Remind (formerly Remind101) A Fantastic Classroom Tool and App

This school year I had the opportunity to start out the year using the app.  I introduced it to students, had them sign up all at once during class, and later found uses for it.  Students signed up both using their cellphone numbers and emails.  There were a handful of students that signed up for both, while the majority just selected the text reminders.  I credit my students for helping me discover some of the uses.

The following are the uses we found for Remind101.


1.  Reminders on Lab Days.  Students from the very start of the year asked if I could send out reminders on lab days to make sure that students had the appropriate attire and footwear for labs.  I figured this was a reasonable request.  Students would also make sure to remind me to send notice.  The nice thing is that you can schedule messages to go out at a later date and time.

2.  Messages to Bring Materials to Class.  Very frequently in chemistry I would send out texts as reminders for students to bring their textbooks to class.  This allowed them to leave them in their locker unless they were requested to bring them.  What I found was that some students liked to leave their textbooks at home and would require the message to come early enough to bring it with them to school.  For some students, my text at 6:15 am in the morning was their wake up text.  How better could it get than getting a text from your teacher before you're even up!

3.  Volunteer Opportunities/Extracurriculars.  As advisor of multiple student groups, frequently I receive emails soliciting student help in some form.  This allowed me to text students to alert them of an opportunity that may be in their email, or just to get a hold of any of them at the last minute.  This also helped with extra curricular learning opportunities if cancellations occurred because of weather.  We frequently volunteer on the weekend for the Waukesha Co. Parks System and it allowed me to notify students if we had to take the day off, postpone, or reschedule.

4.  Items left behind.  Once in a while you will get students that leave behind personal belongings.  Most frequently, lunches are left behind.  One time a student left behind car keys that fortunately came and claimed them very quickly after receiving the text.

5.  To prepare students for a lesson.  There were a few occasions in which I sent out a text to get students attention for what we were to be doing in class that day.  On one occasion I sent out a text reminding them to bring their safety gear for our mining trip.  There were a handful of students that followed directions and came prepared.  I'm excited to do this more often next year.  With inspiration from @burgessdave and #tlap I'm hoping to be able to send cryptic texts to get them thinking about what we're going to be doing that day, or even send ones to create a contest.  What do you think students would do if I sent them out during the class period and they checked their phones in the middle of class!?!?

6.  Coaching.  I had players sign up the first week of softball so that I could use the app to get a hold of them to pass along important information.  It was a lot easier for me to go on the computer and send the text than to send a group text from my phone.  I also found this useful to send a text to parents regarding cancellations or changes of location.  It was more convenient for them to get it on their phone instead of having to check their email.  I created a separate list for parents that was different than that of players.  In the future I might try to do a better job to send out inspirational quotes to prepare students for our upcoming competitions.  This might also be fun to create a challenge out of the texts that I send.

Students do enjoy using Remind101.  This is a tweet I found from a student in my class.