Dallas schools turn to NFTs to increase student engagement

(TNS) — Clyde Forland, a music teacher at Oran M. Roberts Elementary School in Dallas, starts one of his classes with a music video about Hispanic Heritage Month.

Over 20 fourth-graders gather around him on a blue sheet of music, hoping to get rewards for the team they represent. Those who listen respectfully get a digital coin—a non-fungible token—deposited in the team’s house.

It is a Hogwarts-style learning environment, where the school uses NFTs for positive reinforcement. Students are divided into houses, each with their own color, similar to the classic Gryffindor and Hufflepuff names Harry Potter fans are used to. The houses are named with cultural affiliation: Novatores, Tallawah, Altruism and Spearheads. Students live in their houses from preschool to fifth grade and choose randomly from a “sorting hat”, just like in Harry Potter.

Forland hadn’t really heard of non-fungible tokens until Oran M. Roberts started using them last school year.

The school partners with Red Critter, a Lewisville company founded in 2010. The company gives the school free use of the CritterCoin system to allow Forland and other teachers to add coins to points in the houses.

Mike Beaty, chief executive of Red Critter, said the company’s products became very popular in Australia and the UK, expanding to the US as students returned to in-person learning during the pandemic. After schools went online during the pandemic, Beaty said the company looked ahead to what schools would need when they returned to classrooms.

It was there that the firm developed CritterCoin, an easier system for teachers and classrooms to use.

“The main goal of the system was – to know how busy teachers are [were] is going to be — to be able to eliminate teacher distraction and disruption in the classroom from dealing with the software,” Beaty said.

Teachers are free to name the NFTs after what behaviors they want to see or characteristics they want in the classroom, Beaty said. When they see students exhibiting the behavior, they send a 3D digital coin to the student to collect points.

With a touch of a smartboard, Forland can add points to his class based on five pillars: respect, togetherness, responsibility, friendship and grit. He uses these words often in class, so that the students are reinforced with the themes throughout the school day.

Cha’Tima Botello, 8, is in Forland’s blue house with her classmate Daniel Banks, 8. Both like to work together to get more coins. Botello said she gets a lot for best behavior.

Students can also receive “spirit coins” for wearing the color that represents their house.

Forland teaches 16 classes, and sees over 390 students a day. Karen Mendez, the school’s gym teacher, also uses CritterCoin in class to reward teams that do well in daily activities.

RedCritter has implemented the system in 550 schools nationwide, including eight in the Dallas area. Beaty said the company is getting thousands of students every day since launching just a few months ago.

The company will not disclose its annual turnover. It has raised $3.3 million from investors since 2012, according to startup tracking site Crunchbase. Beaty said the firm does all development in-house, without outsourcing.

The basic CritterCoin system is free, but schools and teachers can purchase add-ons to enhance the classroom experience. The company generates its revenue from the optional premium services, Beaty said. Schools can pay for data insights, different screens for houses and more. Parents can even pay to access their child’s achievements.

Beaty said the company has about 27 patents pending on the technology. He said learning about NFTs is not really necessary because the software is easy to understand.

“Schools don’t have to do anything,” Beaty said. “All they know is that they’re just rewarding behaviors. Our platform manages all that backend engagement.”

NFTs aren’t going away anytime soon, and students like getting rewards, Forland said.

“It draws them in in a good way,” he said.

At the end of the year, the winning house will receive the ultimate reward – a trip to Six Flags Over Texas at the school’s expense. The school will collect money for the trip and apply for funds through the non-profit organization Donors Choose.

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