Case study: ClassDojo and ParentSquare

Inspired by a discussion amongst fellow colleagues in my graduate program, I have decided to explore two K-12 digital communication tools, ClassDojo and ParentSquare. While I have used ClassDojo both as a teacher (at a previous school) and am now becoming acquainted with it as a guardian in the current school year, I wasn’t familiar with ParentSquare at all, that is, until other teachers in my program raved about it. 

With that, let’s take a closer look at each of the two digital platforms and learn more about how they function, influence communication, impact learning and more.

ClassDojo

ClassDojo is a digital communication tool that allows teachers and families to connect. In their words, it’s “[w]here classrooms become communities” (ClassDojo, n.d.). In short, teachers can use ClassDojo (or just “Dojo” for short as my colleagues and I called it) to send mass messages to families or communicate via private message. ClassDojo harkens popular social media platforms with their Class Story feature, a news feed reminiscent of Facebook’s Feed. Dojo’s Class Story is where teachers can post photos, videos, messages and events that families can “like” and comment on, replacing the crumpled backpack flyers of yesteryear.

ClassDojo boasts that their messaging feature allows teachers to build connections with families “without giving out your phone number” (ClassDojo, 2020, 2:48), likely making parent communication less stressful and more manageable on the teacher’s end.

While teacher-parent communication is certainly a hallmark of the digital platform’s features, I think ClassDojo really shines when it comes to its student engagement tools. Within the classroom, teachers can award students “Dojo points” for remaining on task, participating, or any of a litany of other positive actions. 

When a student receives a point, their parent receives a notification (if they have them enabled) or an email notifying them that their student has received a point. Just last week, my 12-year-old nephew Thomas asked me if I saw that he received a point that day for “participation” (yes, I got an email).


I was honestly surprised by how excited he was. At my last school, I was able to motivate my second graders to stay on task or encourage them to participate by promising to dole out points. But I wouldn’t expect the same enthusiastic reception from a middle schooler. My nephew Thomas says that he loves Dojo points because it is “a competitive way to beat my friends and brag.” He explained that his teachers give out candy in exchange for earning a certain number of points, and Thomas wouldn’t let me off before mentioning, again, “Oh, and I can brag to all my friends—that’s my favorite part.”

ClassDojo has revolutionized how teachers and parents can communicate with each other, but it has also changed how parents can communicate with their students. We know the familiar refrain: “How was school today?” “Good.” “What did you learn?” “Nothing.”

Class Story cultivates a social community where teachers, parents and students can all engage. As a teacher, I shared a video of my second graders finally releasing their class butterfly “into the wild” (in their words) observing its metamorphosis. The post received dozens of “likes” from parents, students and other teachers at the school. Sometimes, students would ask me to share videos like these on ClassDojo so that their parents can see it and they go home and talk about it, just as my nephew told me the story behind how he earned his Dojo point for participation.

While private messages offer fast, convenient and low stakes means for parents and teachers to connect, I think the biggest impact ClassDojo has on communication is that it enables teachers to connect with parents that speak languages other than English. With Google Translate embedded in its messenger, I was able to form partnerships and relationships with parents of English Language Learners (ELLs) that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, and we were able to communicate more directly, better than the impersonal, indirect (and infrequently available) use of a translator. 

Though ClassDojo allows parents inside the classroom in a way that wasn’t possible before, that comes with privacy concerns. Offline, schools may perhaps require a media or photo release for students, but as I recall, students were able to send direct messages to teachers via the app. 

ParentSquare

Let’s now turn our attention to ParentSquare, a comparable K-12 digital communication tool for schools and parents. ParentSquare is a K-12 digital communication tool that offers “[e]verything you need to communicate, involve and collaborate with families for student success” (ParentSquare, n.d.). While I don’t have personal experience with this digital platform, I was very curious about it given the glowing feedback it has received from other teachers I know. Those teachers love it, but I wonder what kind of user experience does it offer parents?


Largely marketing itself to school districts, ParentSquare says that their goal “is to help you streamline your communication and parent engagement efforts across your schools” (ParentSquare, 2020, 0:03). Like ClassDojo, ParentSquare allows district and school administrators, teachers and parents to communicate via private messages. Schools and teachers can post on a feed and send newsletters. Posts can include photos, videos or an event. One impressive feature that separates ParentSquare from ClassDojo in this domain is that digital forms like permission slips can be sent and submitted via the app. In this regard, ParentSquare seems more sophisticated than ClassDojo, which from my memory, only allowed me to attach Word or PDF documents if I wanted to send a permission slip digitally.

