School is more than just an educational institution. School and school life lays the foundation for the success of an individual. An individualās triumphs can always be traced back to the establishment of education where he/she discovered and developed their skills. Therefore, the influence of schooling is simply vast and can never be quantified. As someone once put it, school is a āhome away from homeā that inspires students to achieve their full potential.
Recent events like the pandemic disrupted traditional learning and forced schools to move to online learning, resulting in a challenging learning environment for students. This has exacerbated a problem that already existed before the emergence of the pandemic – communication. Education cannot be sustained without proper communication.
Since the dawn of contemporary schooling, there has always been a communication barrier amongst teachers, parents, and their wards. The primary reason for this was the logistics involved in the process. A teacher is responsible for all students while parents only have to focus on their own. Naturally, it is difficult for teachers to devote large chunks of time communicating with every parent. However, education is a continuing process and extends beyond school hours as well. Now for the big question: how to tackle this conflicting situation efficiently?
School apps are the latest technology that aims to bridge the communication gap in education. These innovative teaching apps have revolutionized parent teacher communication as well as student teacher interactions and are bound to be a staple in schools in the years to come.
| Table of contents 1. What are School Apps? 2. How School Apps differ from traditional communication channels 3. 10 Reasons Why School Apps Are Important For Parents And Students 4. Top 5 School apps |
What are School Apps?
School Apps are online platforms whose purpose is to streamline communication amongst parents, teachers and students. From innovative teaching and school communication apps to apps for parents and students, school apps cover the whole spectrum of school communication with technology that ensures the quality of education is always maintained at high levels. School apps act like a medium for teachers to update parents on a daily basis. Moreover, they can be used to share resources like study materials and references to supplement the coursework handled during class hours. School apps are the new paradigm that seeks to mesh technology with established education techniques and nurture a support system that facilitates growth.
How School Apps differ from traditional communication channels
Before the advent of School apps, educational institutions relied on channels such as emails, sms and calls. Although they possess their share of benefits, these methods of communication become extremely tedious when placed in the context of schools. They are not practical for mass use. Furthermore, these channels offer little to no flexibility. The mode of communication is repetitive which discourages interaction and involvement from the parentās side. This makes the whole exercise redundant.
School apps, on the other hand, are more nuanced and possess significant advantages in terms of customization features. They can be tailored to suit various scenarios as well as enabling both mass and one-to-one communication. School apps are also more economical compared to the traditional methods of communication in the long run.
10 Reasons Why School Apps Are Important For Parents And Students
As mentioned earlier, School Apps hold the power to eliminate all communication bottlenecks that exist in educational institutions. They are the most potent tools a teacher has at his/her disposal. Here is a look at how School Apps benefit both Parents and Students.
For Parents
1. Unified Communication Platform
There are countless methods by which communication can be facilitated, right from email to social media. However, each channel is limited with respect to the type of communication it can accommodate. For instance, email is suited to send academic resources, while social media is more appropriate for daily updates. Similarly, voice calls allow for more personalized updates but eat up productive time for both parents and teachers. In addition to that, teachers were forced to use multiple communication channels simultaneously to facilitate all these activities. Here is when the importance of school apps becomes maximized.
The school apps unify all the features of these individual tools and consolidate them under one platform. As a result, teachers can update resources, provide daily feedback and send out announcements with a few taps of their fingers from a single location. So, thereby unifying all the communication activities under one roof.
2. Easy Access to Student Performance
Student grades are an indication of their performance in class. It depicts whether learning along with proper understanding of concepts have taken place. Usually, these grades are only revealed to parents during parent-teacher conferences and at the end of each term or semester. Thus, the childās performance updates with respect to daily assignments, homework and quizzes do not reach the parents on time. By the time the information reaches the parents, itās too late as the end of the school year is approaching. Moreover, parents have to call instructors and ask for their grades frequently to remain in the loop. This is less than optimal and causes great inconvenience for teachers. School apps have a dashboard where every grade and score of a student can be viewed as soon as the teacher updates them. Therefore, parents have quick access and real time insights into their childās academic life with the help of school apps.
3. One-on-One chat Facility
Children are incredibly unpredictable and the same applies to their learning capabilities. They might be at the top of their form one day and while failing their midterms on another. It is incredibly difficult to keep track of their activities especially when parents work long or odd hours. Connecting with teachers in the middle of the night is next to impossible. School apps provide a simple and elegant solution for the issue. They come with a chat option where parents can address their concerns directly with the teacher or an academic quality controller at the school.
4. School Announcements on Smartdevices
People seldom check their emails regularly, and information about school events or other announcements might get lost in the digital pile. Due to this, several parents miss their kids’ school play or sports day because the mail stating it was left unread or found a date later, causing them to miss important things on time. But with school communication apps, this information is sent directly to the parent’s smart-devices, increasing the chances of parents reading and responding to the messages as soon as it arrives.
