Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

ClassTag Launches ClassTag Goods to Eliminate Needless Teacher Out-of-Pocket Spending

NEW YORK, NY, August 12, 2021: ClassTag, the leading parent-teacher engagement platform, today announced the launch of ClassTag Goods, a free community-driven solution for teachers to receive much needed contributions for their classrooms. 

Historically, teachers have had to spend their own money to fund their classroom’s supplies, with the average teacher spending $495 a year out-of-pocket. With ClassTag Goods, teachers can now set up their own Classroom Fund which will enable parents and guardians to donate directly to their classroom on a recurring basis. All funds go directly to the teachers (without any hidden transaction or processing fees) who can then redeem supplies from ClassTag’s robust catalogue of Goods. 

“Existing fundraising solutions for teachers have failed to offer the level of flexibility ClassTag Goods provides,” said Vlada Lotkina, CEO and Co-founder of ClassTag. “Before, teachers were beholden to creating finite fundraising projects that, if not reached, meant they would not receive any of the funds donated. With ClassTag Goods, the goal is to finally put an end to this ridiculous idea that teachers should have to spend their own money on classroom supplies once and for all.” …Read More

PTC Wizard Integrates with Zoom

Only Parent-Teacher Conference Scheduler with Zoom Video Conferencing

Boca Raton, FL―April 16, 2021―PTC Wizard, developer of the PTC wizard platform, an online parent-teacher conference scheduler, announces full integration with Zoom video conferencing.

Now, it is possible for faculty at middle schools, junior highs, and high schools to enjoy the user experience of personalization and parental engagement. Schools offer benefits of face-to-face communication and the freedom to schedule their parent-teacher conferences without investing valuable time to organize individual Zoom meeting links for every meeting.…Read More

ClassTag Launches ClassTag Connect Parent Engagement Platform

ClassTag, the leading parent-teacher communication platform, today announced the introduction of ClassTag Connect, an all-in-one engagement platform that provides robust data-driven insights to facilitate greater parent, teacher, and administrator involvement and insights from classroom to district. Over 25,000 schools and several districts, including South-Western City School District, Phoenix Talent School District, and Salado Independent School District are currently using ClassTag Connect.

“The COVID pandemic has prompted school districts to recognize the value of a single, cohesive engagement platform that will avoid overwhelming parents with siloed communications. Our platform provides a way for districts and their individual schools to facilitate meaningful, personal, two-way communication between parents, teachers and administrators while simultaneously offering school and districts actionable insights behind parental engagement levels, ensuring that every family is empowered during this challenging time,”  said Vlada Lotkina, CEO and Co-Founder of ClassTag.

For example, ClassTag Connect allows schools and districts to send important updates in real time to each parent’s preferred messaging channel, whether that’s via the app, email, SMS, web or paper. The accessibility of ClassTag Connect also extends to families who do not speak English as a first language as well, as the app allows for automatic translation into 60+ languages.…Read More

Klassroom, the first parent-teacher communication app designed specifically for elementary schools

Klassroom, the Paris-based company that reinvents parent-teacher communication in pre-kindergarten and all elementary school grades, just raised a $3 million seed round led by Bpifrance and several angel investors including Jerome Lecat, CEO at Scality, and Andy Myers, President at Waterford.org and former executive at Renaissance Learning.

This funding will enable Klassroom to accelerate growth in countries outside of France, including in the U.S. where more than 700 educators started using the app during the last school year without any significant investment in that market. Klassroom is already the leading app of its type in France with nearly one million users. Klassroom’s user community doubled in just under two months during school closures and the COVID-19 crisis.

Klassroom: an inclusive, engaging foundation for parent-teacher communication that enables deeper involvement in the school life of children…Read More

Solution to Support Remote Learning in Schools

ClassTag today announced the launch of Schoolwide, a solution for parent communication and expanded remote learning capabilities amid the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. The company has accelerated the launch in order to help teachers and school administrations better prepare for unexpected school closures as well as help streamline parent-teacher communication.

With its leading technology already used by 25,000 schools and two million parents, the ClassTag platform is adding the Schoolwide suite to its award-winning communication solution to support urgent school needs in a time when communication is critical.

“As the number of school closures grows each day, our number one priority as a company is to make sure that schools and parents are prepared, as best they can be, for schools to be shut down for prolonged periods of time,” shared Vlada Lotkina, co-founder and CEO of ClassTag. “It’s an uncertain time and we need to go above and beyond to support effective communication for our schools and provide a platform for remote learning.”…Read More

7 convenient communication tools for educators

These 7 edu convenience tools offer functionality and ease of use

As mobile technology becomes more commonplace in classrooms and nearly ubiquitous for school leaders, the convenience of having access to emails, text messages, social media and other tools might be taken for granted.

Using smartphones and tablets, educators and administrators have at their fingertips a variety of tools, strategies and digital coaches designed to make their instructional and organizational goals a reality.

The rise of “convenience” tools is here, from parent-teacher communication apps to programs that help teachers track students’ behavioral challenges and achievements.…Read More

6 apps to help parents and teachers communicate

Keep parents in the loop with these tools

Educators know that students’ home lives play an integral role in their academic success. Communication between teachers and parents makes it easier for educators to understand the outside challenges students may deal with, and it helps parents understand how they can better support their children in school.

SimplyCircle
SchoolCircle helps parents stay connected to teachers by organizing school communications in a central dashboard with action items and alerts.

Ringya
Ringya lets users create groups and, within those groups, create subgroups or lists. Users can call, text, email, and chat with individuals, subgroups, or the entire group. Group members are identified by how they’re connected to the user, so a teacher knows who is calling or texting.…Read More

Try these mobile and web tools to improve parent-teacher communication

Apps and well-known social media sites can be used creatively to share more with parents

communication-parentWhen I was in high school, no one emailed my parents to tell them I had a test. No one sent a reminder to tell them that I needed to bring back a permission form. Instead, I was expected to bring notices home to my parents.

Today, that’s not really the case. With the growth of technology, the reliance on students to fill in the communication gap between teachers and parents has disappeared. As a result, a new challenge for teachers has emerged. Many educators are good communicators by nature, but few are prepared for the huge amount of communication that is expected with students and parents.

Traditionally, teachers would reach parents about their students via phone, or via handwritten, snail-mailed letter, and typically only on important topics. Now, we’re expected to engage in a much more robust is expected due to our relatively newfound reliance on technology. The challenge of doing our job, the teaching itself, is one we expect as we enter this field. However, the challenge to communicate about upcoming tests, collect field trip permission slips, and ensure that our students have remembered to do their homework is one many teachers are still working to solve. E-mail is simply too slow and cumbersome. Way back in 2002, the High School Journal wrote that “School practices for contacting parents should be modernized because they lack reliability and are often ineffective.” In my experience, this is still true 13 years later.…Read More