Thank you, Kelly Hines, for getting me up off of my virtual couch, and back into blogging regularly.
Now, I don't know Kelly, and vice versa, but she came up with a great idea for educators. Blog for 20 days in January along with others who are so inclined. She even created a grid of prompts for those who might struggle to come up with a subject. Find out all about it at: http://kellyhines.wordpress.com/blogging-challenge/
But since I don't usually lack for subjects, I'm going to do it MY way. Muwhahahahahahaha! Trust me...it will be easier on everyone.
I'm going to concentrate on helpful apps, sites, and techie tools to use in educating students. I teach online at a community college, but I also work with faculty and help them to embrace instructional technology (sometimes kicking and screaming,) and I work with Learning Management Systems. Yep...I really need another thing to do. Oh well, let's do this!
REMIND 101 - https://www.remind101.com
I was an early adopter of Remind 101, and it's been an absolute THRILL to watch them grow and refine their application. Remind 101 allows teachers to set up FREE text messaging for different classes, without using a personal mobile number. How many classes, you may ask? I'm not sure! But I've set mine up for this semester (three classes) and have set one up for this blog. I haven't seen any flashing, red lights warning me that I'm nearing my limit...yet.
It's a "push" service to THEM, which means that they can't text you back with additional questions. Personally, I love that feature! Another feature is that you can write your texts ahead of time and schedule them to go out at later times and dates. I routinely compose my texts at around 8:00 a.m. on Saturday mornings, whilst sipping my latte at Starbucks. Early on...remember I was an early adopter...your text would be sent automatically once you hit the button. Ummmm...a couple of my students complained about getting texts that early! Imagine! Anyway, now the good folks at Remind 101 have a little dialog box that comes up if you try to text too early. It says something like, "Hey! It's a little early! Are you sure you want to send this?" How cool is that???
I don't REQUIRE students to sign up for this service, as I'm aware that not everyone embraces texting to the degree that I do. Remind 101 has even thought about that, though. They allow students to sign up with email accounts and receive the same messages via email. Since it's not mandatory to sign up for the service, I don't play favorites by sending anything out by text that is not available in the online course. Oh...yeah...you can also put a rolling widget of your class messages on your website or LMS course, by simply grabbing and embedding some code from your site in Remind 101. I like to do this so that all of the students can see what I'm sending out (and it reminds ME, too) and it might encourage some to sign up a bit later than the others.
Since I'm a firm believer in trying something out before full-scale adoption, I've set up a "class" for my beloved Bloggie Woggie. If you'd like to receive daily texts from me during this 20 day blog-a-thon, just follow the directions here. I promise that they won't come before noon each day!! (If you have no patience for directions, just text to this number (858) 997-2176, message @jrbloggie) BTW, I crop and resize the PDF directions file that they create for my class, and post it as an image on the home page of my course. It cuts down on student "clicks."
Duh. I forgot to mention that Remind 101 has a mobile app, too! Pick those up FREE from the App Store (IOS) or Google Play (Android.)
See you tomorrow! ~Julie
Now, I don't know Kelly, and vice versa, but she came up with a great idea for educators. Blog for 20 days in January along with others who are so inclined. She even created a grid of prompts for those who might struggle to come up with a subject. Find out all about it at: http://kellyhines.wordpress.com/blogging-challenge/
But since I don't usually lack for subjects, I'm going to do it MY way. Muwhahahahahahaha! Trust me...it will be easier on everyone.
I'm going to concentrate on helpful apps, sites, and techie tools to use in educating students. I teach online at a community college, but I also work with faculty and help them to embrace instructional technology (sometimes kicking and screaming,) and I work with Learning Management Systems. Yep...I really need another thing to do. Oh well, let's do this!
REMIND 101 - https://www.remind101.com
I was an early adopter of Remind 101, and it's been an absolute THRILL to watch them grow and refine their application. Remind 101 allows teachers to set up FREE text messaging for different classes, without using a personal mobile number. How many classes, you may ask? I'm not sure! But I've set mine up for this semester (three classes) and have set one up for this blog. I haven't seen any flashing, red lights warning me that I'm nearing my limit...yet.
It's a "push" service to THEM, which means that they can't text you back with additional questions. Personally, I love that feature! Another feature is that you can write your texts ahead of time and schedule them to go out at later times and dates. I routinely compose my texts at around 8:00 a.m. on Saturday mornings, whilst sipping my latte at Starbucks. Early on...remember I was an early adopter...your text would be sent automatically once you hit the button. Ummmm...a couple of my students complained about getting texts that early! Imagine! Anyway, now the good folks at Remind 101 have a little dialog box that comes up if you try to text too early. It says something like, "Hey! It's a little early! Are you sure you want to send this?" How cool is that???
I don't REQUIRE students to sign up for this service, as I'm aware that not everyone embraces texting to the degree that I do. Remind 101 has even thought about that, though. They allow students to sign up with email accounts and receive the same messages via email. Since it's not mandatory to sign up for the service, I don't play favorites by sending anything out by text that is not available in the online course. Oh...yeah...you can also put a rolling widget of your class messages on your website or LMS course, by simply grabbing and embedding some code from your site in Remind 101. I like to do this so that all of the students can see what I'm sending out (and it reminds ME, too) and it might encourage some to sign up a bit later than the others.
Since I'm a firm believer in trying something out before full-scale adoption, I've set up a "class" for my beloved Bloggie Woggie. If you'd like to receive daily texts from me during this 20 day blog-a-thon, just follow the directions here. I promise that they won't come before noon each day!! (If you have no patience for directions, just text to this number (858) 997-2176, message @jrbloggie) BTW, I crop and resize the PDF directions file that they create for my class, and post it as an image on the home page of my course. It cuts down on student "clicks."
Duh. I forgot to mention that Remind 101 has a mobile app, too! Pick those up FREE from the App Store (IOS) or Google Play (Android.)
See you tomorrow! ~Julie
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