It’s the middle of September and all kids are back to school. In case you didn’t know, one of the most efficient methods to beat the post – holiday blues is to think about how exciting the next months will be. And school is really extraordinary for 90% of U.S. students who use ClassDojo. For the other 10% who probably don’t know about this classroom management app now it is your chance to get familiar with a tool that changes the learning environment completely.
Brilliant Idea
Let’s go back to 2011 when Liam Don and Sam Chaudhary decided to build something powerful for helping educational systems all over the world. And so they did. They focused on teachers’ struggles in the classroom, creating a pleasant virtual environment for them to attract students. In September 2012, ClassDojo was launched for iOS devices and five months later it was ready also for Android users. Meanwhile, a lot of features were added and the service continued to conquer many schools from around the globe. Just look how many prizes ClassDojo won and you will understand how these entrepreneurs bridged the gap between teachers, children and parents.
How ClassDojo Did It
ClassDojo is one of a kind app and you are probably very interested in learning the methods used by its creators for satisfying various needs for different types of users. Let’s discover them.
Image Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2017/05/22/how-classdojo-built-one-of-the-most-popular-classroom-apps-by-listening-to-teachers/#d8e09c71e5ef
Specially Designed For Kids
Let’s take a closer look to the way ClassDojo was created, starting with Mojo. It is easy to observe that the green mascot is the main character of the app and it certainly attracts kids. Going further, teachers are able to create an avatar for each student. And who doesn’t want to become a funny little monster that wins different badges and rewards. For every achievement their cartoons receive a point, but they lose it in case of a bad behavior. More than that kids had the opportunity to learn about Empathy and Growth Mindset after watching some captivating videos. Among many useful features is the ability to create their own portfolios which help them to demonstrate their knowledge in a fun and creative way.
Involves Parents
Involving families into their children’s education was top priority of ClassDojo from the beginning. As a parent it is very hard to deal with your daily tasks and it is even more difficult to keep track of your kids’ activities at school. But with the help of this app, just a few minutes, everyday is enough for adults to communicate with their children’s teachers and to share their thoughts for building a strong relationship with the little ones. All these are very important if they want to talk about the experiences from school. In addition, parents are encouraged to continue at home what teachers are trying to achieve in their classrooms.
Solves Teachers Problems
It is not sufficient to know certain teaching techniques; it is important to have a safe and friendly space where you can apply them. Even though today we are talking about a virtual place created by an app, ClassDojo provides a unique set of instruments for teachers to maintain the interest of their students and to improve the way young minds assimilate the information received. With this app they have the ability to transform every lesson in a gameplay disciplining the noisiest kids and encouraging the shy ones.
Localization And More
Now ClassDojo reaches 180 countries being translated in more than 35 languages and improves the way parents and teachers team up for offering students a lovely atmosphere where they can develop new skills. ClassDojo’s owners went further with this idea and ClassDojo Translate was introduced in 2015 with the purpose to make messages understandable for all its users. They knew that localization doesn’t mean just translating the services; in this case the process was even more complex because educational systems differ from region to region. Developing a solution that works with every geographical zone was indeed a laborious procedure.
Image Source: https://blog.classdojo.com/introducing-classdojo-translate/
User Generated Content
When customers love your product there is no reason not to brag with this fact. If you check Wall Of Love created by ClassDojo you will be amazed to notice the effects generated by this app. Teacher who reveal innovative ways to engage children, parents (famous or not) who are delighted by the advantages offered and students who are happy in their classroom. It will be amazing to follow these kids after ten or twenty years and to observe the results of these techniques.
Image Source: https://twitter.com/RascalPride/status/897159686322913280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.classdojo.com%2Fwall-of-love
Bonus Tip: Take Care Of Kids While You Monetize Your App
It is very challenging to develop an app for kids and to think about your revenue in the same time. We discussed about these problems a few months ago when we described how to create a kid – friendly app and the best practices implied for a great onboarding flow. The team behind ClassDojo knows that classic freemium model isn’t a suitable solution for their app’s type. For this reason they promised that the app will always be free for teachers. This is a special way to give them thanks for all the feedback provided which is really the core of the app. On the other hand, using users’ data isn’t an option for making money when we talk about children. You can read bellow a snippet from the ClassDojo Privacy Center which proves that users should trust the brand. Instead, ClassDojo owners search for opportunities to monetize their app by allowing parents to subscribe for premium content which is less expensive than sending their children to private schools. Apparently, this method becomes successful for many app categories.
FINAL THOUGHTS
With our articles we give many examples of successful apps for offering you more ideas on how to manage your business. Now you understand how an edtech company is trying to improve the educational culture by adding new features to a service which broke the language barriers. Anyone can build an app, but to change an entire system is not something you see in many professional profiles.
