remind101

remind101 is a website that provides a "free" and safe way for teachers to text message students and parents.  It is apparent that most of our students rely on text messaging as their primary communication tool and that most feel logging on to a teacher website is too much of a hassle. This makes remind101 an excellent solution for removing some of the communication barriers that exist between teachers and students.

So how does it work?  The teacher adds a class (up to 10 classes) which generates a unique code that can be shared with students and parents. When the students and parents send a text message using the code they will automatically be subscribed to the class. This is a notification system only, so the parent and student cannot respond to notifications.

The beauty of remind101 is that each teacher is assigned a phone number which will be used for the students/parents to subscribe.  All subscribers will be asked to reply with their name so the teacher will be able to identify who is enrolled in each class.  remind101 prevents the teacher, parents and students from seeing any phone numbers.

Classroom Application:

The notification system can be used to remind students and parents of upcoming due dates, class/school activities, and materials needed for class. The teacher could also send study tips or notes of encouragement the night before an exam.  The really cool part is that there is a schedule feature that allows the teacher to schedule reminders ahead of time.

Note: The developers are working on a mobile app.  Currently, the teacher has to send messages by logging into the website using an Internet browser.

**Thanks goes out to Jessica Mahaffey from BHS for sending us a "heads' up" about this website.**