remind101

“The Student is Still Responsible” - Guest Post

Intro by: Christine Garland, Guest post by: Jacqueline Roth

If you haven’t read my blog post from a couple weeks ago titled, “Should you worry that texting students is “hand holding”?”, I hope you have the chance to do so.

That post was in response to many conversations I’d been hearing, and having, with teachers and administrators regarding concerns that texting students reminders took away their accountability for success.

One teacher in particular inspired me to write that post, Jacqueline Roth, a High School teacher from GA.

Jacqueline shared with me that she had personally struggled with whether or not to add Remind101 to her classroom for the very reason described above. After considering both sides of the argument, she did end up implementing Remind101, and has been very happy with that decision. I found her story fantastic and asked if she would write a guest post to share with all of you why she believes it was the right communication move for her kids.

As you’ll see, her passion as a teacher is to prepare her students for life after her classroom, not just for their test on Friday:

As a high school literature teacher, I know all too well the difficulties in transitioning from middle to high school. In fact, I’ve found one of the primary issues freshman have is merely keeping up with all of their assignments. Day after day of witnessing this struggle, I wanted to find a solution that would produce the desired result of completed assignments, yet keep the students accountable without enabling them. As I shared my concerns with my mother, Dr. Billie Jean Holubz, who is an educator and a member of International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE), she introduced me to Remind101.

At first I was skeptical: Homework sent straight to the student via text? Is this making it too easy? Am I taking away all responsibility and enabling these kids? But then, as I mulled over these questions, I stopped to consider my most basic goal for my students: I want my students to successfully function in whatever they choose to do post-graduation. I know that in my own life, both personal and professional, I send and receive electronic reminders constantly throughout the day. Whether it is a text from my husband reminding me of a social obligation, or an email from a colleague reminding me of a parent/teacher conference, I am constantly in need of reminders to keep up with my busy schedule. Those reminders do not serve as a form of enablement, because I still have to follow through with my responsibility of preparing for the meeting and getting there on time. So it is with my students. When I send a text through Remind101 reminding my students of their upcoming test, they are still responsible for studying and showing up to take the test.

Let’s face it, our schedules are becoming increasingly busy with parent/teacher conferences, grading, lesson planning, and meetings. It’s not too different for our students either; they have a full load of classes, extra-curricular activities, and sometimes a part-time job. A quick text that says, “Don’t forget, your project is due Friday” does not enable the student, but rather simply remind them. The student is still responsible to complete the project and turn it in. So if you’re looking for a convenient way to remind your students of their upcoming assignments, yet still hold them accountable to complete their work, then give Remind101 a chance.

Jacqueline Roth

English Teacher

Lassiter High School

Marietta, Georgia

Thank you Jacqueline!

Interested in sharing your Remind101 story on our blog? We’d love to hear from you. Reach out to: christine@remind101.com

Should you worry that texting students is “hand holding”?

It is our job as a company to know the obstacles teachers face when communicating with their students and parents.

When I started to hear educators discussing whether using a texting service, like ours, was considered “hand holding” with students or not, I knew I had to take a step back, learn where the concerns were coming from, and how we could overcome them.

Educators are concerned that by texting information to students, we’re not teaching them how to organize.

I think it’s a very valid question to raise! One of the many tasks put on the shoulders of teachers is helping students develop into self-capable adults. As any teacher considers the adoption of our product, or any edtech product for that matter, they should always be asking, “what’s best for the kids.”

My first thoughts were obvious - don’t you hand out syllabuses? Write assignments on the board? Post information to class websites? How is that different?

But after talking to many administrators and teachers about this, what quickly became clear to me is that this conversation should never be about how you let your students KNOW what your expectations are. It should be about how the methods you use MOTIVATE students to want to succeed.

I could probably spend a 1/2 hr on Google and find over 50 resources confirming that engagement in school is directly related to a student’s motivation and sense of self-efficacy.

You can send students one text about their exam tomorrow, or you can send them 20. In the end, it is always the responsibility of the student to study.

