ParentApp Archives

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 March 16, 2016 by Edsys

Today schools seek technology for improving their communication and involvement with parents. Use of student information system and parent portal features complements home school communication and thus keeps parents involved in every activities of the school. Student information system is a software which helps to store data on each student’s performance. This system has been widely used by schools.

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Parent portal helps parents to log in to the system for seeing child’s data, tracking attendance, read teacher’s comments on child’s performance, and thus able to contact teachers for expressing their concerns and questions. By providing access to student information system, a sense of responsibility is created between parents and schools about student learning. School authorities should give proper awareness to parents about how the data in the system help to improve studies of their child. If proper education and training is not attributed to parents about the effective use of student information system, parent portal would never aid in student learning. Parent portal helps to foster and improve parental involvement.

Reasons for using Parent Portal

Out of concern, parents use the portal for checking the academic performance of their child. Specifically they use the portal for checking or monitoring their child’s grades and not for checking child’s attendance or checking teacher’s comments about behavior, class performance etc. Parents will have a feeling that it is their responsibility to check out those details.

Reasons Indicating How it Contributes to School-Home Communication:

Parent perceived parent portal as an excellent medium of school home communication without completely replacing traditional way of communication via phone calls, email and progress reports. Among other communication methods which schools offer, parent portal is the most used and preferred one for parents. It was found that there is improvement in communication between parents and teachers with the usage of parent portal. And mainly it is done with the help of e-mail correspondence set up in the portal.

How do Parents use Data from Parent Portal

Mostly parents use the portal to know about their child’s grades. Such information will be useful to parents as they are able to know and thus be aware of their child’s progress in schools. With the help of parent portals, parents could also keep up a proper communication with the child on their performance in schools and behavior. Parent portal helps to change the attitude of students towards school and thus show a huge improvement in their studies. Parents can check the data and understand their child’s grade for each submitted assignment. But without proper training, some parents are unable to get access to the data stored in the portal.

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Parent portal usage help parents to improve their involvement as the child progresses to higher grades. It also helps parents to increase involvement and thus take extra care in their child’s schooling. The only thing to be noted is that parents should have proper understanding about features and usage of the portal. Training given by school authorities can help to best use and thus lead the child to a meaningful and learning centered environment

Parent portal can indirectly improve the parent’s involvement in their child’s education. It is used in a proper and meaningful way to support their child’s education. Also, it helps to bridge the communication gap between the home and school. Parents are able to get a meaningful data on child’s progress. By using internet based student information system parent portals, education and behavior of students can greatly be improved. Apart from these benefits, it helps to make sure safety of children as well.

Posted on March 11, 2015 by Edsys

“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune” -Jim Rohn

As a student, you were never trained to speak up in school nor at home. If you sat silently without daring to give a single opinion on anything, you may be staying the same even today. There might have been a moment when you wished to speak up, but didn’t have the courage to do so. You might have cursed the school you studied in for not grooming you to talk. You might have wished that you got an opportunity to express yourself and for those who did, you hailed them as heroes…the failure of traditional learning…

That is exactly why educators are leaving behind traditional teaching techniques and are adopting technology involved learning. In traditional learning, knowledge is limited to books but technology involved teaching provides greater opportunities for the students to learn and explore. Apart from that, it allows students to connect on a global level and earn deeper knowledge about a certain subject. To support technology involved learning there are many mobile and web applications, such as smartapps for preschoolers, available. The school apps, which are in the form of games or activities instill interest in students and make learning an easy affair. Apart from apps for learning, there are many applications that also ensure safety of students such as ParentApp and also allow effective interaction between teachers and parents.

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The field of education has just begun adopting technology to classrooms and therefore, the students are yet to be acquainted with the changes. As a teacher, it is your responsibility to ensure that students are comfortable in the new classroom environment where Internet is the star.

If you are thinking about ways you can prepare the students for a connected world, here they are:

1. Encourage Students to Speak Up

Every student may differ in terms of character and behaviour. Some may be smart and extra active while others may be shy to even speak a word out. The reserved behaviour won’t help them in future especially while attending an interview. Therefore, it is necessary to motivate the students to speak up. In the Internet connected world, students may find it much easier to speak up since they don’t meet anyone in person but just have to give an opinion. This adds to the confidence of students and hence, the teachers should ensure a positive environment for students to come forward and speak their mind out.

2. Student Blogs

Blogging is being practised in many schools across the globe. It provides students an opportunity to think creatively and write anything related to the currently relevant topics. Blogs are one of the best tools for students to raise their voice and give opinions. Ask students to update their blogs on a regular basis and share the links to the blogs so that other students can go through the blog posts and comment.

