Class Dojo real-time behavior feedback platform Apps get updates

ClassDojo is a free online system that helps teachers promote positive behavior in their classroom by letting them track and share student progress and positive behaviors and areas of concern. It's easy to use and many teachers who use it have seen positive outcomes from using it with their students.

They had launched an iOS app this past September, and an Android app after that, to help teachers be able to use their tool while moving around the room, and even access it when not in the classroom. They have just announced an update to their iOS and Android apps to make them even better and more useful for teachers and students.


The full press release is below:

ClassDojo Mobilizes More Teachers to Build Students’ Character Anywhere with Version 2.0 of its Popular iOS and Android Apps

ClassDojo 2.0 now lets teacher manage, edit, share and sync up their students’ behavior reports from their mobile devices

SAN FRANCISCO – August 15th, 2013 - Today, ClassDojo, the free behavior development platform for teachers, students , and parents, is launching a major update - version 2.0 of its mobile apps for iOS and Android. ClassDojo, already used by over 15 million teachers and students in over 80 countries worldwide, will now offer teachers the full suite of ClassDojo’s web functionality on mobile devices, including setting up and customizing their classes, taking attendance, viewing progress reports, and inviting other teachers.

Download the iOS app here: www.classdojo.com/ios and the Android app here: www.classdojo.com/android

The original ClassDojo app was intended to be a lightweight ‘remote control’ for the website, making it easy for teachers to give students positive feedback on their behavior in real-time within their classroom. There were significant limitations, including the inability to customize classes, view reports or even set up a class. In effect, the app made teachers somewhat dependent on the web application to fully manage their classrooms. ClassDojo’s new iOS and Android apps will offer the full set of ClassDojo’s experience.

Now that roughly two in three teachers have a personal smart device, more teachers can access ClassDojo’s full set of experiences without using a laptop or desktop computer. For many teachers working at underfunded schools with limited school technology resources, this means for the first time they can use ClassDojo with their students to reinforce positive behaviors like persistence, curiosity, and teamwork - and indicates great promise for ClassDojo’s continued ubiquity.

The new version also allows teachers to give behavior feedback without needing to have a Wi-Fi connection (although they still need network coverage). This new feature meets one of teachers’ biggest needs: to be able to use ClassDojo in settings outside of the classroom - for example, in lunchrooms, the playground, on field trips, and even just in classrooms with poor Wi-Fi connections.

Today’s news reflects the company’s continued learnings about the ed-tech market. Classroom adoption of mobile devices is growing quickly, as is evident with the recent news that Apple partnered with the Los Angeles Unified School District to provide students 640,000 iPads. Accordingly, the company has built out its mobile capabilities to allow its mobile development to parallel its web efforts.

“For many teachers and in particular for students, education is now a ‘mobile first’ environment, and we’re excited that ClassDojo is leading the charge,” says Sam Chaudhary, co-founder of ClassDojo. “Our new mobile apps build upon our mission of helping teachers, parents, and students develop the behaviors and character strengths that are essential for lifetime success. Real-time reinforcement of positive behavior, especially when provided consistently across contexts, helps build the character strengths that influence students’ academic and lifetime success.”  

ClassDojo’s mission is to address the ‘other half of education’ that goes beyond just building good test scores, to actually helping students develop the character strengths that are essential for lifetime success. The company is a graduate of the ‘Y-combinator for education’, ImagineK12.

About ClassDojo:

ClassDojo is a real-time behavior feedback platform used by millions of teachers, students and parents to build specific positive behaviors like persistence, curiosity and teamwork at school. It helps teachers solve the most painful problem they face teachers: improving student behavior. It enables teachers to easily conduct their lesson and improve student behavior by providing students with visual and audio feedback triggered using a smartphone, tablet, or computer; it engages parents and students to effect changes in behavior outside of the classroom as well.

