More on Class Dojo

I know I have blogged about Class Dojo already, but I absolutely love their program. Recently they have done something that my students have been begging for without me even writing to Class Dojo, STUDENT ACCOUNTS!!! After a week of using class dojo in the classroom, my students were asking if there was any possible way for them to access their points at home. A few months later, their wish has come true and now every child in my class can access their weekly points and see why they have earned points. Another awesome feature is the ability to change their avatar, which has definitely become a huge hit. Student avatars seem to be changing on a daily basis.

With a 1:1 iPad classroom, it was easy to get the student accounts started. Thankfully, everyday my students are becoming more and more tech savvy. I went through the basics of how to get them started and for the most part they were able to set up their own student accounts. Way to go fourth graders! I had a couple students who had some difficulty, but I have learned a little comment that makes life so much better in a 1:1 iPad classroom. "Yes, I will help you, but you are going to have to wait a few minutes." Within a couple minutes, I start hearing, "Never mind I figured it out." Before people start thinking I am a mean teacher, my goal of making the students wait is to see if they will attempt to figure out how to solve their problem on their own. I find that with certain students in my class, they will automatically try to figure out how to do something on the iPad without my encouragement, but there are a few students who will not attempt trying something new on their own and causing them to wait will encourage them to try, especially when other students are commenting on what they are currently doing. I'm not looking for my students to be able to do everything on their own, but I am looking for them to try.

I think I have gotten a little ahead of myself, so let me rewind here rwrwrwrwrwrw. Just in case you didn't know rwrwrwrwrw means rewind. One of my students used this in her journal today, entertaining, YES! When I introduced student accounts to the class, I told the students I had exciting news for Class Dojo. Before I continue, you should know that my class has mixed feelings about Class Dojo. The students who always wear the correct uniform, have their homework done, get their assignments completed on time and follow classroom rules love Class Dojo. The ones that have some difficulty throughout the day are not big fans, because it forces them to be good students! Now you understand why I love Class Dojo! But when I announced student accounts, all the students were excited.

The first day with student accounts did not work out as well as I had planned. I currently project www.classdojo.com onto the Activboard and use the mobile.classdojo.com site on the iPad to give and remove points quickly anywhere in the classroom. Unfortunately, there was a small glitch in the system yesterday and students could not see their points on their iPads using their personal accounts. Although I will say, the fact that the children could design their own avatar by changing their monsters body design and color was enough to make them happy.

Today I tried a different approach for Class Dojo. I used the Class Dojo app that isn't available yet in the app store, but hopefully will be soon. The app is very similar to the mobile site but makes it easier to see all your positive and negative behaviors because they fill up the entire screen. Today the children were able to see the points they were receiving throughout the day without me projecting Class Dojo. This is great because there are times that I need to project something related to what we are covering in class and students cannot see their Dojo points. Usually, when this happens students get a little antsy and will start requesting me to show their points, now they can see their points on their own iPad without me having to stop a program that we are currently using with Activboard. For example, today I was using Poll Everywhere and it was easy for students to submit their answer and then view their student account on Class Dojo if they wanted to monitor their points. This usually happens when they hear the positive or negative sound chime in the speakers. They want to know if they were the one to earn or lose a point.

I must say that since the start of student accounts, Class Dojo has been awesome for help. When I mentioned wanting to start the student accounts they responded telling me to let them know if I need any help. Yesterday, I replied mentioning the fact that the children could not see their points. They apologized and explained that they were having some server issues and that they are working on it. For a free program, Class Dojo really goes above and beyond.

Follow Class Dojo on twitter @classdojo.

QR Codes

I have never thought about using QR Codes in the classroom until I attended a conference in Baltimore. Of course, I sat there thinking, "Why didn't I think of this?" I tend to have a go-getter personality, so I sat at this conference contemplating how I was going to use QR Codes in my classroom. Since then, I have developed a QR Code job chart for next school year and how students could use them for getting the homework. Currently, students are testing, which means no homework this week, so we aren't able to test out the QR Codes for homework, yet.

However, next week my class is performing a play for the school, Red Writing Hood. It is a cute fractured fairytale play, that incorporates many of the fairytales and nursery rhymes all in one play. The children all have a part in the play and had to memorize their lines. Wanting to make this small 20 minute play seem like the real deal, today we worked on autobiographies to post on the bulletin board in the hallway. But instead of posting the actual autobiography, I taught the students how to create a QR Code that we will post by their picture and part.

At first the students, were a little puzzled as to if this would actually work. So, I created a demo QR Code using http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ to link to our school website. I projected this code onto the Activboard took out my iPad and scanned the code. Some of the students were a bit questionable as to if this would actually work, could the iPad really scan off the Activboard? Within a couple seconds, everyone was viewing the school website off of my iPad. Hooray, I had won the students over on creating their own QR Code.

The students worked eagerly to write their rough draft, which I approved for the next draft. Tomorrow we will finish our final drafts, take pictures, and create QR Codes for the bulletin board. This will be the first time the students have used QR Codes in the class and I am excited. How do you use them in your classrooms?

How I use Poll Everywhere

My fourth grade class is running a 1:1 iPad pilot program, meaning currently every student in my classroom has an iPad. This idea started when I raised money through a school fundraiser, Race for Education, and purchased an iPad 2 for the classroom. Before the iPad came into the classroom, our technology consisted of a computer that was probably being used new when I was in high school. Okay, so I'm not that old, but still, it was time for some upgrading.

With the money I raised, I was able to purchase the iPad 2 and a computer table to replace our old table which was broken. The iPad quickly became a favorite item in the classroom, the students were excited to use it and even with one iPad everyone was engaged. I still remember my class playing Rocket Math multiplication and all the students screaming out answers, which caused my principal to walk into my room one day and be surprised by seeing a classroom full of engaged students. 

Shortly after, I was asked to begin a 1:1 iPad program for the fourth grade class. What is exciting about running this type of program is the students' excited about learning. Slowly, I have been transitioning the students to doing more and more with the iPads, but we originally started using the iPads with one website, Poll Everywhere. 

Poll Everywhere is a free website and takes less than 30 seconds to register, just like the website says. Trust me, even though you can use the website without registering, you want to register, so you can preload your polls and reuse them. 

The main way I use Poll Everywhere is to review students homework. Currently, I teach a math FLIP program, and the polling gives me a better understanding of whether or not students understand the concept for the video I posted on youtube the night before. The way it works is I post a question with multiple choice answers and project it onto the Activboard. I ask students to submit their answers using their ipad. Each answer choice has a special code to type into the ipad, so that it sends directly to my poll. Typically, the first time I post the question, I will not receive the correct answer for 100% of my class. Instead of taking over, I ask the students to discuss their answers with their group explaining how and why they chose their answer. Students rethink their method based on hearing how others solved the problem and then resend their answer to the same poll. I would say 90% of the time 100% of the students will send the correct answer. 

This method of teaching works great in a 1:1 classroom and can also be used using a simple cell phone. The reason why I love using Poll Everywhere in this way is because there seems to be a huge concern that if we put technology classroom, it will cause our students not to socialize with others. But my goal as a 21st Century Educator is to use the tools of the time, while fostering an appropriate social atmosphere for my students and Poll Everywhere allows me to do this.