Class Dojo

This morning I received an email from eSchool News with a link to this site. I am always looking for more apps to review and try out in my classroom. This morning I absolutely fell in love with Class Dojo. Class Dojo takes about 5 minutes (if that) to set up. And once you are done you have a powerful tool for tracking classroom behavior, both positive and negative.

With a simple click on my iPad, PC or from my Android phone (mobile.classdojo.com) I am able to add or deduct points from individual students for a variety of reasons such as: showing teamwork, being on task, persistence, helping others, unprepared, no homework, and off task. Once you have clicked this, it syncs with the website so that you can generate powerful reports that illustrate a great picture of a student's behavior in your classroom.

The site allows you to view, print and email these powerful reports. Students and parents may be empowered with their respective codes, allowing them to track the student's behaviors. After you have entered the points you can go to the website and enter in specific comments for that day/time as needed. This app is SUPER easy to use and to set up. It is a must for any classroom!
Are you using Class Dojo? Comment below to share!

iPad Apps Take 3

So far I've posted lists of apps for teachers and for students. There are tons of apps that are being sent to me for review weekly and it's hard to find time to try them all. But here are some more that I have found useful.

Stage: Interactive Whiteboard and Document Camera - This was passed to me from Trainer Rob who came to our district this last fall. It allows you to annotate over live video. It's quite interesting, very intuitive and best of all it's FREE!

Toy Story Read Along

Idea Sketch~ “Spider” webs

Puppet Pals HD- create stories, even record voice!

IEP Checklist

Whiteboard Free - connects to whole class for partner work

eClicker -in class survey

Earthquakes

CIA Factbook

Globe

Common Core Resources

There is a lot out there to help us gear up for the Common Core State Standards. These are all sites and resources that I either use or have checked out thoroughly.

Corestandards.org - Read the standards and appendixes. If you haven't looked at the CCSS yet, this is the place to start

Common Core Fiction Reading Passages - Grades 2-12. A variety of reading comprehension passages created with CCSS in mind. The standards are listed and embedded in the passages.

CommonCore.org - curriculum maps

Caitlin Tucker's 11 Tech Tools for the Common Core

Achieve the Core

Paperless Part II

Trying to go paperless in the middle of the school year has proved problematic. Students are used to both having a physical text book and to having paper... and lots of it. I think with more planning and preparation that it would be better to start an endeavor like this at the beginning of the school year.

I have managed to eliminate paper tests, quizzes, and some assignments with the help of My Big Campus, which is good, but I would still like to be able to do more both to eliminate the amount of paper used by myself and my students, and to help the environment with recycling extra papers or at least reusing the back sides of them.

Has anyone else out there tried to go paperless? What are your experiences with it?