Item: Schoolmint Hero
Rating: 8
Author: James Harris

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Hero is being used site-wide at our High School. I estimate teacher participation varies from week to week between 70-99%. I estimate because I am not an admin and do not have access to site-wide data.

Pros and Cons

tracks positive student behavior site-wide. This is good because I think a lot of students feel they are ignored as teachers focus on the "problem kids". Hero makes it easy to acknowledge the students for doing what they are supposed to do on a daily basis.
tracks tardies sitewide. by pairing this with daily tardy sweeps it keeps kids from slipping through the cracks. Kids can't learn if they are not in class. This makes them acknowledge the impact/cost of being late to class.
by tracking all of this sitewide, admin is able to look for patterns and encourage more teachers to use a positive reward system. Also gives teachers access to a positive reward system without the cost and effort of maintaining a false economy (points, teacher "bucks" etc) and stocking rewards
prints a pass for tardy students so we know they have checked in. Downside, special printers and special paper required for them.

for me, it really comes down to making it easier to award points. On the desktop website for awarding Hero points, they need to streamline the process for awarding points. Currently, it requires one click too many in my opinion.
on the desktop website, more options for awarding points eg: 1. double points option. 2. on the class page make it possible to reselect the previous selection... like when you award a point to everyone present for being on time, make it possible to reselect that group. 3. A seating chart option would be super cool also.
on the mobile app, add the behavior tracking by class option from the desktop website. I know that would probably be a lot of pinching and scrolling and zooming for most but still be cool to have that option. My Galaxy Note would probably be big enough to make it worthwhile.

Return on Investment

increased number of students in class on time
decreased number of students in the quad or hallways after the tardy bell
increased number of teachers offering rewards for positive behavior
created school-wide behavior data and enabled tracking of it
increased teacher use of positive tier 1 behavior interventions
honestly, if they sucked, I would say so and still get my points for writing the review. I already aired my one gripe which is making it easier to award points. Currently, that is a bit time consuming but the results make it worthwhile.

Alternatives Considered

I really have not used a program like Hero to compare it to, sorry

Likelihood to Recommend

I work at a public high school that had a big tardy problem. Some said this would not work at our age group but we jumped in with both feet and have seen amazing and undeniable results that anyone could see who was on campus before implementation. This is good for organizations that want to acknowledge the ones who are doing what they are supposed to do while still taking care of the problems. Could possibly even be used for a business to enable managers to promote desirable behaviors such as early to work, good customer service, specific target behaviors ex "always ask if they want their receipt" etc.

Usability

again. for the day to day usage, adding points is a bit of a chore but I keep doing it because the students respond.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Technical support not required Consistent Quick to learn Feel confident using Familiar	Cumbersome

Difficult Tasks

giving points continues to be one step too many with a class full of students.

Mobile Interface Availability and Impressions

Yes - mediocre. good for giving individual students a point. Not good for walking around and giving points to multiple students.

Tardy Elimination Hero

Overall Satisfaction with Hero