July 2017 - Edsys

Posted on July 25, 2017 by Edsys

As a parent, you too have a role to play in your child’s schooling, rather than just letting the teacher take care of everything. You have to know what is happening in your child’s school and how he or she is faring in the class. To know that, you must attend parent-teacher meetings.

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Parent-teacher meetings give you the opportunity to discuss about your child’s performance in school and to share your fears or worries regarding your child with their teachers.But, working parents find it impossible to make time to attend these meetings that most probably fall during working days in schools. As a solution, many companies have come up with mobile and web apps to ensure smooth parent-teacher communication whenever possible.

Here is a list of 13 apps that can help parents communicate with their child’s teachers:

Parent Portal

The Parent Portal software by Edsys keeps parents updated about how their child performs in school. The communication center feature of the software enables easy parent-teacher communication whenever they wish for, without having to go to their schools to meet teachers. Apart from that, you can also track the academic progress of your child, track their school bus location and even pay their school fees online using Parent Portal. You can also get notified about the latest happenings in your child’s school using this app.

2. BuzzMob

This App enables parent-teacher communication by connecting them on a private network which requires to be authorized. It is similar to the social networking platforms where updates can be posted. Students can also use this BuzzMob app to post things and work together for projects, assignments etc.

3. The teacher App & Grade Book

The teacher App & Grade Book is a relatively new tool which is freely available to the users. Parents and teachers can use the tool to interact with each other using the parent messaging feature. Also available with it is an interactive calendar, event notifications and course-wise grade reports of students. Parents can keep track of student’s attendance records and upcoming events in their child’s school using this app.

4. Collaborize Classroom

It is an education-focused app where teachers can discuss about their students’ academic progress, relevant topics and latest happenings in the school with parents and students. This acts as an online discussion platform where teachers can create discussion threads, upload videos, articles, images etc. Collaborize Classroom is a secure app where the content is visible only to authorized users.

5. Remind 101

Do you want to remind your students’ parents about the class party tomorrow? Calling each one of them or sending them e-mails individually is an impossible task. The Remind101 app is a solution. With the help of the app, you can create an account where all parents of your students can join, with a single text message. Teachers can interact with parents using the app.

6. TeacherKit

Using this TeacherKit app, teachers can create individual user profiles for every student where they can mark the students’ attendance, add details of the students’ grades and behavior in class. Teachers can use the app to e-mail parents directly. All the profiles are kept separately and can be edited or deleted if need.

7. Running Start

This app is meant for physical education. The digital resource available with the app enables physical education teachers to explain students about movement and running. Parents can also join the physical education classes using the Running Start app. They can learn about different running techniques and for other physical activities which can help them guide their children to perform better.

8. ClassDojo

This app helps teachers to improve the classroom behavior promptly and easily. Teachers can share the details on each child’s behavior with parents as well as other school authorities. Using this ClassDojo app, teachers can provide positive behavior feedback and thus manage classes well.

9. Edmodo

Edmodo app makes the daily life of teachers simple as they can interact with students anytime from anywhere. By using this app, you can have safe classroom discussions, publishing assignments, tracking student’s progress, file sharing and uploading. And they can share these details to parents and thereby improving parent-teacher communication.

10. Schoolcircle

Schoolcircle helps teachers to easily handle administrative task, that is, usually time-consuming. Parents will be able to get daily and weekly reminders for everything that is related with their child. Some of the notable features associated with the app are its powerful sharing(able to share events and photos via the app and parents can see it), obvious volunteering, good partnership between parents and teachers(they work as a team and make school management easier).

11. Class Messenger

With this Class Messenger app, two-way messaging is possible between parents and teachers. They can discuss about child’s capability, their progress, struggles, and so forth. Also, parents are able to get test results, reminders, photos of various events, competitions and its videos.

12. VolunteerSpot

You will be able to organize group meetings, parent-teacher meetings, and group mails with VolunteerSpot. The VolunteerSpot app can be used for arranging field trips, events, competitions, and other career related programmes.