About the founders:

Sam Chaudhary worked as a high school teacher and McKinsey & Co education analyst, and has a degree in Economics from the University of Cambridge. Liam Don was an MMO game developer at Runescape (Jagex), and was doing a computer science PhD in Education Technology, which he left to start ClassDojo. ClassDojo was early-stage seed funded by the incubator ImagineK12.

TechForum Edtech Conferences coming up soon!

California: January 17 Atlanta: March 28 Boston: May 2 Chicago: May 9 Save the Date for Tech Forum 2014 Mark your calendars! Tech & Learning is bringing its groundbreakingTech Forum event back to Atlanta, Boston and Chicago for the winter/spring 2014 tour -- and we're kicking it all off in January with the newly added Tech Forum California, our return to the west coast due to popular demand! • California: January 17, 2014 • Atlanta: Friday March 28, 2014 • Boston: Friday May 2, 2014 • Chicago: Friday May 9, 2014 Don't miss the chance to join T&L magazine for its annual high-end, information-packed one-day event designed especially for district and school administrators and technology leaders like you. This is your chance to network with others who care deeply about the future of education. Share your successes and address challenges in an engaging and intimate setting, and leave with practical tools and key contacts for continued rich communities of practice. Follow us on Twitter for the latest updates, venue announcements, program content and speaker information! Who Should Attend Tech Forum? Tech Forum brings together some of the brightest minds and forward-thinking leaders involved in education technology. Each event is carefully designed for district- and building-level administrators,technology directors, technology coordinators,IT managers, librarians and media specialists,board of education members, mentor teachers and teacher trainers and anyone involved in the planning, decision-making and/or purchasing of technology for schools and districts. Call For Presenters Got a great idea for a session that is engaging and relevant to this audience of ed tech leaders? Know somebody who would make an outstanding presenter?Submit a proposal. BROUGHT TO YOU BY: How To Register Online registration opens soon with a special offer to attend the day at a deep discount. Livestream Archive Take a look at some of the fantastic sessions from previous Tech Forums at our Livestream page. Stay Up to Date

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Lino - free Sticky Note and Canvas web service

Lino is a free sticky note and canvas web service I learned about from our school's webmaster. He is using it on the school's main website page as a place for teachers to post notices about clubs and other information. It was started because we have a large group of students who attend a regional aquaculture school in the morning and miss the morning announcements. This is a great, easy way for teachers to post updates and info.

Lino is free, easy to use and no account is needed. It allows you to add your canvas and notes to your website so that you can easily add notes and updates. There are different canvas's and designs you can use also. It's a great way for teachers and administrators to quickly and easily post notes and notices on their websites.

It's available for PC, iOS and Android. Check it out.

5 Recent Advances in Educational Technology - guest post

5 Recent Advances in Educational Technology 

Imagine going to school without getting out of bed. According to an article at washingtonpost.com, its actually not that uncommon - "70,000 school-age children wake up each morning for class and walk as far as the nearest Web-enabled gadget…" which is sometimes sitting at the side of their bed in the form of a laptop or tablet. It’s amazing to think about how 20 years ago, personal computers were only just beginning and now, it’s within arm’s reach of the majority of the youth in America. Educational technology seems to be progressing at warp speed, with new advances emerging every single day.

Classroom Management Software

Course management systems (CMS) are designed to provide a platform for teachers to reach thousands of students all at one time in one course. They allow for quizzes to be given through its platform along with the ability to create interactive forums with information provided from a myriad of different resources. They can be used to save time for both students and educators while accomplishing the feel of a one-on-one learning environment. Learning how to reach masses all at once is educational innovation at its best.

Learning Management Systems

Teachers and professors alike are always looking for ways to engage students and expand learning opportunities. Especially in higher education, where the need to offer classes outside of the classroom as well as offset campus overcrowding is more concerning, Learning Management Systems (LMS) have really improved upon opportunities to reach more students. These tools allow for more collaborative class settings on or off-line. For example, if you have an overly large group of students where it is difficult to have personal one on one time with each, LMS makes it possible to create lesson plans via video or wiki as well as track content through blogs and other easily accessible tools. This allows for more of an exclusive interaction. With LMS the internet keeps you connected in or outside the classroom. For more on LMS, click here.

