Time Saving Messages

By Jamie Guillaume

Timesavers!  Being educators, parents, spouses and attempting to have any sort of life outside of these school walls makes all of us extremely busy!  Anything that can make tasks I already complete more efficient and just as effective, I will gladly accept. 

Prior to school beginning, I participated in a Skyward training with the purpose of being able to help train teachers and answer questions that arise.  A feature that particularly stood out to me was the Message Center.  Within the message center, teachers can send mass messages to their students’ parents and/or send messages to particular parents.  Many teachers create newsletters, notes home, and have announcements they want to get to parents on a regular basis.  This features allows teachers to send a message to parents effectively and efficiently through Skyward, an already implemented program.

 

To send a message through Message Center you simply open a gradebook, go to “Other Access” and click on “Message Center.”  Here you will be able to follow the buttons on the right-hand side.  To add a new message, simply follow the prompts to add specific students or send the message to all student parents.  Through this feature, you are able to type a message as well as add attachments-what a great way to send a newsletter or parent letter!  The Message Center even allows you to set the date and time you want the message to be distributed because let’s face it, the timeframe you have to create the newsletter and the timeframe you want the newsletter delivered are never going to coincide. 

This feature particularly appealed to me because at our Summer of eLearning conference, PowerED Up, teachers really seemed to like the Remind program that sends text messages to parents.  I also like this program.  However I also believe we as educators need another login or program to work through like we need a hole in the head!  I typically prefer to use the features of programs we already have in place versus adding more.  

If you would like more information or an individual training on this feature in Skyward, do not hesitate to contact one of your friendly eLearning coaches.