Connect With Tech
Connect With Tech #1
Purpose: To find ways to better connect with families and include families in their children's learning
I was able to talk to my CT about how she handles communication with her students' families. She stated that her most preferred method of interacting with parents was phone calls. However, she seemed interested in my research because it is difficult for her to make phones calls often. As I talked to other teachers and people that I know in education (my mom, her teacher friends, and my CT from last year) it seems like parent communication is often done over email or over the phone. I am interested to see if there are any other apps out there that can make communication and interaction easier.
My CT stated that a lot of the apps and technology she is using in her classroom she has found from other teachers or social media.
This is something that I really want to implement when I teach, so I am excited to begin exploring different apps to assist me in this.
A few apps that I found as I looking on social media and online that I would be interested in looking into deeper were...
1. Bloomz
2. ParentSquare
3. Edsby
4. School Jotter
Another parent-teacher communication resource I have heard/seen implement is Google Hangouts. Most schools are one-to-one with Chromebooks and utilize Google Suits. Hangouts allows for you to text and call without families needed to access your personal or school number and it tracks all your calls. I ha witnessed a mentor teacher use this in the past.
I am curious to see how this works and if there are any restrictions on resources used to communicate with parents.
Connect With Tech #2
The first website I looked into was Bloomz. This website was extremely easy to navigate and was organized nicely. I watched the intro/instructional video and linked it here. Impressed was an understatement. I believe that a huge communication issue that a lot of schools and districts have is their communication with families. It is difficult to easily access parents, especially when there are multiple guardians and/or languages spoken in the family. District, School, Classroom, and PBIS communication are all used during in this app. Blooms also seems to be free for teachers and parents.
ParentSquare was the next website I checked out. This website was cool, but it did seem a little confusing. There were many locations where the information would be sent. This website did school wide, grade level, class, and specific group alerts. Overall, I thought this website was great, but it didn't seem as user friendly as Bloomz. ParentSquare is $3000 a year.
Edsby was the next website I viewed. This one seemed more geared towards helping your students stay onto of their academic work. This doesn't really seem like an issue because Google Classroom already has the option to have guardians linked to their students pages.
The very last website I looked into was School Jotter. The more I looked into this website, I realized it was priced in Euros. Though it is compatible and useable in the US. It may not be the best option to have something that is designed for schools in the UK, where their needs and daily goals may be different from the US. I wasn't really able to find a video, but I did see a lot of similarities between all the platforms.
Lastly, I just researched some articles and over and over again, I realized the Bloomz continued to win awards and have success.
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Connect With Tech#3
All About Bloomz
After making an account on Bloomz, I recognized that there was a lot to do on this website and it is so extremely easy to navigate. The layout it similar to Google Classroom where you can have a variety of classes. I think this is great because you can create a section for each class you have. There is even parent only channels, team channels, administrative channels, and so much more. This is an extreme advantage, but one thing I wish I could have seen here was the ability to link Google Classroom directly to Bloomz, so that maybe you could send alerts about assignments or just more easily have classes created.
Another feature that I really enjoyed within this app was the messaging feature. You can message anyone on any team, similar to a text. Because Bloomz can be accessed on mobile devices, this makes it extremely easy for people to message each other back and forth.
A really cool thing that connects to some discussions that we have had in our Friday class - there is even an option for creating neighborhoods and communities. These are all extremely important aspects of the middle school system.
I really like that you can add photos, so on the parents class we could post pictures about what the students are doing in class to help everyone understand what is going on during the week. There is also the option for a calendar where all assignments can be uploaded as well as events throughout the day.
Adding participants is easy. They can either join by a code or you can add them manually. I can also easily import all the information about a student into their slide. There also seems to be some sort of points system for students based on their assignments, participation, and behaviors that I am interested to learn more about.
One limitation that I do recognize with this platform is the free access that it has. Though this is extremely beneficial now, I do wonder once this website rises to fame or more people use it or if I continue to use it, will a paid option ever be created. This would be upsetting if I put work into creating everything on Bloomz and the site becomes a hassle to utilize. Another limitation that I could see is difficult with administration and families who have never used a site like this before. I may receive backlash because this does not have to be a district wide program, so some individuals may be upset about the extra steps they have to do in order to access this information.
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Connect With Tech#4
All About ParentSquare
ParentSquare is a huge platform that many schools utilize. The program is designed to benefit grades K-12. The program is extremely customizable. ParentSquare is a resource that would have to be implemented by an entire school or district. This is not something that a teacher could solely implement in their own classroom. Yearly, for a school with 600 student enrollment, the prices begin at $3, 600. ParentSquare works with SIS (Student Information System). For the school I am currently at, this would be something like Skyward.
From the parent side of things, there is no additional fee that is charged.
The program offers a demo option that you can utilize in your school prior to purchasing the software. Because of this, I wasn't able to fully dive into everything that this program has to offer, however, I watched a lot of videos that helped me fully understand what the app entailed.
Another benefit of this software is its ability to control a variety of other things all throughout this one software. For example, you can run social media and control posts throughout ParentSquare. Social media is becoming a huge way for families and school to interact with others, while broadcasting the amazing staff, students, and activities that are going on within the school.
