Remind101 - safe way for teachers to text message students and stay in touch with parents. Free

Remind101 is a free service that allows teachers to safely send text messages to students and parents.
Teachers never see the students' or parents' phone numbers and the students and parents never see the teachers' phone number, helping to maintain privacy. Students and parents sign up by sending a text message or email instead of visiting a website. Teachers can have up to 10 classes and send messages to a class of students, or parents, or both. You can even schedule messages to occur in the future.

This is another tool that teachers can use to communicate with their students and parents and help remind them of upcoming due dates and events.

You can learn more about it here: https://www.remind101.com/learn_more







Related:

ClassPager - send students quizzes and reminders

ClassParrot - easy, safte text messaging for educators

Celly - free, Instant Group Texting and Polls

WeTxt - free group text messaging

WeTxt - free group text messaging

WeTxt is a free, group text messaging service that allows you to send free group text messages from your phone or from the web. It also includes free reply-to-all messages, 2-way text messaging between cell, email, and the web, a mobile calendar with text reminders and text message only games.

This could be very useful for teachers and schools to send messages to students and parents and improve communication, especially for people without smartphones.



Related:

ClassPager - send students quizzes and reminders
ClassParrot - easy, safte text messaging for educators

Celly - free, Instant Group Texting and Polls

Celly - free, Instant Group Texting and Polls

Celly is a free service that offers group text messaging and polling. You can have open group chats, one-way alerts or even moderated chats. It is set up as a "cell" with a unique name so that you can invite the people you want to join. It is free to use (standard text messaging rates apply though) and anyone with a mobile phone or access to the web can use it. There is a full web console to control and monitor things and you can either create a Celly login or login with Facebook or Twitter.

It is secure and private, there are no limits to the number of people on a cell, and you can use it for polls.

There are also many more features such as media links, notes and more.

Celly would be a great way for schools and teachers to communicate with each other, parents and students.

ClassParrot - easy, safte text messaging for educators

ClassParrot is a relatively new service that provides a safe and secure method for teachers to easily send text messages to their students. Teachers can use it to send text messages to remind students of upcoming tests, events, and homework updates. Parents can also sign up and stay up-to-date on what their child is doing in class.

One of the nice things about ClassParrot is that the phone numbers are not revealed to anyone, providing more privacy.

It is very easy to use. The teacher adds their class to ClassParrot which then generates a unique code and phone number. The students and parents then send a text message to this phone number to sign up for the notifications for that class.

The service is free based on your usage. The first 500 messages (credits) are free. After that, there's another 200 free credits added every month. If you keep below this limit, you don't pay anything. You can also earn credits by inviting colleagues to use it. Fee plans: $9/month or $90/year for unlimited plan for teachers. Schools and groups of teachers can also bundle plans - $100/month ($1000/year) for unlimited use for 20 teachers or $200/month ($2000/yr) for unlimited use and unlimited teachers. I would think most teachers would be able to keep it under the free limit.

Of course, the one downside is if the students have to pay for the text messages that they receive. Most students these days seem to have unlimited texting and teachers can always limit how many they send out.

Any text enabled phone will work and teachers use a computer to send out messages. Students and parents can even reply and have text conversations. There is also an app being worked on.

Teachers can have as many classes as they want. It is only available in the US and Canada for now.

The fact that ClassParrot hides the phone numbers is a great security and privacy feature.

If you are interested, sign up here and receive 1000 free credits.

Text messaging and more for hearing impaired students

In the past, deaf people couldn't communicate over distances without special phone setups. Then email came and made communicating easier. Now text messaging (with photos too) makes it very easy. What about for our students?

I would bet that a majority of your students have cell phones with text messaging capabilities. If they have a good plan, the text messages don't cost them a fortune. We could then use text messages to get them information. I've had hearing impaired students, and I have tried different techniques to help them out. With some of the new technologies out now, it will be easier the next time I have a student with hearing issues.

I can send them a text message of the lesson plan so that they can read along, and I can record the class and post it as a pod cast for them to download and listen to later. I can also print out a lesson presentation for them. If they have smartphone, I can send them a pdf version of the lesson presentation and materials and they can just read them on their phone.

Technology has made communications easier and this leads to easier accommodations for the hearing impaired.