附近上门

With nationwide school closures, teachers and parents have had to be creative to keep kids connected with each other while ensuring they stay on top of their education.

Subscribe to the 附近上门 Daily

That鈥檚 where the communication app comes in.

Adjusting to online learning and virtual communication is one thing, but the more nuanced issue is kids鈥� desire to stay connected to their community, according to CEO Sam Chaudhary.

鈥淭he toughest thing is that kids are now suddenly apart from their whole village,鈥� Chaudhary said in an interview with 附近上门 News. 鈥淐lassrooms are their village.鈥�

Since schools have closed and the students have been home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the desire to stay connected to friends and teachers has intensified, and that鈥檚 translated to increased engagement on the ClassDojo app. The average classroom was sharing about four times more content and communication during the week of March 25 than the previous week, Chaudhary said.

鈥淲hat鈥檚 top of mind for me is that every one of those communities are just engaging with each other so much more deeply and so much more often,鈥� he said.

With ClassDojo, teachers can send direct messages to families, make announcements, and assign classwork and activities for students. The app is used by 95 percent of K-8 schools in the United States, and across 180 countries, according to the company. ClassDojo is backed by investors including , and , according to 附近上门 data.

If Zoom has become the go-to communication and engagement tool for adults since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, ClassDojo is something like Zoom for kids. It鈥檚 being used at-scale and keeping elementary kids, who usually don鈥檛 have social media, connected while they鈥檙e apart.

Teachers are sending daily videos to students to check in, coming up with activities and centering each day around a theme, like Superhero Day and Crazy Hair Day.

Engagement on the app has skyrocketed, increasing its user base. Five times as many families joined ClassDojo last week than in any week in the company鈥檚 history.

San Francisco-based ClassDojo鈥檚 鈥渢ranslate鈥� feature has also proved to be in-demand. With many families in the U.S. not speaking English at home, ClassDojo has seen the translate feature 鈥渆xplode,鈥� Chaudhary said. The app had more than 100 million translations during the week of March 18, or five times more than usual.

ClassDojo鈥檚 50-person team has been hustling to keep up with the demand and introducing new features to fit teachers and students鈥� needs. Many ClassDojo employees are parents or former teachers, so they鈥檙e 鈥渓iving the same challenges,鈥� Chaudhary said.

When the company started hearing from teachers that they wanted to teach their students short lessons, ClassDojo built and rolled out a 鈥渞ecord鈥� feature within 48 hours so teachers could record short video lessons.

鈥淚t鈥檚 really hard for me to remember a time when our mission was more relevant and more important,鈥� Chaudhary said.

Illustration Credit: