As an educator, I know that communication between students, teachers, and parents/guardians can be complicated. Sometimes I’ve felt it was difficult to manage. Working together, we are a dream team- making plays inside and outside the classroom that impact the overall success of every student. I’ve found certain tools that work to build this relationship, and I’m happy to share this one with educators everywhere. There are three key reasons Beedle establishes a great student-parent-teacher relationship often in the first few weeks of school.
Reason #1: Take away the learning curve. Technology must be easy to learn for everyone using it.
As an educator, I depend on staying connected with parents. The success of my students depends on the home-school connection! There are often increased behavior issues, lower attendance, and more frequent missing assignments when there is a lack of parent-teacher connection. Sometimes, the reason is simply that parents don’t have the time or energy to learn one more new thing. With many parent communication tools, there are too many options, too many nuances, too many hidden buttons. I’ve had to send home an entire directions packet for parents to learn a new communication tool – just to send me a message! All the hard-to-learn technology gets in the way of parents seeing their student’s progress. With simple and easy to use educational apps, parents don’t feel so overwhelmed at the thought of learning a new technology to communicate with teachers. It makes staying connected as easy as texting a friend.
Reason #2: Make it simple: one app, one login, accessible from anywhere.
In the past, parents had to set up accounts, install unfamiliar apps, remember new logins, and set up new systems. Working to eliminate all the complications in the way of communication is a big step in the right direction. When the parent-student-teacher relationship technology works with existing accounts, it creates a win-win on all sides. We’ve all selected the “login with existing account” button with a smile on our faces, haven’t we? It is a relief to be able to tell my students’ families to simply login with the same username and password they are already using for other apps: their Microsoft account. Then they can access features quickly with just a tap on their mobile devices. With the Beedle Parent App, parents can access Beedle and Teams from a simple and intuitive app, without the need for guardians to log in to Teams separately. The app is available for parents in Apple and Google App stores and is an easy click away to access all the information one would need to stay up to date on their students’ success.
Solution #3: Save time and reduce duplicative effort.
Just this week, a teacher told me about how she emailed her parent mailing list, posted a message in the LMS, and added an alert in their SIS. She had to make three different efforts to ensure that all her families could access the announcement. It’s too much! Parents and teachers are running low on time as it is. We need the technology we use to work for us to lighten that load and help us to be more efficient. The Beedle Parent App makes school information easily available for parents/guardians and adds to the success of the entire team of adults supporting the student. In the Parent App, guardians get access to Beedle and the features in Microsoft Teams to participate in the learning process. They can get immediate insight into student’s assignments, view absences, and communicate with the teacher directly. Educators are already using the Beedle app in their classrooms so that information transfers based on what the educator chooses for the parent to see. This allows for less work for the educator, and an easy app experience for the parent. It’s a dream scenario for excellent communication!