5. Emergency Messaging
Children are more susceptible to injuries and illnesses than adults. Naturally, there is a high probability that such unfortunate incidents can occur at schools. A student could get hit by a bout of food poisoning or fracture their leg while running around in the playground. Cell reception is not consistent everywhere and unrecognizable calls are often ignored by parents if it overlaps with their work hours. School app includes an emergency messaging feature that instantly alerts parents making them cognizant of their childās current condition in the event of an injury or illness.Thereby increasing the parents involvement incase of emergencies.
For Students
6. Direct access to Academic Resources
Textbooks, revision sheets and other study materials are vital resources for a student. Since everything is going the digital route, academic resources have jumped on this trend as well. However, it is difficult to track down these resources using traditional channels like emails. Online school apps are able to store academic resources and organize or sort them for easy access. This way, students can find what theyāre looking for without delay.
7. Stay on top of School Activities
In addition to academics, there are a host of extra-curricular activities that students are involved in. These extracurriculars are instrumental for the holistic development of the child. But it can be difficult to manage all these commitments and the process might seem overwhelming for students. School apps help students organize their schedules to ensure proper time management. Also, these apps provide regular updates on school activities, thereby allowing students to be prepared for them in time.
8. Enhanced Classroom Interactions
Todayās younger generation are very proficient in technology and enjoy using them. They are more comfortable with the medium than the typical pen and paper. Therefore, incorporating this technology in the delivery of knowledge will pave the way for more rewarding classroom interactions. In light of the pandemic where communication is limited to the digital world, school apps can serve as the perfect tool to promote engagement.
9. Builds better Rapport with Parents
School life can often be a source of conflict in the home life of a student. Since school apps can store and display all aspects of a studentās school life and academic history in one place, it lays the foundation for better transparency. Thus, parents can monitor their childās performance easily which leads to the establishment of a more pleasant relationship between parents and their wards.
10. Productive educational cycles
School apps include the provision for feedback which is crucial for education. Parents can voice their concerns and provide constructive criticism which will allow the school management to change things for the better. Additionally, they can suggest the positives so that schools can allot more resources to improve upon them. The feedback guarantees that students will be receiving the best education when learning with school apps.
Top 5 School apps
There are numerous innovative school apps available in the market. Each of them possess their own set of unique benefits. Here are the top 5 school apps to nurture healthy student teacher communication.
Schoolvoice
Schoolvoice is one of the most advanced and feature-rich school communication apps for parents and students. This app allows parents and students to keep updated with the latest school updates, circulars, and announcements.
The main advantage of Schooloice is that it allows the school management to take control over the entire communication process of the school. So the school can create a secure and private school communication ecosystem that is safe for everyone. With Schoolvoice, a school can administer and manage the accounts of staff and parents to conduct their communication, check the status and reports of the messages sent to parents and students, and instantly review the entire communication activities.
The standout features of Schoolvoice include.
Actionable Messages
A unique feature of Schoolvoice that enables schools to share messages with predefined reply buttons allowing parents to instantly respond to important school announcements, school fee payment requests, and circulars.
Instant Messaging
Secure and fast way for parents and teachers to connect with each other. The main feature of instant chat is that it allows parents and teachers to initiate conversations without the need to share their phone numbers or other personal details.
Stories
A feature that enables teachers to share children’s class activities with respective parents as videos and pictures.
Teacher Drive
Free cloud storage that lets teachers store school files, documents and share homework, class materials, and other documents quickly with students and parents.
Rewards and Challenges
A unique feature which enables teachers to reward students’ positive behaviours and skills with trophies.
Live Broadcasts
Secure way for teachers to connect with students and parents and makes education accessible from anywhere.
Instant Reports
Instant parent engagement reports that enable the school to check how communication is happening in the school.
Classting
Classting is a school app that enables seamless file-sharing between teachers and students or parents. Itās advantages include:
- Notice option that enables direct messaging to parents
- Consolidated educational platform for parents, students and teachers
ClassDojo
ClassDojo is a school app that allows educators to manage classes effectively. The major features of this app includes:
- Interactive quiz option that encourages engagement
- Intuitive design which allows for easy navigation
ParentSquare
ParentSquare is a versatile school app that is compatible with multiple devices. The pros of using this app are as follows:
- Easy integrations with third-party apps
- Comes with collaborative tools to improve the learning experience
Seesaw
A school app that is helpful to students of all age groups, Seesaw is one of the best apps for teachers to give feedback on their studentās performance. The standout features of the app includes:
- Supports multiple languages and has a translation option
- Possesses regional data storage options
School Apps have revolutionized the concept of education delivery and parent teacher communication. They are one of the best technological innovations of the 21st century and will play a significant role in the comprehensive development of students.