3. Ask for Feedback

Just like you have an opinion on the performance of every student you teach, students too have something to say about your teaching. But, they rarely get a chance to voice their opinions. You can ask your students to give their feedback on your teaching via Internet. This can help you to improvise your teaching skills. It is also a way to show that their opinions do matter.

4. Tell them that you don’t have all the Answers

Usually, teachers are considered to be equal to an encyclopedia. They are expected to know about anything and everything on Earth and are expected to answer every question a student asks. Prove them wrong this time and encourage your students to explore and find the answers themselves. This gives the students a better understanding of the subjects themselves and to make use of the connected world to the fullest.

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5. Let them Understand the difference between Progress and Performance

Without putting efforts, nobody can achieve anything. Also, in education, performance of students is evaluated on a regular basis. Hence, it is not sufficient for the students to perform well just once. They should make regular progress in their academic performance in terms of grades and understanding of the subject. Technology involved learning provides a better platform for students to explore every subject in depth and for the regular analysis of their performance.

6. Offer Engaging Topics

In traditional learning, teachers don’t usually discuss about a topic further with students once it is taught from the text book. Be different and starts discussing about topics relevant to the subjects students learn. Let them use all kind of technology and Internet to find out more about the subject and have a better understanding of the same.

7. Digital Story Telling

Give this activity a try. It is the modern version of already existing story telling in schools. Ask students to narrate a story based on a particular theme, a historical event or about life on the other corner of the Earth. This helps students to think more and develop their creativity. They also get to learn about different culture and how they are different.

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Edsys

“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today”-Malcolm X

What we learn today is to be put to use tomorrow. But it’s not easy to face the competition in future just using bookish knowledge. Technology had stepped into the field of education long ago. Books have been replaced with gadgets and lessons with apps such as smartapps for preschoolers that are in the form of games or activities to instil interest in students.

“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think”-Margaret Mead

Unlike traditional learning which provides limited knowledge to students that is just confined to the textbooks, technology involved learning provides a much wider platform for them to explore every subject in depth. With the blending of technology with education, students are given the opportunity to make independent choices, to think and to face challenges.

Changing trends…

Technology evolves with time and schools are supposed to be updated about the changes made and introduce students to the same.

The current trends in technology involved learning are:

SMS/texting in classroom

About a decade ago, schools had prohibited students from bringing mobile phones or any other gadgets of the sort. But now, schools use text messaging as a tool to connect with students as a part of e-learning. It involves SMS quizzes, surveys and texting of questions to students before teaching a chapter in class. Text messaging can also used to remind students to bring a study material or to do homework and to connect with a generally shy student.

Use of apps for parent-teacher communication

Before, parent-teacher communication meant the parent-teacher meetings that were held post examinations in schools. Many parents tend to miss the meeting due to their work or other reasons. For such parents, the apps for parent-teacher communication, such as the ParentApp are a blessing. ParentApp provides the opportunity to parents and teachers to interact with each other whenever they have time. Also, parents are provided with reports regarding their child’s performance in school and the latest happenings in the child’s school.

Social media in classroom

You usually use a social media network to connect with your friends and family. But some schools have come up with the idea of using social media platforms such as twitter to connect with students and to hold discussions about a particular topic.

Free online courses

You want to learn two courses or more at the same time? If it was before, you had to wait for one course to be completed before you start another. But online courses have made it easier for you to learn whatever you want. The classes will be held in the form of webinars and study material will be in the form of e-books.

3D printing

Visual learning is always more effective than theory. Students tend to learn faster and understand a subject completely using 3D printing. All you have to do is print 3d models of all complex structures and use them to teach students.

The future trends in technology involved learning will be:

Digital textbooks

The field of education is all set to undergo a tremendous change by going paperless. Students won’t be carrying around textbook but a tablet or a gadget of the sort with digitalized versions of textbooks stored in them. This move can help the schools save huge amounts of money.

Time management tools and communication software

In future, students may not have to attend school on a regular basis. They will be able to sit at home and connect with teachers via communication software to attend classes. There are various time management tools available in the market so that educators can ensure that students are completing their assigned tasks on time.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

At present, Employees in many offices rely on their own devices such as laptops, tablets etc. to work rather than using company owned systems. He “Bring Your Own device” practice has shown to increase productivity among employees and saved the companies lots of money in terms of products and computers. This trend is soon going to hit educational institutions as well.

Cloud-based apps

Cloud computing is getting popular these days and very soon, you will see it entering the world of educations. Many cloud based tools are going to be used where sharing of information will get easier.

Open textbooks

Open textbooks are gaining popularity in schools around the globe. They are digitalized textbooks in print, e-book or audio format that can be downloaded, improvised and shared by students, teachers and parents.

The trends in educational field are quick and happening. Hopefully, the upcoming trends will change the face of education sector by providing wider platforms for students by letting them think deeper about subjects and preparing to face various challenges.