Increasing Parent Communication
Presented by Christina Gras
Workshop Objectives
*Become familiar with Smore.com to create online newsletters.
*Become familiar with Remind101 to send text message reminders to students and parents.
*Find student usernames and passwords for mygradeportal.com.
*Identify ways to use your teacher website for classroom instruction.
*Create a Tinyurl.com address in place of your current teacher website address.
Smore.com
This free site for educators allows you to create customized newsletters. They can be sent out in an email, shared through social media, or printed.
Keep it simple, try one next marking period. What will your class cover? What do your students have to look forward to? What sites could your students use to practice skills?
The site also saves your brochure for future use and tracks how many people have viewed it.
Remind101
Want to get that reminder out to all of your students fast? What better way to communicate with then via text message!
Students and parents choose to subscribe to receive your text messages and can unsubscribe at any time. All you need to do is create the account, get the word out, and then start sending your messages.
Some other positives:
*Limited to 140 characters- keep it short and sweet!
*Students and parents do not get your phone number- one way communication.
*Your messages are logged for future reference.
MyGradePortal.com
Oncourse is not just for teachers and administrators! Parents and students have access to student grades, attendance, schedule, discipline referrals, and more via mygradeportal.com.
To find a student's username and password search for the student under the People tab on Oncourse. Once you find and open that particular student scroll to the right along the bottom menu options to the Miscellaneous tab. The student's username and password contains CAPITAL letters and numbers.
Hold your students accountable for their grades. Students can check their current grades or missing assignments by clicking on their numerical grade. Printing progress reports for individual students is no longer necessary!
Teacher Websites
Teacher websites don't have to be dreadful! Using your website for daily instruction will make updating it easier.
Ways to use your website:
~Hide an extra credit question or an answer to a homework question on your page somewhere to get students used to visiting your page.
~Post detailed assignment directions.
~Differentiate by posting a variety of tasks for students to choose from.
~Post classroom rules, procedures, and grading policy for parents and students to view.
~Post photos of students, activities, and exemplary student work.
~Add links so that students can go directly to designated website.
~Provide information about the Common Core, Units, and Benchmarks for parents.
~Link students to an online version of their textbook... THANK YOU MRS. ALSTON!
Tinyurl.com
Want a more memorable web address for your website?
At Tinyurl.com you can insert your current web address and customize a new web address (if available).
Make it easier for students and parents to access your page!