Remind 101

I heard about Remind 101 from a couple of my teachers in my credential program but I hadn't really given it much thought when I heard about it because I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to have enough control over my class to use it this spring. However, in light of the large number of students that have cell phones (I'm willing to bet in my bio class almost everyone has a cell phone that can get text messages and I know everyone has one in my anatomy class and even within that, they have smart phones) I think this could be a very useful tool.

This is a free service (you're charged by your phone company for text messages but most people have unlimited text plans) that I can set up to send students reminders at any time of the day I choose. I can even set reminders to be sent at a specific time (to the minute!) and day. I set up accounts for both of my classes. I can't wait to tell my students about them. It is so cool. So many of my students just don't use their planners and don't know when things are due and I am sure that they look at their phones very often....I really think it will help them to not have the excuse of "I left my planner in my locker" or "I forgot to look in my planner" or I don't like to use my planner."

It's so easy to opt in to receiving reminders. By the way, you can get reminders either as texts or emails or both. Students and parents can sign up. I think that I can get the parents more involved with this service as well and I could see some parents being happy to know what their child has due. This is a no-opt out technique because now when the parent asks what the student has for homework of if they need to study for their quiz, they can't say "I don't have any homework or a quiz." I also think that the email option is good if people don't have cell phones. I mean, it's obviously not exactly perfect but seriously, everyone has a cell phone or access to a computer with email. Ok, maybe not everyone but I feel safe saying that about my two classes.

It's also really cool because I don't need to know their invidual numbers or emails and they don't know my personal phone number. You just send a text to your classes' phone number (424) 277-6948 and in the text section where you type your message, you just write @class code (I created codes for bio and antomy) so it would be @3bioehs for 3rd period bio and @6ap for 6th period anatomy. They even have a remind101 app. I'm not sure what it does since I don't have a smart phone...