The true value of our product has never been the content of the messages teachers are sending. It is the impact the direct communication has on the relationships teachers develop with their students, and their students families. Using texting as a communication tool increases a students feeling that their teacher is dedicated to their success. It literally has changed classrooms.

I asked for some help, and confirmation, from our fans on this topic. I needed more proof that I wasn’t just being overly optimistic. Here are some of the responses I received:

Kate Porter McCauley:

“I started using Remind101 this school year for each of my health classes, fitness PE courses, general PE courses, an entire high school group and my 9th grade class sponsor group. I have seen a huge change in my students participation in school wide activities/events and better return on assignments and event tickets being purchased.

At back to school night and conference meetings I’ve been thanked by parents for keeping them informed and questioned by others as to how to join. I truly believe this app is one of the reasons for the positive change in my classroom and school.

Students have thanked me for the reminders and informed me that they have reposted my text messages on social media sites to spread the word on upcoming events.

I myself receive text reminders regarding bill due dates, upcoming events, and news related information. Most people, including my students have a phone and often use texting as a quick form of communication. Remind101 is an additional tool to communicate with students and the school community. I do not view it as a form of hand holding my students. It is a quick and effective use of technology that increases student success in the classroom & involvement school and community events. I love anything that promotes student success and for me that’s what Remind101 is about! Thank you for helping me relate to my students and keep them informed.”

Michael Everett

“Remind101 gives instructors and teachers access to a new communication method. If you consider it hand holding then we should also consider all communication methods between students and teachers “hand holding” The simple fact is effective communication between students and their teachers is key to the learning process.”

Dustin DuFort Petty

“I’m not an educator but I helped coordinate a tutoring program in Chicago’s homeless shelters for two years and I WISHED the teachers had used Remind101. You wouldn’t believe how many times students would come for help only to say “I can’t remember what the homework was.” It seems silly to me that anyone would say that texting students is “hand holding”. Shouldn’t we ensure that our students have every instrument for success?”

Angela Brooder

“Even as an adult, I get e-mail/text reminders about my bank account balance, when bills are due, how much of my data plan I’ve used, when people’s birthdays are, etc. How is that any different than having a way to communicate with my students? I chose to set up those reminders, just like students choose to sign up for Remind101 knowing it would be a tool they could use.”

Nicholas James Frank

“Give students every chance to succeed.”

Melody Niesen

“Remind 101 embraces changing technology and converses with students using one of today’s primary communication tools. It’s irresponsible to disregard the technology as hand holding when it can further student engagement, understanding, and encourage more personal responsibility.”

Craig Nobiling

“Texting is no different than calendar reminders/emails sent by administrators reminding educators to attend meetings/events. It helps in increasing productivity and ultimately responsibility - isn’t that what we’re striving for in school?…life?”

We’d love to hear what you think - how is texting changing the motivation of your students? How do you overcome the concerns from yourself or colleagues about students being overly reliant on your messages?

10 Reasons to Add Texting to your Classroom

Effective classroom communication is a key ingredient in any teaching strategy.

On Remind101’s first Hack Day we pulled 10 of our favorite stats about texting in schools and put them into a beautifully designed site to show how adding texting to your classroom communication plan can benefit students.

Click on any image to check out the full interactive infographic created by our lead designer, Lindsay!

Visit the interactive infographic to share and learn more!

Remind101 Hack Day 3/1/13

By: Christine Garland

Last Friday the entire Remind101 team paused our normal tasks and spent a day creating something new for the company. It was great way to finally put to fruition some of the fun ideas we’re always talking about, but never have the time to do.

Here are the fun projects that came out of Remind 101’s first Hack Day:

The Development Team:

Jeremy made us a robot! Her name is Rosie. We can talk with Rosie in our team chat system (we use HipChat), where she is able to answer questions about the status of our servers and delivery in seconds. Rosie can also start Google hangouts, make fun of us, solve math equations, and more.

