Parent Communication/Assessment

App: Remind

Knowledge:
Remind is a messaging app that is free and safe to use for communication between teacher, student product and parents. It is an opportunity for teachers to send individualized messaged based on parent communication or child's portfolio work, specific small groups, or as a whole group announcement and reminder notification. Traditionally used for older children to connect through homework assignments, Remind is not used in the preschool classroom for homework assignments but rather a way to track conversations, digital copies of student product and a general connection and link from school to home. With over 70 languages, Remind is able to translate text for bilingual families and is a fast and effective way to send messages and material in real time, linked directly to your phone.

Application:
Remind is a free app downloadable by iPhone and android, however, all parents need is a cell phone or email address to sign up. With a sharable link, class number and class code, each parent signs up without giving their personal information being shown. Teachers can also change the settings so that parents can interact directly on the app with one another without giving out their personal information if they choose not to. Remind messages is not quite international however. Only phone numbers in the US and Canada are accepted for instant communication. When entering the app, teachers have the option to link from other platforms including Sign-Up Genius, Survey Monkey, Quizlet, Google Drive, One Drive and many more. There are also four quick options for communicating: Photo, Camera, File or Voice Clip. These four options allow for the teacher and parent to submit work based on learning goals and assessments for parents to see. Because this app does not have the option to delete comments in the communication thread, it gives an accurate depiction and time line of communication and student progress, which cannot be changed or deleted. Because this is going instantly to parents phones, there are two quick things that help in the quick communication process. First, parents can leave a quick emoji thumbs up, smiley face, heart frown or clapping. There is also read receipts to see that it has been opened.


Reflection:
This app was hard to explore without a real classroom. You do need real phone number or email addresses to begin exploring the functions of this app. Once I was able to log in one test student, I was able to see in real time how quick I was able to send a group announcement and begin private conversations with a test parent. One down side is that this app is similar to texting and could easily become unprofessional with quick responses. What I did like is that I could set my office hours so that parents knew when I was available for communication or not. This could be very helpful with tracking progress and communication and for whole group reminders like changing out extra clothes for warmer/colder weather, when we need help with recyclable materials or when there is a snow day.  It is also helpful to send quick videos or photographs to parents of students struggling with morning drop-off transitions since the photos and parent information is at the touch of your fingertips. Typically, we need to load all of this into our email accounts and upload pictures from seperate devices.