Top of the class: the social network linking up schools with parents
FOR much of the past four weeks I have devoted a troubling amount of time to frantically scrolling at a feed of images, willing an app to refresh. But rather than a Twitter reaction GIF or an impeccably lit #flatlay on Instagram, the prime motivator for this screen--jabbing has been something different. rent. Specifically, the chance to spot my four-year-old sonn sporting a poncho at a water play table, turning a Pringles tube into a space rocket or practising phonics on a wipe-clean board.
For the uninitiated, thisis is ClassDojo (classdojo.com):om): an educational communication tool that allows teachers and students to update parents on life at school with images, video and Facebook-style messages.
Since it was founded in 2011 the free, Instagram-influenced app has achieved a kind of stealthy, cultish popularity (it is used in 180 countries and now available in more than 70 per cent of the 25,000 schools in the UK) and been at the vanguard of a new wave of scholastic tech. It has also — as I, the nervy, phone-gripping dad of a new reception class pupil, prove — given modern parents a new social media addiction to cultivate.
“We did hear of one parent who woulwould just leave the phone open at wwork, next to their monitor, so they could watch pictures ss c r o l l in,” l au g h s Sam Chaudhary, the 31-year-old ex-education consultant who founded ClassDojo alalongside one-time games devdeveloper and fellow former LondLondoner Liam Don.
After wwinning initial funding through illustrious start-up incubator Y Combinator, the pair swapped the capital for Silicon Valley (ClassDojo is now based in San Francisco) and set about interviewing nearly 300 teachers to put meat on the bones of an idea rooted in overhauling what Chaudhary calls the “pretty out-of-date” classroom.
As well as providing a messaging service, digital pinboard and a slick cartoon-style interface for managing things such as noise level, ClassDojo also allows teachers to dish out points for everything from “working hard” to “good listening”.
It’s the kind of instant appraisal that parents can easily pour their existing worries into (one south London mum told me the ping of a Class Dojo update initially made her “anxious and excited at the same time”) but Chaudhary stresses that “no one is ranked” and the portal merely offers “feedback to spark conversations”. He adds: “I think it’s part of a wider cultural shift from periodical reporting to regular sharing. It’s happening in every other part of our lives.”
What’s more, ClassDojo (which has also started to introduce video discussion clips on “big ideas”) isn’t the only start-up rebooting classroom computers. Kid-friendly coding firm Tech Will Save Us (techwillsaveus.com) recently introduced Complete Dough Universe, a colourful, conductive PlayDoh-like substance that teaches children about electricity.
Then there’s Seesaw (web.seesaw.me), founded by a former Facebook exec, a fast-rising digital portfolio that lets pupils keep a visual record of their work, receive logged audio feedback from teachers and send clips to their parents devices. So parents, prepare for holes to be picked in your stern decrees about limited screen time: the connected classroom of the future is here.
@jimfam