Diggin the Dojo (part 2)

I forgot to mention in yesterdays post, that I had my first observation with our new evaluation system on Friday. Yes, Friday. I had an inkling it was coming as the administration had been around to most other classrooms during the week. I would have been happy for them to stop in at any time during the week. I had such cool New Year's things going on and my reading groups were humming along, plus I had ClassDojo up and running and it was really working well. By Friday afternoon at 1:35, I figured I was off the hook for this week. We started Fun Friday and I was working on a special art project for a fun event I'll blab about soon. With all that going on and about 20 minutes left in the week -guess who pops in. Uh huh. For real. My face must have been a mix of oh crap-are you kidding me-now?! because my principal's face immediately softened and she actually apologized for coming in at such an odd time, but apparently I was the only teacher left in the school no one had visited. Grrrrreat! I explained that it was Fun Friday and she said she was just going to sit and watch my management style. OhhhKay...I wasn't really managing much at the moment. But my kids were pretty calm for a Fun Friday and I was working with a couple of girls at the back table. I interacted with the kids who were enjoying their free time and there was a neat little buzz in the room without it being too crazy. There was plenty of evidence of my management style up and around the room between my clip-chart, my Fun Friday Bus, my Behavior Bingo chart and my Dojo (Oh man, I AM Miss. RewardsALot!).  I think it went ok even though I wasn't actually teaching anything, but I'll let you know.

The standard they were looking for is:
 What will I do to recognize and acknowledge adherence or lack of adherence to rules and procedures?

* Demonstrating “withitness”

* Applying consequences for lack of adherence to rules and procedures

* Acknowledging adherence to rules and procedures

Now, for those of you using ClassDojo already, you can see how EXACTLY perfect Dojo is for this one! I was a bit hesitant to use a system that made the negative points obvious to the whole class, but I do believe that certain children seeing that they "lost" a point has a lot more impact than getting a thousand points. I do still definitely believe in focusing on the positive and for almost all children that is the way to keep them moving forward, but as we all know, not all kids respond the same way to the same things.

If you are new to Dojo, you'll see when you set up your class that you can choose which behaviors you want to show on the positive or negative side. You can also customize and add your own.

When you first sign in, you'll be walked through exactly what you need to do to get started - they make it very easy. One thing I noticed is that even though I had done the steps to start, it kept asking me to repeat the steps. That actually went away after a few times.

I was going to add some photo tutorials, but I realize that I'm already writing long past what I had planned and I'm sure you probably have better things to do this Sunday than read about me and Dojo.
Instead, I'll tell you a few things I've found so far. I've only been a Dojo teacher for about a week, but honestly it is so easy to set up, manage and use that I kind of feel like a Dojo Sensei already! Ok, I may be reaching there, but really it is easy to use.

Things I love:
-Ease of use
-Customization of behaviors, avatars, and sound alerts
-The audible alerts really motivate the students even if they can't see the screen
-Printable reports for each student or the whole class. The reports are incredible! I can do a whole post on the reports (they are perfect for RtI)
-Using my iphone as a remote
-Its FREE! (but it's so good, I'm wondering how it can be free or for how long)
-My admin loooooooooved the idea
-Dojo really can replace all of my supplemental behavior plans and just work nicely with my clip chart
-Someone from ClassDojo actually read and commented on this post yesterday! (Hi Kalen!)

Things I'd like to see:
-The visual alert disappears too quickly from the screen. Sometimes by the time they look at the board, the alert is gone
-I'd love to be able to award points to a group of kids that would then also be applied to their individual avatar
-It would be great if the alert would come up over other programs running on the Smartboard (although I think this one is in the works)

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to help the best I can. Don't miss the help/feedback sections. I learned a lot sifting through there.

Well friends, I'm off to whip up some breakfast and finish up the de-Christmas-ization of my house. I swear the older I get, the more I understand my grandmothers little ceramic tree, but before I go, I have to say something about your comments. I can't even tell you how thrilling it is when I get an email alert that someone has left a comment on a post. Even though I might not respond to them individually, I do read each one! I have a comment thing though. I even read comments on other blogs before I post my comment. It's a good thing I'm a fast reader when I visit Kristin or Kristen.  Jennifer is so incredible about commenting that I feel like we're real friends - the same with Jen. Thank you to everyone who takes a second to comment. It really means the world to me!

P.S. I just uploaded my newest product to tpt that I'm pretty stoked about. It's a whole pack of classroom resources for the Super Bowl! Check it out {HERE}