There is also an option for all school documents and student information to be shared through this software. One thing that interested me was the permission slip accessibility. This could be extremely beneficial to receive permission slips and documents from families, quicker. At BJHS this semester we went on a field trip. Obtaining permission slips from all the students was difficult. The first problem that we ran into involved translation issues. We have many multilingual families that need the information translated, which took quite a bit of time. However, on with this software, translations happen quickly. We also had a few students who couldn't end up going on the field trip because they didn't get their permission slips in, having permission slips posted online, directly shared with parents could help combat this issue.
There is also an option for appointments. This would be extremely beneficial for PTC (parent-teacher conferences) as well as IEP (individualized education plans) or 504 meetings.
I watched videos that different schools have created to assist their parents in understanding and navigating the site. Overall, this site seems extremely easily to navigate. The only downfall that I see is it needs to be owned and ran by administration. I enjoyed on some of the other websites that these could be implemented by teachers or teacher teams. I wish that I could have explored this website more, but the information that I found was very informative!
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Connect With Tech #5
All About Edsby
Edsby is an innovative K-12 software. This software creates a "social media" like platform for students, teachers, parents, and anyone involved in the district.
A really cool benefit of Edsby that I noticed was the professional development program that is installed within the software. Teachers are able to create a variety of groups and included outside sources into specific groups. When these sources are added, they can only see the information in the group that they were added. Another really nice benefit of Edsby is that it is fully compatible with Google Suites. This means that everything in Edsby is completely compatible with Google Classroom, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. This program is also easily connected with all 365 features as well. These are things like Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This is extremely rare for most online resources. These days, most platforms only allow for easy access to one of these softwares.
My favorite features that I have noticed about this resource is the classroom management features. You can create seating charts in this program. You can also create lesson plans and assignments within this software. Everything "student" is documented.
One really cool, classroom management tool I found was a student emotional check in. This allows students to document their emotions and send them directly to the teacher.
Polls are another really cool feature. As a teacher, I think I would utilize these at the start of classes as a bell ringer or at the end of class as an exit ticket.
Honestly, the more I looked into this software, the more I found. This program works with Zoom as well, lets you upload photos and videos with ease, and allows for students to do the same.
On the student side of things, they are able to fully see all grades and assessments within this program.
Teachers are able to create intervention groups within this software as well. I do think that this could be beneficial for classes with a lot of students with IEP's or 504's. Often times, you have to keep track of minutes of intervention for students and this program makes that simple.
Now for the most important part, the parent communication resource. This resource does not use emails, but instead has a direct contact feature. This could be beneficial because as a teacher we do not have to look up the emails of parents. As a teacher, we can also control how much or how little we want parents to see. Permission forms, parent teacher conferences, and absences can be considered on this software as well. My favorite feature of all is the voice and video conference. This could allow us to contact parents easily, without having to book in person meeting times.
One downfall that I did find from this software was the lack of translation available for families. Many families in the school I am currently placed at are primarily Spanish speaking. This could pose as an issue, if this software is not easily translatable.
I also was not able to see a price for Edsby because it is completely compatible for your district.
Overall, thus far, Edsby is my favorite resource I have found. This focuses on so many other practices outside of parent teacher communication. There was nothing that Edsby didn't think of. I really couldn't find any complaints and would be incredible happy to have this resource implemented into my district. Again, this is something that needs to be implemented into a district vs the ability for this to be implememnted in a single classroom.
Connect With Tech #6
All About Remind
The last app I analyzed was the Remind app. Originally, I was supposed to look at School Jotter. School Jotter did not provide me enough information and did not fulfill the idea I was looking for.
When I looked at the Remind app I was very pleased with the things I saw. One nice thing about the Remind app is it allows for teachers to implement this freely. This means if a teacher would like to utilize Remind for their classroom, they can without the entire school using it.
Remind is an app that I have even used in school. This is extremely nice for teachers because anyone can sign up for it once they have the code. This means that parents, students, and faculty can receive updates. On the teacher side of things, you are able to see who is in your groups. This means you can create specific groups for parents.
A nice feature of this app is that it is instant. Individuals can receive text messages with the information.
One downfall of the Remind app is that anyone with the link can join. You as a teacher would then have to go in and remove anyone that you do not want to be a part of your Remind. This could become time consuming if you had a bunch of people joining a group that you didn't want them to join. Another con of the site is when you send long messages it often splits the message into two parts, making it difficult to read.
Another plus of this app is there is an online website that can be used there is also an app that individuals can utilize. I like that there are a variety of ways for people to access the information.
One problem that I have had with other apps is the inability to communicate with families who speak other languages. Remind has a translate feature that makes this perfect.
Because this website is difficult to practice when I am looking at it by myself, I looked up some other testimonies that people shared. The first testimony I read was from a teacher and a coach, Stephanie. On Software Advice, Stephanie said, "I've used this for both my classroom and teams, and I have been happy with both situations. I love that you can send mass messages as well as individual. It also allows you to attach photos, files, voice clips, and more."
I really enjoyed this testimony because she utilized the app for similar things that I would.
