ClassDojo Islands: A Virtual Playground

It all began when Classcraft announced the closure of its free platform after it had been bought out by HMH. Knowing I would have to start looking for a Classcraft alternative for next school year anyway, I decided why not start looking now? And doing so led me back to ClassDojo. I had used Dojo before, but ultimately, I abandoned it in favor of Classcraft because I had decided that the "little monsters" were too "childish" for my upper-grade students. Classcraft, with its video-game fantasy feel, was a better fit for us.

However, there was always a bit of a learning curve every year when introducing it to students. Inevitably, some students always came away from my first-day Classcraft presentation confused or apathetic of the whole thing. Over time, in an effort to simply things, I chose to not utilize some aspects of the system. I did away with the class rewards or leveling-up and only used it to take away hearts, which really defeated the purpose, seeing as it is meant to be a PBIS (a positive behavior interventions and supports) system, not a negative one. A lot of students didn't understand how they could or why they should help each other out with the collaborative game powers of protecting or healing, either. For a long time, I had even stopped taking away hearts. I only opened it every day to do the Random Event.

After shifting back to desks in groups after a long time of desks in rows, I reintroduced Classcraft to my classes, and I spent some time explaining the Quests area, which I hadn't done at the start of the year. Students, I discovered later, just clicked through the steps and tasks of the quests without even reading them just to get the XP. In all, I am realizing that maybe it's okay that Classcraft is sunsetting its service, seeing as I am not using it to its fullest potential anyway, or the way it was meant to be used, especially recently. I am ready for a change, but to what?

Enter ClassDojo and its "little monsters". I don't know if my upper grades will like the change from the fantasy characters to the little monsters, but I have a feeling they'll enjoy the "Dojo Islands" game. I have played it a few times now, and it's actually really fun, and genuinely challenging! (My own young children have played it more than I have and have absolutely LOVED it)! I already have a few challenges in mind for when the students earn what I'm calling "Dojo Days":

  1. Build a green shamrock. (I am not going to tell them, of course, what they need to do to get access to the green blocks - part of the fun is figuring it out!)
  2. Make rainbows appear.
  3. Reach the sky island!
If anyone has more experience with Dojo Islands and has suggestions for challenges, post a comment! Giving and taking away points will be much easier, too. Rather than XP and hearts (as in Classcraft), it's just straight points, which is more easily transferable to the grade book. I already have a Participation Points assignment that I use, which will be much easier add or subtract from.

All in all, I am looking forward to the change. Transitions to new things can be difficult for some students, so we are going to take this slowly. I hope to post an update in a few weeks!

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