WEEK 4 - Remind
Its 2015, and for students of an appropriate age, the smart phone rules. Ever wish you could take advantage of being able to text message them (without having to use your personal phone!)? And how about being able to send information and reminders to the parents of the younger students? Or maybe to fellow teachers? Well, you can, and it's free and easy with Remind.
Remind (formerly known as Remind101) is a free one-way texting tool that teachers just love. And that “one way” thing is a real bonus as far as many teachers are concerned, since they don't have to deal with the time consuming mess that replies can produce. Think of it as the 2015 version of the take-home flyer or note (they can't reply to that either, right?). Quick, convenient, and far more likely to be paid attention to than pieces of paper or emails.
Here's a 3 Minute Teaching With Tech Tutorial for Remind (formerly known as Remind101):
Here's some perspective on using Remind that teachers have published online:
- Tips for using Remind in the Classroom from “The Brown-Bag Teacher”
- Mrs. V's Remind FAQs
- Remind 101…A Closer Look from “TeachThruTech”
REMEMBER, AFTER YOU TRY Remind … Please Drop a Comment below and share your experience! What did you use it for? Was it easy? How did students like what you created?
About the Challenge:
The Try-a-Tool-a-Week Challenge started March 1st. Every Sunday through the end of May we're publishing a new web page with a new, awesome free tool to try. Everyone who provides their name and email address (click here to open the Challenge introduction page and SIGN UP) will get an email providing the link to the page. The goal is just to have fun and learn about these powerful free web applications for teaching and learning, and along the way you get the opportunity to win some giveaways we'll award at the end of the challenge to randomly selected participants! To have a chance a winning, just participate and share some observations about the tools you each week!
Week 1 was a blast with nearly 500 teachers signing up and dozens of great comments shared about Socrative, our Week 1 tool! Socrative is a popular Student Response System that students can use from just about any device.
For Week 2, more participants kept signing on and we checked out the free functionality of ed.ted.com! Creating a robust, interactive lesson based on any YouTube video or TED Talk, including a simple quiz, is easy-peasy with this outstanding tool from TED.
In Week 3, we got a 2-for-1 bonus, learning about LessonPaths and Blendspace, awesome free web apps that make it a snap to combine web content and your own content into a set of organized lesson content.
