Promoting Parent Communication
Facilitator: Peggy Reimers (@preimers)
Session Description
Getting parents involved with your school and helping them stay in the loop has great benefits. Join us as we share some technology strategies and tips to help connect with parents.
Communication between parents and teachers is an essential ingredient that fuels the learning process for students. When parents and teachers keep each other in the loop, they can notify each other of achievements, behavioral problems, health issues, and more. - Kayla Matthews
Six Apps For Parent-Teacher Communication
Kayla Matthews is a tech journalist and writer. She published Six Apps for Parent-Teach Communication earlier this year for the TCEA TechNotes Blog. You can find more of her writing on her blog Productivity Bytes.
Use Gmail - Template - Filter
1. Compose the template (email) also formally called a canned response.
2. Set up a filter
3. Tell your parents the secret subject line
4. Change on a timely (day, week, month) basis
Important note: If you do not see templates - you must enable this feature. Settings > Advanced >Templates
Thank you to Sarah of OKC for this info!
A Few More
Class Dojo - FREE classroom communication app used to share reports between parents and teachers. It connects parents and teachers on a student's conduct and performance through real-time reports as well as a feed for photos and videos during the school day.
LiveSchool - Communicate with Students and Parents Students and parents can use LiveSchool from their phone, tablet, or laptop to view behavior feedback from all teachers. When you record a comment, it will be instantly visible to the student and their parents. School and District Pricing.
Seesaw - Platform for student engagement. Teachers can empower students to create, reflect, share, and collaborate. Students “show what they know” using photos, videos, drawings, text, PDFs, and links. It’s simple to get student work in one place and share with families, and nothing is shared without teacher approval.
The core Seesaw service is free for teachers, families, and students. Optional features can be purchased.
ClassTag is a cloud-based app designed for teachers to engage parents in their elementary school classroom community.
Teacher can send a message, either directly to a parent or to the whole class. Parents automatically receive it however suits them with ClassTag’s unique “smart messaging”. And you don’t have to share your personal details.
Blackboard is one such school app provider. For those relying on Blackboard for services, a mobile school app may be available from Blackboard at an additional cost.
The Campus Suite school mobile app is just one more way for your parents, staff and students to stay connected to your school. Custom brand for your school or district is also available along with website integration.
Another neat parent communication tool is Wakelet and Flipgrid Shorts (videos). You can combine them to create an interactive newsletter. Learn more at https://education.microsoft.com/courses-and-resources/courses/unleash-learning-with-wakelet (Thanks, Miguel)
Miscellaneous Communication Apps
There are a variety of apps available to facilitate communications among team members. These include free walkie-talkie apps like Voxer and Zello and group messaging apps like GroupMe and Telegram. Each has its own strengths. For example, if you need to be able to rely on passworded groups with text and audio options, Voxer, Zello, and Telegram will meet your needs. Zello’s benefit is that it doesn’t require users to share their mobile phone number with others. All apps listed work via the web, as well as on your mobile device of choice.
My colleague, Miguel Guhlin has used all of these. His current favorite is Zello, a favorite for many others as well. If it worked for them, it should work for you.