ClassDojo Case Study
ClassDojo uses Filestack to eradicate obstacle of uploading and scaling images
ClassDojo is one of the fastest-growing global education technology companies, with over 35 million teachers and students using its platform in more than 80 countries.
Founded by Sam Chaudhary and Liam Don in 2011, ClassDojo is a behavioral feedback platform that allows teachers to use their smartphones and tablets to record and notify parents of a child’s in-class behavior and performance.
Teachers spend, on average, 50% of their time working on improving student behavior and this real-time feedback tool aims to solve this issue by opening and developing the lines of communication between parents and teachers, as well as being a positive and motivational tool for students.
For example, teachers can record incidence of good behavior, notify their parents and reward the students with ClassDojo points accordingly. Teachers, on average, award over 5 million points every school day to students.
According to ClassDojo, one teacher in roughly one out of every two schools in the U.S. use their app.
The educational software market aimed at students – from pre-kindergarten to high school – is now estimated to be worth $7.9 billion. ClassDojo recently claimed the coveted Crunchies Award for the 2015 Education Startup.
ClassDojo needed an easy uploading service to entice “non technical” users
The profile image is the most important element for a teacher using ClassDojo. It has to be professional in every aspect, as it is one of the only ways parents can verify that they are communicating with the right teacher.
Unfortunately, as co-founder Liam Don explains, not all teachers are “super technically savvy” and so may be dissuaded from signing-up to the service if they feel out of their depth.
“They may not be necessarily that comfortable handling a photo file, or have a jpeg of themselves on their desktop.”
Teachers, added Don, needed an easy solution that they could readily understand and easily use. “They might want to take a photo with their webcam or import it from their Facebook account…those are the things they understand,” he says.
Students that use the service select Avatars and not images for their private profiles.
Filestack solved an issue before it became one, says ClassDojo
To encourage new users to sign-up and actively use this platform, ClassDojo needed an offering that would eradicate this perceived big obstacle of uploading and scaling images.
The variety of different sources that users could grab their photos from was the deciding factor in choosing Filestack, says Liam Don, as well as its quick and easy integration. “We were just able to drop in javascript and run it…it was super fast,” he says, adding they have been using Filestack since 2013.
Don says the tool’s ability to resize the images to a consistent format and copy them into a S3 bucket, allowing ClassDojo to also have a hard copy, is also an important element for them.
Earlier this year, ClassDojo updated its mobile app to include messaging features, photo sharing and voice notes to improve communication channels between teachers and parents.
