Okay, so there are already concerns that quantified behavioral reward/punishment systems reinforce existing inequalities. Did no one at kiddo’s school think about the implications of letting parents literally buy good behavior points by joining the PTA?

Kiddo’s school district has gotten rid of ClassDojo (hooray!) and replaced it with what looks like a homebrew platform (tentative hooray?) that still datafies student behavior (boo!) and frames the whole thing in terms of employability and workforce development (super boo!).

Once again, ClassDojo shows how much of its business model is built on creating feelings of parental inadequacy.

Every time I think my opinion of ClassDojo can’t get any worse, I discover (or am reminded of) another aspect of their grift.

I feel like half of ClassDojo’s business model is “let’s prey on parental anxiety.”

I intentionally keep receiving ClassDojo marketing emails because I keep thinking I ought to archive them all to write an autoethnography of my (negative) experience with it as a parent with an ed tech PhD, but I keep not doing that and just being angry at the emails.

ClassDojo sent me an automated “see how this week went!” email today even though school hasn’t been in session all week, and I feel like that’s telling.

Last year, Daniela DiGiacomo, Sarah Barriage, and I published an article on student and principal perceptions of ClassDojo. Our findings weren’t entirely what we expected, even if they weren’t a huge surprise. In short, students and practitioners don’t always share the concerns about edtech platforms (like ClassDojo) that are gaining steam in the critical educational technology literature. I don’t say this to shame edtech users for not thinking the way that we ivory tower types do—rather, it speaks to a long-recognized tension between theoretical and conceptual concerns held by academics vs.

It’s already indefensible that ClassDojo promises greater access to teachers for parents willing to pay, but these features also translate into letting richer parents put more pressure on teachers. This business model is awful.

If ClassDojo can send me “hey, check the new content in ClassDojo” emails, it could also send me that content in the email itself, so that I never have to open the app. Too bad it’s too dedicated to walled gardening.