Gamifying class management

I love webinars – learning and meeting colleagues from the comfort of my study, at odd hours sometimes, but with everyone in a good mood, is one of my favourite forms of professional development.

I attended one earlier this evening. Kyle Mawer, one of the authors of “Digital Play“, the book I'd recommend to every EFL teacher, talked about digital games in the classroom. I have already bookmarked some sites to check over the weekend and find those that work for my students.

During the speech K. Mawer once mentioned Class Dojo describing it as “gamifying class management“. That can't be wrong, I thought.

I registered as a teacher on Class Dojo and started a class. The teacher adds students and their names come with avatar icons, there is no need for real pictures. The second step is deciding on what to reward in the students' behavior. Participation, creativity, helping others are some icons for positive behaviour, and you can add more. Negative behaviour is being late, interrupting, disrespect, no homework, or whatever else the teacher adds.
If you display the in-class view, you can see all class in one screen. You should display the page on a whiteboard, projector or laptop and give or take points to students during the lesson. The teacher's smartphone, tablet or iPod touch can be used as remote control to award points from anywhere.
The page also shows report cards and all behaviour reports can be emailed to parents or printed.

Cool, isn't it?