Ben put on his anti-bullying hat and created filters that detect hateful content, or inappropriate messages attempting to be sent out. As a team, work needs to be done to better train the system on what is and isn’t appropriate. Once done, we’ll be able to add another security layer to the Remind101 service.

Max is our Android developer (more on Max soon). He spent his Hack Day making an Android widget for Remind101 subscribers. When live, students or parents receiving messages on their droid will be able to drag and drop a widget that shows them their unread Remind101 messages in a single feed. Stay tuned.

David worked on building a chat room that displays any tweet where someone mentions Remind101. Now the entire team gets to enjoy the 140 characters worth of pure motivation.

Design and Marketing:

Lindsay and I worked together on a project. Lindsay had the amazing idea to spend Hack Day compiling and sharing nuggets about how texting in the classroom benefits students. So we put together 10 of our favorite stats, and Lindsay created a beautiful website showcasing them. Check it out here.

Brett wrote a blog post welcoming Ben to the Remind101 team, and embarrassing the heck out of him by posting an adorable photo of him at age 7.

It was a great day! So great, that we’ve decided to make it a regularly scheduled activity. We’ll be implementing a Hack Day every 3 weeks. Can’t wait to see what else gets created!

Want in on the next Hack Day? We’re hiring. See available positions here.

Brain Teaser: Remind101 is more popular down South - help us figure out why!

By David Kopf

It’s true, of the 50 US states, we are disproportionately popular down south. We’d love to explain this phenomena, but our theories have run dry. We were ready to give up until a good friend and advisor, Andrew gave us the bright idea of soliciting our readers for help. If you have a theory that could unravel this riddle, post it to the comments section below.

~ The Data ~

In pure aggregates, Southern users make up 60% of our base. The leading states are (in order):

Texas
Georgia
California
Michigan
Florida
North Carolina

Aggregates however, don’t tell us the full story (think of it this way, 100 users in Wyoming is more meaningful than 100 in New York).

For deeper insight, we calculated density by dividing the number of users by that state’s population. The results are even more conclusive: Twelve of the top thirteen most densely populated states using Remind101 are down South. Here are the top six, ranked by population density:

Georgia
Arkansas
Texas
Kentucky
District of Columbia

Ok, so we’re kind of popular down South in aggregate, and even more popular as a percentage of the population. The question, is why?

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~ Extra Credit ~

Dear students,

Why did the author decide to rank states by density?

How many messages should you be sending home a week?

By: Christine Garland

The concern that started my research on messaging frequency was from a number of teachers who asked how many times a week they could send a message without being annoying. In other words, “at what point am I just bugging them?”

It’s hard to make generalizations about how often you should be sending out messages to your students and parents. Our data can tell us averages on how often teachers are sending out messages, sure, but it’s based off of so many varying types of classes, teachers, students and schools, that the numbers seem too unspecific to be the basis for any communication strategy.

Nonetheless - they are interesting!

I used two methods to find out how often teachers are using Remind101. First I asked around Facebook and Twitter to see how many messages teachers said they were sending out to students in a given week. The results:

Most teachers responded that they send at least one message every school day, but right behind them were teachers that said they average about two messages a week.

Then we looked at our own data. We pooled all of our regularly active teachers (we qualify someone as “active” if they have logged in or sent a message in the past 30 days), and found that on average our users are sending 5.8 messages a week.

(Not sure how to quantify .8 of a message, but you know, statistically speaking.)

Unlike my social media poll, that number includes Elementary teachers, that are communicating with mostly parents, as well as the teachers communicating directly with students.

Based on this first round of data digging, a message a day seems to be the norm. Does that mean sending 8 messages a week puts you over the threshold? I’m not sure, but I promise to keep trying to find out for you!

In the meantime, I’d love to hear from some of our teachers on this topic:

Have you found the right formula? Is there such a thing as too few or too many messages a week? What about a day?

Wondering the same question as I am, help me get more teachers in the conversation by sharing this post - just use the sharing links below!

