Technology tools have become standard in my classroom. Starting this year I am using Google Classroom and Remind to communicate with my students and parents.

Utilizing Google Classroom, students and parents can view class notes and calendar of assignments with directions.  Students can submit assignments, receive feedback, and send messages.  It has made grading much easier by allowing digital submission of assignments which are saved in a central folder on Google Drive, allowing editing and commenting, and decreasing the overhead involved in assignments.  Students are able to access notes if absent and assignments can be submitted after school hours and on the weekends.

Remind is an app which allows students and parents to receive text message alerts from me without phone numbers exchanged.  I can create an announcement, such as “Remember we have a quiz tomorrow.”  This message is sent to anyone that has signed to receive alerts using the class code provided by the app.  The app also provides a chat feature.  Students and parents are able to send individual messages.  Parents have used this feature to inquire about quiz procedures and students have used it to ask question about assignments.

Overall, communication with parents and students has greatly increased.  I hope to learn about new effective ways to increase communication with the students I teach and their parents.