Calling their app “100% parent-centric” (ParentSquare, 2020, 0:08), parent users of ParentSquare can decide how to receive communication, whether that be via phone, text or email. Several school districts in the greater New York City area utilize ParentSquare for all school communication. In New York, both the Shoreham-Wading River Central School District and Brentwood Union Free School District rely on ParentSquare to keep parents in the loop and engaged. Middletown Public Schools is one district in Connecticut that uses ParentSquare to connect with families, and automatically generates accounts for all parents/guardians, though the district notes they “encourage” but “do not require” parents to download the app (Middletown Public Schools n.d.). How user-friendly is ParentSquare for parents? Well, each of the districts mentioned has a webpage dedicated to teaching parents how to access and use ParentSquare. Middletown Public Schools even links this video overview that offers a detailed step-by-step tutorial, though my brother (my nephew’s dad) doesn’t feel that ClassDojo is quite intuitive either.

Interesting to note, ParentSquare collects data to measure parent engagement and post reach. As a teacher, I would wonder if that data would be used by administrators to pressure me into getting more “likes” and “comments” on my posts. Administrators can also access communication between all stakeholders, including private chats (ParentSquare, 2020). While that added measure offers a layer of safety for all, as a teacher I would feel surveilled nonetheless and I would question whether administrators would ever use these tools against me. Incidentally, my brother (my nephew Thomas’ father) says he doesn’t use ClassDojo’s private messaging or group chat because it’s not being monitored—he feels that the teachers don’t take it seriously because it’s “just a chat” and he would have more recourse via email.

The potential positive effects ParentSquare may have on learning are that increased parent communication should yield greater student accountability, which in turn, should boost student learning and engagement. This is in align with the advice of school-family partnership frameworks that often tell us that “educators and families should ‘communicate freely and respectfully with each other’” (DEEWR, 2009, p. 12, as cited by Murray et al., 2014, p. 1032) if we hope to yield the most meaningful learning experiences for students.

Conclusion

For both ClassDojo or ParentSquare, parents are a primary stakeholder that interfacing with these digital platforms. With that, in considering the required literacies, I recall how Vanek (2019) defined what it means to have digital literacy skills. For parents, they would need basic computer skills and network literacy. Network literacy would allow parents to participate and engage with the “social media” aspects that are signature of both apps, making interactions more meaningful overall. 

In the end, both ClassDojo and ParentSquare supports schools and teachers in aligning and partnering with families, which is crucial if we hope for the best student outcomes. Teachers can communicate en masse lessening their workload and parents are updated and involved—it’s a win-win. Students like my nephew find extrinsic motivation through ClassDojo’s point system—these digital communication platforms are a win-win-win (well, except for those days when I’m able to “fact check” my nephew and find out that he does have homework by reading his teacher’s Class Story posts).

References

ClassDojo. (n.d.). About. https://www.classdojo.com/about/

ClassDojo. (n.d.). Introducing: Class Story. https://www.classdojo.com/classstory/

ClassDojo. [ClassDojo]. (2020, July 17). An introduction to ClassDojo [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oufeciODPuo

Middletown Public Schools. ParentSquare. (n.d.). https://www.middletownschools.org/page/parentsquare 

Murray, E., McFarland-Piazza, L., & Harrison, L. J. (2014). Changing patterns of parent–teacher communication and parent involvement from preschool to school. Early Child Development and Care, 185(7), 1031–1052. https://doi-org.sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/03004430.2014.975223

Our schools. Shoreham-Wading River Central School District Dept. & Programs | Technology - ParentSquare. (n.d.). https://www.swrschools.org/departments_and_programs/tech_parentsquare
 
Parentsquare. Brentwood Union Free School District. (n.d.). https://www.bufsd.org/parentsguardians/district-technology-for-parents/parentsquare 

ParentSquare. [ParentSquare]. (2020, June 8). ParentSquare 3 Minute Overview [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4xTUzSg1xw&t=1s

Vanek, J. (2019). Digital literacy. American Institutes for Research. 


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