Class Messenger- Using Your Smart Phone to Keep in Touch With Parents/Students

First things first...I'm on mat leave!! 8 weeks till the baby comes...hopefully, right. No early surprises. I do have some ultrasounds to check in on the baby's growth over the next few weeks but I am feeling good and looking forward to some time to rest and get ready before our whole world turns upside down.

Button clipart from Scrappin Doodles

Have you seen this new app/website? I heard about it from a colleague in the staff room last week. I must preface this post with the fact that I have not personally used this app but I think it looks great!

Here is an article I found about the app/website:
www.edudemic.com

This site looks great in itself and I think I will be back often to see what else they are writing about. 

Now, the app/website itself. I downloaded the app from the app store on to my iPhone and I don't really know much about other types of phones...so you'll have to investigate if you don't have an iPhone. The best part is that the app is FREE!! FREE!! All teachers love something free, right?

The website for this app is www.classmessenger.com and it is powered by Scholastic. Apparently the app used to be called What Did We Do Today? and has now changed to Class Messenger. Perhaps you have heard of the first but not the name change?

Here's the home screen-

I first created my account on my iPhone, because I downloaded the app first but I don't think it matters if you go to the website first. 

Once you are registered and logged in the app provides two different demos to help you see how it all works.

As I played around with the site, I found a great FAQ's section- for Teachers, Parents and Students. It seems like they've thought of everything!

There is also a great DEMO section that walks your through each step of setting up your classes and has demos for parents and students as well. 

Since I am off on leave, I don't actually have a class to try this out with...this year! But I am hoping that one of you all will jump on board and tell me all about it?! Yes??

I did start to attempt to build a class just to see how easy it was and  here's what you will see on the screen as you start to build your class. 

I like that Class Messenger has the option to build multiple classes, so if you teach rotary or want to organize your students by groups/classes that can be done as well.

There is a section where you can add contact details for your students/parents and I have highlighted some of the sections using arrows on the picture below. 

I think a form will need to be created in order to gather the email addresses needed to contact parents so they can sign up with the app. I haven't found a form provided on the site, so this may need to be done at your own school site. 

From here, there's not much more I can do...not actually having a class to sign up...boo. 

But...

I think this app/website has a lot of possibilities and I am very interested in hearing from anyone that uses it with their class this year.