Classroom Audio Systems

Studies have shown that one of the main issues students have with learning in a classroom is that they often cannot hear the instruction as well as is needed. Classroom audio systems provide the ability for teachers to project their voices loud and clear to all who are intended to hear. Teachers use this innovation to reach students at a level that they otherwise would not be able to do. This fairly recent development in the classroom has led to an unprecedented rise in test scores for all who experienced the effects before and after.

Field Trip App

New applications for computers, smart phones and iPads are surfacing every day. There are learning apps for just about every subject there is. The field trip app, for instance, helps to educate students on their surrounding areas. It provides historical significance, useful fun facts, and other educational information for practically any field trip destination.

Using Cloud Computing for Educational Technology

Another relatively new advancement in the field of education technology is the use of cloud computing to store documents. Google Docs, for instance, recently transitioned to Google Drive – a place to store Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents for retrieval anywhere that has access to an internet connection. No longer is forgetting a homework assignment even possible with this relatively new cloud computing technology.

Adaptive Learning

Adaptive learning is not necessarily a new concept; however, the realization of this concept is in fact relatively new. Innovative teachers use this technology to help them cater to personalized learning for students in need of more help than average. This means the development of tests and skill instruction is created specifically to cater to each individual’s exact learning needs. It is available for all ages, in all levels of learning and appears to be a fast-growing capability for innovative educators seeking technology to increase the effects of their teaching.

Author Bio

David Malmborg works with Dell. When he isn’t working he enjoys hiking, spending time with family and researching new technology. He is currently learning more about cloud computing and recommends visiting the dell.com for more information.

Infographic on Technology in the Classroom - What Teachers Want

An interesting infographic from PBS on what teachers want for technology in the classroom:

Related:

10 Essential Educational Resources for Teachers - my list

K-12 Blueprint site updated - resources for planning and implementing EdTech

This week, Tech & Learning and Intel released their improve K-12 Blueprint web site. The site has resources for educators about planning and implementing technology initiatives.

The site has resources about one-to-one programs, BYOD, digital content, reviews about technology, success stories and case studies, tips and ideas, webinars, educational technology news, and much more. This is a great resource for teachers, and especially for educational technology specialists, managers, directors, CIO's, and others that plan and implement technology projects.

K-12 Blueprint offers resources for education leaders involved in planning and implementing technology initiatives. Whether you are launching a one-to-one or BYO program, moving from print textbooks to digital content, revamping the curriculum to improve STEM learning, rethinking assessment, or embarking on (or continuing to support) any other ambitious technology-supported initiative, Intel’s Blueprint model can help.
The K-12 Blueprint model emphasizes several key elements for building effective and impactful technology initiatives. Click on any of the elements below to learn more and to access relevant articles, news items and resources:
LeadershipPolicyCurriculum and AssessmentFundingInfrastructureProfessional DevelopmentResults

Tech & Learning is a great, free, resource for educators also. You can subscribe to the free magazine and use the site. There are educator blogs, articles on educational technology, and much more. 

Great resources for managing your work with technology

Managing Your Work with Technology is a site I just found out about that has some great resources and tips for using technology to get organized and manage your workflow and resources. The site is from Dr. James Hansen, a Professor at Oakland University.

The resources are organized by "work realms" including Time, Information, Documents, Files and Information Sharing. In each realm, Dr. Hansen lists the free resources that he uses to manage these realms and how.

Many of the resources are resources I use and have blogged about, like Google Calendar, Google Drive and  Evernote, but Dr. Hansen has some great ideas and tips here that may be useful to other educators.

Check out the site. https://sites.google.com/site/resourcesandinformation/home/technology

CollateBox - Simplest way to organize & share spreadsheets

CollateBox is a free online (beta) service, by invite (request one on their site) that allows you to organize and collaborate on spreadsheet data. Copy and paste existing data from a spreadsheet into Collatebox, set filters, hide columns, set up views for different people and then update it. One of the big features that set it apart is that you can limit what data each person sees and customize their views, all while keeping the master data updated.