13. Pupil Asset Pupil

Asset help parents to review the attendance details, behavior, school reports (both current year and previous year reports) and student’s progress in core subjects. At the touch of a button, parents will get an overall idea about their child’s performance in the school.

14. Teno

One of India’s leading mobile app to foster a fruitful alliance between parents and teachers, Teno has a tied-up with elite educators and principals to help them effortlessly create a better management system. In addition to being an effective tool for conveyance, it aids in School fee payment, E-learning, digital attendance, timetable, record student grades etc.

15. Classting

A communication tool for all the members of the school community – Teachers, Students, classmates, parents. A cheerful and fun filled social media platform for students to interact with each other and share class posts, photos and notifications.

16. Parent Class 123

The prevalent functions of this app lets parents receive feedback from teacher, view visuals of class stories, videos and stay updated with important announcements.

Parents can be kept in the know of the students conduct at school as the app lets teachers keep tab of student behavior and attendance.

The parent can reciprocate the action by sharing the child’s etiquettes and behavior in the confinements of home. It is a cross platform app which functions on both android and ios.

This develops a rapport between parents and booth parties come to a better understanding of what is crucial for the child’s development.

17. Bloomz

This award winning app makes it easy for teachers to stay in touch with children’s parents. Apart from communication, teachers can securely upload pictures, classroom updates and also keep them in the loop about upcoming events. The other features include sending alerts for important matters, scheduling a parent teacher meet within seconds and managing events and calendar with the aid of built-in reminder. The app works on both android and ios platforms.

18. Classtag parent teacher app

An out of the way tradition to let parents be a part of their child’s success can be initiated though this app. The app was build with a vision of bringing in family support to the student life in the most un- conventional manner. The app lets teachers and parents organize activities in conjunction with each other by adding insights from both parties. It grows personal relations and gives rise to volunteering openings considering the interests of the parent.

19. Teachers 2 parents

The parents can connect with all schools and clubs who use Teacher2Parents. The app is the best platform to view the announcements of notices and events to be held in the school.

It is a reliable and convenient way of conveying important or urgent information to parents.

Parents can book an appointment with the teachers in advance. The app has an efficient email function to broadcast information to all the members of the school ecosystem.

The app lets us access all school updates under a single roof. It is controlled by the school and all the numbers of the users are registered on to the text messaging service under their administration.

20. School Connect

The app is the work of Tata ClassEdge who tied up with schools to improve the communications between parents and teachers.

The mobile app helps parents stay updated with school activities, the child’s academic performance and also helps to easily access the academic information and provides an effortless medium to stay connected with the school.

21. Google classroom

Google classrooms promotes communication, tweaks assignments, and increases engagement thus making teaching a lot more purposeful.

This is a virtual classroom which defies the confinements of a school building making it possible to set up anywhere as per the comfort of the teachers and the children with even the guardians involvement.

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The parents receive an account of student’s progress, missing work, upcoming assignments and class activities. This prevents matters of poor performance to be brought to notice earlier for parents to take necessary actions.

These apps allow you to interact with your child’s teachers. But, communicating with your child’s teachers isn’t just about parent-teacher meetings. It will let your child know the role you, as his or parent plays in their education. Also, as a parent, it is your responsibility to know about the physical, social and mental development of your child and help them in the process. Always maintain a positive relationship with your child’s teachers and keep discussing your child’s progress with them using the available apps. This can help your child apply their potential to the fullest to get outstanding results.

Posted on July 12, 2017 by Edsys

Digital classrooms have been creating a revolution in the educational sector. Embedded with modern day technologies, such interactive classrooms offer a friendly environment to the students where they may clear all their concepts while having endless fun.

Benefits of digital classrooms are a lot more than one can ever think of. They are ideal for educating the little angels about the most basic rules of learning and also help them in retaining their knowledge. They have not only changed the perspective of students towards studying but have also helped the teachers in preparing dynamic multi-media lessons which can be interesting for students. Learning is more of a fun and less of a burden with the introduction of such digital classrooms in education.

Educators can interact with all the viewers and thus keep every individual engaged and focused. Moreover, they may also organise student collaboration in smart classrooms which may help the students in building up healthy communication with each other.

