Website 2 – For the love of learning: 6 reasons to reject ClassDojo

Bower, J. (2014) For the love of learning: 6 reasons to reject ClassDojo, Available at: https://joe-bower.blogspot.com/2014/11/6-reasons-to-reject-classdojo.html, (Accessed: 20 May 2019)

In this website, Bower critiques the use of ClassDojo, arguing that “ClassDojo simply takes adult imposed manipulation and tracks it with mindless efficiency.” (Bower, 2016) Throughout the publication, 6 main principles are argued, these are:
• ClassDojo gets character education wrong
• ClassDojo gets motivation wrong
• The public nature of ClassDojo is inappropriate
• ClassDojo pits adults and children against each other
• Class Dojo can only ever be experienced as coercive and manipulative
• ClassDojo prepares children to be ruled by others

(Bower, 2016).

The views imposed by Bower are highly negative, and whilst it is important to consider an overuse or misuse of the app, it is still also necessary to notice the benefits of implementing such technology into daily teaching practice.

The application has become so popular because of the significant amount of users, Chaykowski (2017) claims that “Teachers like it because teachers have shaped it”, this is supported by the statistics published by Forbes that claim that ClassDojo reaches 7 million children worldwide daily. Due to the technological nature of the application, new features and improvements are updated. Anderson (2016) explains how schools have become “notoriously bureaucratic” and the use of educational technology is favoured because of how accessible and quickly content can be implemented within the classroom that is specifically designed for children to relate to and understand (Anderson, 2016).

The ClassDojo application introduced features to demonstrate and teach children about mindfulness, kindness and empathy, whilst Bower is correct that the application can cause competition and can be considered as manipulative because of the numerical datafication of what each child’s behaviour is ‘worth’ (See Feedback), the website only explores the negative association of the application, . Dobo (2017) explains that the application is designed to solve problems that teachers face and researchers at ClassDojo implement new features to solve further problems, and improvements to tackle any existing problems with the software.

We asked a Vice Principal their opinion of ClassDojo and this was their response:

“As a Vice Principal in a primary school, classroom behaviour management was always at the top of the agenda. We believed that it was important for our teachers to find the tools that worked best for them.

One teacher asked if we could trial using ClassDojo and we could not believe the impact it had in such a short period of time.
Children became motivated to improve their learning and behaviour and they were keen to share their progress with parents. Parents also reported that they felt more connected to their child’s daily learning and the progress that they were making.

Within a few weeks other teachers asked if they too could use ClassDojo in their classrooms, having seen the impact that it had made. This easy to use app was soon established in every classroom in the school and it was certainly an instrumental tool in motivating the children to improve their learning and behaviour.”

There are a vast range of similar responses from practitioners available on the ClassDojo website (2019), and so, it is clear that the application is favoured by a vast range of practitioners, particularly for it’s ability to provide efficient feedback to parents.