Welcome Ben!

It’s my absolute pleasure to introduce our most recent full time hire, Ben. Ever wonder how messages get sent each and every time you hit send, or when you click ‘schedule later’ it actually sends later? Well, Ben’s one of the fellas that holds the fort down at Remind101. He’s a software engineer.

Remember the widget that just launched? He built it from scratch. More cool stuff to come.

Ben was born and raised in Northern California and went to the University of California, Santa Cruz.

When he’s not hacking, you can catch him working on his boat with his brothers.

Ben, we’re so excited to have you!

Thanks Mrs. Whitefield

Most people don’t know this, but I struggled in high school. A lot. I learned slower, I took tests separately from other students because I needed time.

Everyone has had a teacher that has created an impact on their life. Mrs. Whitefield changed mine (she keeps telling me to call her Denise but I just can’t!). She spent HOURS a day reviewing papers with me, ensuring I did the reading & being patient. Very very patient. It’s fair to say she was the reason I got into college. I learned slower. I read slower. But she was ok with that. I think I found a lot of confidence in her patience. “Keep trying, you’ll get it”.

Anytime I thank her for spending that time with me & tell her how much she impacted my life, she shrugs it off and say’s ” oh stop, you did it yourself!”

A sincere thanks to Mrs. Whitefield at Niles West High School!

New Feature Release: The Remind101 Widget

Last week we slyly launched our latest feature. The Remind101 widget!

What is it?

The Remind101 widget allows you to display recently sent Remind101 messages on your class website or blog. It’s extremely easy to install and, completely safe to use.

Step 1: Log into your account on any computer and go to “Account”, and “My Widget” in the upper right hand corner.

Step 2: On the next page you’ll see a preview of what your widget will look like when embedded on your blog. To get your embed code and add it to your site, click the blue “Create Widget” button.

Step 3: Highlight and copy the embeddable code on this page. That code is what you will use to add the widget to your class website or blog.

Step 4: Navigate to your class site or blog. Locate where your sites editable HTML code can be accessed. Every website is different.

Step 5: Decide where you would like your widget to be on your website, and find the corresponding code in your HTML view. Once you’ve found it, paste in the code for your widget and update the display.

You’ve now successfully installed your Remind101 widget!

We’re hoping the new Remind101 widget makes communication in your classroom just another small step easier.

Disclosure: The widget is a brand new release for us! So if you run into any bugs, or notice any glitches, let us know at contact@remind101.com

So excited about the widget you just can’t hide it? Help spread the word about our new widget on your social networks!

Thanks for making Remind101 a part of your classroom communication!

Teacher-family communication increases homework completion by 40%.

We’ve always believed that increased communication outside of class will foster a better work environment for students, and ultimately impact their success.

But a study conducted by Harvard Graduate students, Matthew Kraft and Shaun Dougherty, has now proven it.

By splitting middle and high school classes at a charter school in Massachusetts into treatment and control groups, Kraft and Dougherty were able to measure the differences phone calls and text messages home after school hours actually made.

They found that consistent communication with students and their families, outside the classroom, increases students participation in class, their homework completion rate, and their ability to remain on-task. Their results found that added communication:

Built stronger teacher-student relationships
Expanded parental involvement in students studies
Increased students motivation in school

Kraft and Dougherty specifically found that,

Teacher-family communication increased the odds that students completed their homework by 40%.
Decreased instances in which teachers had to redirect students attention to the task at hand by 25%,
Increased class participation rates by 15%”

In the teams interviews with the treatment group, they learned that teachers felt that calling and texting home, “foster(ed) a better rapport”, “heightened our relationship” with students, and “helped them to be more effective at classroom management and behavior modification.”

And that only skims the surface of what these graduate students found!

Studies such as this one will help Remind101 continue to pave the way in classroom communication tools.

We want to know if this information is valuable to you! Let us know on Twitter, Facebook or by emailing contact@remind101.com and we’ll gladly follow up this post with more of their findings.