Posted on July 5, 2017 by Edsys

“Teaching in the Internet age means we must teach tomorrow’s skills today.” – Jennifer Fleming

Over the past few decades, influence of technology upon children and education has been immense. Education was once equated with money, but things have changed. Great education for your children is no more a dream. It’s affordable. Even average families can afford a mobile phone in which applications can be downloaded.

While there are a lot of applications available at the app store, choosing the right one for your child can change the way they look at the process of learning. Educational apps are making things easier for children to understand. Books are often found to be tiring and boring for children while replacing them with colourful pages and moving animations can make learning fun to the core.

Benefits of Using Mobile Applications in Education

1. Enhanced Interaction

Experts say that apps in education can make children more interactive and activate better engagement between parents and children. The most effective way is to engage with the children while they are using applications. Interaction tendency in children is enhanced by mobile applications.

2. Novel learning techniques

Thoughts of traditional methods of learning accompany a generic feeling of boredom. They do not favor drifting from the monotonous learning patterns of restricted and upright book learning, thus dissipating the engagement factor.

Technology in the guise of apps is helping those looking for some newness in the universe of learning. In addition to the feel of novelty, apps add an element of fun and involvement to the learning process. Through games, puzzles or other challenging tasks, app learning stimulates the brain cells to actively metabolize the input unleashing a new perspective.

3. Parent-teacher communication

The ideal concept of frequent parent teacher interactions finds its space in the articles and books regarding performance enhancement but not in reality. Owing to the tight schedule of both the parties, it is just not possible to maintain the rapport through physical interactions. But now, we have apps. Teachers can attend to the queries of the parents anytime and anywhere through an ominous device called the phone. This fosters transparency regarding the child’s growth at school.

4. Online resources

The power of digital world lies in the ginormous amount of resources that fill its nooks and corners. The wealth of this platform implicates its popularity among knowledge seekers. The reach of this platform makes it a favorite to people who cannot afford the luxury of full time courses in schools or colleges. Mobile applications help them access a compendium of ebooks and pdfs and other online materials and the freedom to access it beyond the boundaries of time and space.

5. Entertainment

According to studies, mobile apps promote entertainment. Learning is no more a passive activity, it’s active with applications. Lessons transforming to games can change the face of education. Children will enable a kind of interest in learning. Level based apps instil determination to pass each level. Apps without doubt enhance education. No more boring home works and tough class lectures.

6. Availability 24/7

Unlike school, mobile applications are available round the clock. No need to be worried about schedules. Anywhere can be a classroom. App learning is not time-bound learning, its relaxed learning.

Most of the apps promote child-friendly control. Children should only need to reach out for the device when they feel like learning. Little ones can operate it without much effort.

7. Leisure Hours Utilization

No responsible parents want their kids to get addicted to the “idiot box”. Too much internet usage and talking over the phone for hours are not wise options for killing time. This is where mobile apps prove their worth. Mobile app learning is one among the wisest choices of utilizing your free time actively.

If a child has lots of leisure time, it can be utilized to learn something new with the help of a learning app. Entertainment guaranteed without wasting time.

8. Routine tasks

It’s a relief to get all the mundane tasks done with a few taps. Be it tasks like fee payments, other transactions which require us to stand in a queue for hours or the laborious job of marking attendance that drives teachers crazy with the amount of paperwork smiling back at them each day. All this drudgery has been put to an end simply by having apps in place. The life of each individual associated with the ecosystem is now simple and functioning, more efficient.

9. Filling in the gaps

The wheel of time has spun to drive the progress to land us into the world we live in today.

The advancement that schools have seen eliminated a lot many glitches that prevailed in the education system. A major one being the lack of interaction between the teachers and the teachers. Apps and websites have been created to help reduce the gap not just between the students and the educators but also among parents and the teachers. Students and parents can be kept in the loop of every event, schedule change or announcement.

10. Better Earth

While millions of trees are cut down for making papers for the traditional method of learning, mobile apps in education requires just a download. It means a greener earth for future generations.