This could be useful for school data teams, administrators, and students working on projects.

If This Then That - Put together “recipes” to automate actions online

If This Then That is a very cool site I learned about last Friday at EdCampCT. It allows you to create "recipes" that will automate actions online for you. For example, you could have one that will automatically download a photo that you were tagged in on Facebook to your Dropbox account.

It's easy to use with step-by-step instructions and plenty of pre-made recipes that you can use. Twitter, Facebook, Evernote, email are all "channels" that can be used in your recipes. One example given is to automatically save your Tweets to an Evernote notebook. You select the trigger that will force an action.

There are also shared recipes that you can use and personalize that make it easy to get started.

Here's an example of a personal recipe using channels, triggers, and actions:

There is a blog with information and updates,

This is a great tool to save time and effort on your part and make things more efficient. I can see it being used  to document and collect certain Tweets based on topics/@'s and hashtags, Facebook posts, websites and the like, archive certain emails based on subject or content, automatically collecting materials to use in class, automatically collecting student work, easily creating student e-portfolios by collecting all of their material and  related work, and much more. It's one of those sites that has a lot of potential for educators.

I'm working on some recipes of my own and will be using this with Evernote this year to collect resources and student work into my Evernote notebooks.

EdTech Magazine's 50 Must Read EdTech Blogs & my additions to list

EdTech Magazine is a great, free website that has tons of articles, resources, product and service reviews, information and more about edtech topics and products. It is a great resource for any educator, educational technology specialist or director, or technology personnel.

They just published an article "50 Must Read K-12 IT Blogs" that is a list, with short description and link, of 50 different edtech blogs. I was surprised, and honored, to find myself on the list. There are some great blogs on there, like Free Technology for Teachers by Richard Byrne, David Warlick's Blog, Vicki Davis' Cool Cat Teacher Blog, David Pogue's tech blog on the NY Times, Tech&Learning Magazine's blog section, and many more.

I would have also included the following blogs in the list:



1.  Cybrary Man's Educational Web Sites - Jerry has created a one-stop-find-everything resource for educational topics and edtech resources. If you can't find it here, it doesn't exist. Period.

2.  Technology Tidbits: Thoughts of a Cyber-Hero - David Kapuler's blog is a great place to find tons of great educational resources and apps.

3. Connected Principals - a great blog for ideas and resources on edtech, and education, from an administrator's viewpoint.




4. Discovery Educator Network Blogs - great resource with links, ideas, resources and much more - not just on Discovery Education materials either.


Remember, if you weren't on this list and are an edtech blogger, don't worry. These lists, like all lists, are fun, great to be mentioned on, but don't mean your blog isn't an awesome resource too!

SlidePresenter - free online multimedia presentations

SlidePresenter is an online presentation service. It has a free account that is full-featured and the service allows you to create videos that are synced with PowerPoint presentations. It is similar to Knovio.

SlidePresenter can be used to create presentations for use by educators in the classroom that can then be reviewed by students at a later date for review or reinforcement or to create training sessions that people can view on their own time. Students can also use it for class projects.

The free account limits videos to 15 min (similar to most of these services) but that is a good way to make sure your presentation is focused and concise. Each presentation can be tagged, embedded in other sites, and easily shared via social media.

The videos are on the left panel and the slides are on the right side. 

Sharing and embedding features are on bottom left and tags are on bottom right. 

(It is a German company so some times the web page translations are a little awkward, but the product works great).

On a side note, they also allow you, in the paid accounts, to post your presentation and monetize it - charge people access for it. This might be an option for small businesses and education consultants to use for hosting fee-based courses.



Related:

Knovio - turn PowerPoint presentation into multimedia video

Google Docs - free, online, collaborative presentations 

Present me - easy way to record and share presentations

Desmos - create media rich educational content online

PhotoPeach - easily create and share photo slideshows

Prezi - the zooming presentation editor