Google Earth).  However, to use this feature you must enable an Add-On which is only good for 30 days (unless you purchase it).  Too bad, because there are additional models available from the SMART Exchange and from the Google Warehouse.  You can also build your own models if you have the proper software.

 

A couple more quick comments and then we'll be done with SMART stuff for a while.  You can add and remove tools to the toolbar by clicking on the little wheel with the cogs over on the right.  This opens a window showing all the actions and tools available to you.   From that window you can simply drag icons on to or off of the toolbar.

 

Go to exchange

transparent background
 

Here are two buttons which can appear on the toolbar, and to which you may have paid no attention in the past.

 One of the icons takes you to the SMART Exchange--a site where you can search through teacher created SMART Notebook lessons for one which suites you. 

The second one makes the background of the Notebook page transparent, so that whatever you have on the page--things you've added with the pen, graphics, whatever, appear directly on your desktop, or some other window which is open on your computer.   This can also be done by clicking on the "view" tab and then selecting "transparent background." 

Well, thanks for reading this.  Next time I'd like to introduce you to a tool known as "class parrot"--sound interesting?



 

 

 

SMART Notebook 11 Review, part two

As promised in my last post, here is a brief word on some of the minor changes sound in SMART Notebook 11.  For a discussion of the major changes, go back and read my last post.

Before mentioning these changes, let me comment on one other issue that may crop up as you begin to use the SMART software with your Windows 7 computer.  I have found that using the SMARTBoard often triggers the Windows 7 software that is intended for use when Windows 7 is installed in a touch screen capable computer.  That is to say, on onscreen keyboard appears and can become quite an annoyance.  If you’ve seen this keyboard, find it as annoying as I do, and want to get rid of it, let your

friendly ITRT know and we can get rid of it forever.  

Now, on to the minor changes in the new Notebook software.

On the menu bar, you’ll find a couple of new options under “insert”.  One is an Internet browser—you can now browse the Internet without leaving SMART Notebook.  If you are used to the toolbars on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc. you may not want to use the SMART Browser.  But, I think it is worth the adjustment to be able to click on the next Notebook page and have a website instantly appear with all of its functionality.  It took me a minute to figure out how to close the browser, but the thought is that you won’t close it, you’ll just go on to the next Notebook page.

By clicking on the “pen” tool, a drop down menu appears which now offers a crayon—I’m sure some of the elementary students will enjoy coloring or drawing with—probably some of the older students too if they are given that chance. 

SMART tells us that the “fill” tools have become easier to use and will now fill any closed object.  I’ll admit that I’ve sometimes had a problem with the fill tool in the past, I can’t honestly say that all those problems have been corrected—I still had a hard time getting it to fill some of the objects I tried to use it with.

Other minor changes:

·         Grouping objects can now be done with fewer clicks.

·         You can now select any object to become the pattern in a “creative pen” –which could come in handy, but is certainly not anything critical.

·         Formatting tables and the fonts within table has been made easier. 

A couple of final notes:  First, you’ll be glad to learn that all of these new features are explained in a notebook file which opens when upon your initial use of Notebook 11.  After that it can be accessed from help menu.  Finally, the non-notebook tools have changed,   “Smart Aware” has become “Smart Ink”.  Perhaps I’ll review that in some future post.

Speaking for all the ITRTs, just let us know if you still have Notebook 10 and you’d like us to come around and install Notebook  11 for you—or download and install it yourself by clicking here.  Also, let us know if you’d like some help becoming familiar with any of its features.

I intend to do one final post on Notebook 11—a post in which I discuss the new gallery, and the 3D objects.  See you then.