Mobile learning process has sustainability. Completing a lesson with an app is much more effective as it is learning from experience rather than from compulsion.

11. Systematic Learning Activated

Smart learning is one thing and systematic learning is next. App based learning enables both. Mobile apps help in systematic learning. Apps are arranged in such a way that, it promotes not only a craving for learning but systematic learning.

The apps are arranged in a systematic way that it becomes possible for students to go with the flow without even realising.

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12. Portability

There are no constraints for mobile phones.. They can be constant companions of parents and students. Thereby, apps are available to children anywhere, anytime. Learning will not be confined to the classrooms alone.

13. More Than Just Children

It’s a misconception that only children are benefited out of the apps. Teachers and parents also benefit from using educational apps. Teachers can make use of apps in classrooms. There are apps that help teachers to plan teaching materials. App based learning allows teachers and parents more time to discuss lesson plan for better interactive classes. While selecting apps for children, parents and teachers can contribute a lot.

14. Sustainability

Using mobile apps for learning is more sustainable compared to the traditional learning methods which include papers, pencils, and pens. Getting reference notes is very simple in mobile learning- just download it. This results in a lesser number of trees being cut down every year.

15. Instant Updates

There are some apps which are not only meant for learning but also to stay updated about campus events, timetables, alerts and other important information. Soon apps will allow you to do the educational related payments such as tuition fees, library fines, etc. They also provide opportunities to interact with students throughout the life cycle of prospects, enrolled students, and alumni.

16. Track Your Children’s Progress

With some apps, you can track your children’s progress which is one of the important things that every parent wants to know. Along with the progress, you can visualize how each app is helping your children to improve their skills such as reading, maths and much more.

17. Staying connected

Educational apps are the best way for children to stay connected with their teachers. Though the way of learning through apps is entirely different from the traditional learning method, it adds value to the entire process.

Apps for Betterment All The Way

Over 20 million students use Google apps for education
The use of Google apps for education has increased 100% by 2 years
Opting Google apps for education can save up to $1.5 Million per year in classrooms
72 of the top 100 universities in the United States use Google apps.
73% teachers access digital content from their handheld mobile device
Mobile networks are accessible to more than 90% of the worlds population

Posted on July 1, 2017 by Edsys

Teaching is a huge responsibility and an ideal teacher should make sure that the students are comfortable with the way they deal with a classroom.

Students spent more time at school than at home. So, teachers should be an ideal role model for their students. You should try to create a bond between the hearts and minds of yourself and the students.

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The statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) helps school teachers to analyze the standards that early year providers should meet. This would enable children will learn and develop well. Along with that, here are certain things that you should avoid as a teacher to create a pleasant, safe as well as comfortable atmosphere for their students.

1. Yelling – No students like yelling at them. This will cause them to slowly dislike the teacher and may result in distrust too. Also by yelling, you can never follow the classroom management plan. Students will more listen to you, when you speak in a normal voice. While raising your voice, it seems like you are showering your frustrations in front of them. Clear communication will make teaching an easier and enjoyable task as well.

2. Short temper – It is just not fine if the role model lose temper in front of the students. Especially if you are an Early Years Foundation Stage teacher. Rebuilding trusts and relationship with students is not that easier as it seems to be. Try to keep calm and take effort as to avoid shouting. In case if you have raised your voice, make sure to apologize. Also focus on your behavioral aspects and change the things that need to be done.

3. Unprepared for class – Coming unprepared for class is the loss of valuable teaching time. It also indicates a negative behavior.

4. Loss of control – Never let the class become unruly. Take control of the class. Students may become overexcited and may create noises. Early Years Foundation Stage teachers might find it difficult, but it is a skill that can easily be developed. An ideal way would be to create signals such as clapping hands or raising hands to keep them quiet.

5. Continuous sitting – Teachers sitting at the beginning of the class is fine. But remaining in the seated position throughout the class may create lack of interest and motivation in students.

