Remind 101 Gets a Makeover

Remind 101 is a service for educators that allows users to SMS students, parents, players, community members, etc about what is going on in their classroom.  I have written about the service before and have used it myself with my classroom.  On their blog they announced today some changes to their website and service.

Through discussions with teachers and users, as well as from their own ideas, the creators of Remind 101 have worked to make some great improvements to their product.  From those discussions they realized the need for improvement for tablet use on the website, messaging to multiple classes, improving sign up process, and improving scheduling of SMS messages.

To learn more about the redesign, see the video below.

T!PTXT - Speak Up Against Bullying

From Blackboard comes the free* SMS program T!PTXT for schools that hopes to help combat bullying in schools.  To K-12 schools, Blackboard is offering administrators with an easy and confidential way to speak up about abuse, crime, and mental health issues.  The offer includes free access to the TipTxt service, a TipTxt mailbox, and TipTxt client support for each individual school (*$125 per year for the TipTxt line).

Our district recently did something similar by purchasing a cellphone for our School Resource Officers that allow students to text tips to the officer anonymously.  It's a high school version of CrimeStoppers.

To learn more about TipTxt, see the video below.

3 SMS Resources

KikuText is an additional method for teachers to engage in communication with parents.   With the free version, teachers get 60 messages a month and 2 classes for messages to 15 parents.  A pro version is just $10 a month and you get unlimited messages, up to 7 classes and 170 parents.  With the service, parents would get a text message with a comment about their child which they can respond too.  The conversation history with the parent would be saved so it can be viewed and know where the conversation left off.  An inbox allows for easy viewing and conversations remain safe and private.

Kikutext has messaging templates that make it easy to update parents about what the students are doing in class and they can be customizable as well.  Scheduling of the messages is also available.  To make it work, you provide a code to the parents that they text in and the information the parent provides is automatically captured.  If the cell phone number of the parent is available, you can text them directly as well.  See the SlideShare presentation for more information.

Understoodit is a audience response services that allows users to get simple feedback on whether a lecture/discussion/activity was understood or not.  With the creation of an account (Free or Paid...although free is limited) users can provide students with a simple URL to provide to students.  Using any device students can respond "understood" or "confused."  As students answer, data is provided in real time informing teachers on whether or not re-teaching is necessary.  See the video on their front page for more information.

ClassParrot is another option in the growing market for SMS messaging with students and parents.  Like Remind 101, this service provides many of the same features.  You provide students a code which gets them into the system.  You create messages on your computer, therefore keeping the students number private. (NOTE: Upon trying to update this post this site was experiencing an error)

As a bonus, if you are interested in texting while driving and you have children of the driving age, you might want to look into Detext.  It's a service that allows the parents to be the "Big Brother is Watching," over their child's cellphone.  From a web browser, users can review driving history, restrict certain settings, and set up alerts, when a child is speeding for example.  Receive alerts via text or email as they happen.

iPhone App for Remind 101

I have been a supporter of Remind 101 since I discovered it earlier this year.  I have been using it with my students throughout this school year and I have shared it with my teachers and other teachers at conferences.  See a previous blog post HERE.

Well, Remind 101 has come with an update by providing an iPhone App for its users.  This will make it so much easier to send reminders to students.  You can see more about the App HERE.  I am sure that with success of this App, we will see it grow to other services like Android and to the iPad as well.

Putting Ed Tech Into Practice - Social Media on Paper

I teach Government for the next 12 weeks.  We were starting our investigation into the Constitution and for one of the assignments I had my students take the Preamble of the Constitution and transform it into a SMS, Tweet, and Facebook Status.

For the SMS, students were required to change the text as if they were to text it to friends and texting existed during the Constitutional Conventions.

For the Tweet students had to try and shrink the text to 140 characters.  Surprisingly students struggled trying to do this and keep it in the 140 characters limit.  I also explained and had them include hashtags that would have been used if Twitter existed. 

For the Facebook status, students had to act as if they were participating in the Constitutional Convention and update their friends on what was happening with the Constitution and their thoughts on how it would impact/change the United States.

I found an image of a SMS bubble that you normally see on an iPhone, created my own Twitter update box, and also cut and pasted a Facebook status update.  Some students got really creative with their Facebook statuses and even included the "location" for where they were.

Surprisingly, the buy in to the assignment was not as I expected.  I am coming to the realization that students I teach have not been exposed completely to using technology outside of the classroom and it is a tough adjustment for them.  The interaction online with the blog and Facebook is not nearly the percentage that I thought it would be, and I think a lot of that has to do with students not being comfortable with it and not having exposure to it.  I think it also has to do with the fact that I teacher freshman.  I feel that upperclassmen would probably have more experience and be more open to using it in and outside the classroom.

I am using the Remind101 website for SMS reminders for students, and I do have 5 times as many students signed up during this 12 weeks.

I think I am coming to the realization that the concept of "Digital Natives" might not be as broad as some people might say.  I also know that it is on me as well to figure out how to adjust and encourage use by my students.  Something that I know I need to work on and will figure out as time goes on.

Anyone else integrating technology for the first time, more specifically social media, experiencing struggles?  Anyone having great success, if so, what are you doing that is working for you?

Remind101 - Text Messaging Service

Remind101 is a Text Messaging service that allows teachers to easily setup classrooms to text message students and parents and remind them of events, homework, and/or to study for an important test.  Using the service is simple because is allows you to provide students a code for each class that you set up.  They can then text that code and will be added to your list. 

Based on my previous post this seems like the best way to use cell phone technology outside the classroom.  I have the information of my students who get text messages, but have not had time to do anything with it.  With this service, it takes out the step of logging the information into an excel spreadsheet and then into my email when I would use something like TextServ.

Give Remind101 a try, and to learn more, watch the videos below.  And as always, read the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Remind101 from remind101 on Vimeo.


remind101 tutorial from remind101 on Vimeo.

Celly - Create SMS Channels

Celly is a program that allows you to create a channel for your students using SMS.  You can even moderate the messages between students.  You can send out reminders and other information.  Students will submit to follow your "channel" and when a message is sent to that "channel" they will get it.  For more information, watch the video below.  For more information about using it in school, check out the Celly Schools Page