Communicating with parents in a way that gets the message across timely, simply and securely is one of the biggest challenges of successful parent engagement. Did they get the message? Are they overwhelmed with too much communication? Emailing or texting parents can get confusing when multiple threads get out of control.
Our mission is to help you stop guessing and start communicating in a way that’s straightforward, convenient and intentional. ClassTag Conversations work a bit like Messenger or other communication apps, but with some additional clever features aimed at simplifying your life as a teacher. Learn about six unique features of ClassTag Conversations:
1. You can reach a parent on multiple platforms. Your message will be delivered as an email, sms or in-app push notifications, if a parent downloaded the ClassTag app.
2. Multiple communication channels, one inbox. You can finally keep all parent messages in one place, and all the responses will land in your ClassTag Inbox. No more having to remember where the conversations are search through long email threads.
3. Read receipts! No more worrying and guessing who saw the message. If you send a message through ClassTag, you will know if a parent read it.
4. No need to exchange phone numbers or email addresses. Your contact details, as well as details of your class members are private and secure, unless they wish to share it with others.
5. You can choose how often you want to receive notifications of new messages and to which channel – push notification with the app, email, sms or none if you want to manage it on your own and read at your convenience.
6. You can finally reach non-English speaking parents, as your message is automatically translated to parents’ preferred language. ClassTag already covers 50+ languages, with more to be added in the near future.
Using ClassTag Messaging actively helps you involve more parents. For instance, you can go to your Statistics tab to see which parents haven’t been active lately and send an encouraging message by clicking on “Take Action” button. Get inspired by this list of ideas for 10 messages you can send to parents.
It takes a bit of practice to gain confidence about whether you should send an Announcement or use 1-to-1 messaging. Here are some of the most commonly asked questions (and answers!) related to ClassTag Conversations:
- Are conversations saved or do they automatically delete after some time? I want to go back and see a previous conversation I had, but don’t know how.
All of your conversations are saved in your Inbox. At the end of the school year, when the classroom is archived, the conversations will also be archived.
- If parents choose to NOT share their contact information on ClassTag, can other parents still contact them through the program?
As a teacher, you are in control. You can disable messaging between parents in your Class Settings.
- I was going to send out a mass message to 10 parents. Is this like a group chat? I do not want others to see each other’s response.
If you start a group message, everyone will be able to see all the responses. If this is not preferable, you should message each parent individually.
Resources:
Learn more about different ways of communicating with ClassTag here.
Learn about ClassTag translation functionality here.