6. Arguing – Discussions and argument are both different. Even if the student argues on any point, you should never encourage that. While setting rules in the beginning of the year, make sure to include that arguing is not an appreciable behavior and it shows disrespect.

7. Humiliation – Never hurt the dignity and self-respect of a student. He/she will lose confidence in your classroom. Also they will never trust you.

8. Getting too much friendly – Most new teachers make this mistake. They try to win the students by compromising on discipline, which may result in disrespect. Make sure to follow the set of rules that teaches them discipline. Also never be too open with students to discuss your personal information. Instead stay professional and try to earn their respect and appreciation.

Also Read: 45 Famous Quotes On Teachers

9. Late rules – Establishing rules in the beginning of the year helps to create a peaceful atmosphere during the whole year. Routines and rules, established late will fail to serve the purpose.

10. Complaining about coworker – Talking ill about other staff, management or other teachers in the school will be of no gain at all. It is better to talk directly to the teacher or staff member whom you have issues with and solve the problem then and there.

11. Too tough and authoritative – A teacher’s authority is a responsibility. Never misuse that. Being too tough and hard may result in students being afraid of you. Your aim should be to be loved, respected and not to be feared by them.

12. Over dependency on administrators – Make your own strategies to manage the class. Never depend too much on school administrators. A teacher also plays the role of an educator and disciplinarian.

13. Too much hard work – Along with work, find time to relax and be with your family after work.

14. Unequal treating – Never treat students based on your likes and dislikes. All the students should be considered equal. Punishment should be same for everyone and never show special consideration for the one you like the most.

15. Getting late – Punctuality is crucial as students learn many things from you. Getting late occasionally is fine. When you get late, make sure to say a sorry to your students.

16. Lessons from text book alone – Just teaching the students what is dictated in the text causes boredom. Also they will miss many things like experimenting what they learned, projects and assignments.

17. Unfair rules – Rules certainly are created to follow. But certain alleviations should be made based on the valid excuse and situation of the student.

18. Accepting late work – Rules you make should be consistent. Do not accept late submission unless and until for a valid reason.

Also Read : Tips To Tackle Cyberbullying among students

19. Making simple things complex – Don’t confuse them. Explain your instructions in clear language, bit by bit so that they know what they are expected to do.

20. Too much directions Stop providing too many instructions. Make them feel that you are one among them and are reliable.

21. Eating Lunch during class hours You’d be surprised to see any teacher bringing lunch to a classroom. This is not good with any level or any age. Having a cup of tea or coffee is ok, but don’t eat your afternoon meal during class hours.

22. Making Fun of Students It is obvious that you make fun of students but sometimes your joke or comment can hurt the student’s self-confidence. Surely, it is a great talent you have if you are able to use humor in classrooms and make students laugh. But be careful that your jokes or comments doesn’t harm any particular student personally.

23. Only Following the Book Many a times, teachers teach everything directly from the textbook; this tends to boring and monotonous. It makes your student to show disinterest towards your lecture. Because they are learning something new, they want opportunities to do and experiment with their new skill. So, ensure that you are connecting your activities to book instead of just teaching whatever given in the textbook.

24. Sitting Down and Teaching Sitting down and teaching throughout an entire class is not apt for a teacher. The teachers you are expected to stand or walk around while taking a class as sitting down for long duration is a sign of laziness, unless you’re ill or injured.

25. Playing Favouritism Every student must get your direction and attention. It is quite obvious that every teacher has a favourite student in their class but be sure that you don’t give any special consideration to he/she which you don’t give to other students of the class. Whatever might be the situation, always be fair to all the students in your class.

Conclusion

Lack of a pleasant atmosphere will cause boredom and thus misbehavior follows.

The EYFS framework provides common principles and commitments to deliver quality early education and childcare experiences to all children.

But, how these principles are followed depends on how teachers like you execute the principles.

So put your best foot forward to be an awesome teacher.

If you have any suggestions to add to the list, please share with us in the comment section.

Month: July 2017

Also Read: 45 Famous Quotes On Teachers

Also Read : Tips To Tackle Cyberbullying among students

Also Read : 20 Best Attendance Management App for Teachers