What's New in WhatsDue

WhatsDue is a free service (available for Android and iOS) that enables teachers to create and send due date reminders to their students. Students receive the reminders as push notifications on their iOS and or Android devices. During the last year I've found that teachers appreciate that WhatsDue is a simple platform that does its job well. Recently, WhatsDue pushed a couple of convenient updates.

Now in WhatsDue you can see when your students mark an assignment as completed. This should give you an indication of how many students completed assignments and when they completed them.

The other recent update to WhatsDue allows you to preview what an assignment reminder will look like to students and parents. This is a nice way to make sure that what you intend to send is actually what students will see.

How it works:
Here's how WhatsDue works. First, the teacher registers for a free account on the WhatsDue website and creates a class or classes. Each class is assigned its own unique join code. Teachers then invite students and parents to join the class through the join code. Once students have joined the class they will begin receiving due date reminders on their mobile devices.

What makes it different from similar services:
If you have been leery of using other reminder systems because of privacy concerns with phone numbers or two-way communication, WhatsDue might be for you. It doesn't require phone numbers and it doesn't have two-way communication. It also allows students to be reminded of assignments on a schedule that works for them. For example, they can set the app to remind them of assignments a day before or a couple of hours before an assignment is due.

How to Schedule Reminder Notices in WhatsDue

WhatsDue is a free service for sending assignment reminders to students and their parents through mobile push notifications. I wrote a post about their updates yesterday. This evening, to answer a question about the admin panel in WhatsDue, I made the following short video.

myHomework Helps Students Keep Track of Assignments

myHomework is a free app that students can use on the web on iPads, on  iPhones, on Android devices, and on Windows 8 devices to keep track of their school schedules and assignment due dates. myHomework syncs students' schedules and assignments across all of the devices that they use.

On myHomework students can enter their course schedules in day and time format (example: History meets at 10am Monday) or in a block schedule format (example: History meets during block 1 every other day).  Assignments that students enter into myHomework can be assigned a level of priority in addition to the due date and the assignment description.

I tried myHomework on my iPad and one of my older Android tablets that is running Honeycomb (Android 3.0) and it worked fine. That said there are some comments in the Google Play store suggesting that myHomework may not be fully updated for Jellybean (Android 4.0+).

Applications for Education
If you're looking for one schedule and homework reminder service that you can recommend to all of your students regardless of which mobile operating system they use, myHomework is worth trying out.

SendHub - Text Parents, Students, and Colleagues for Free

This month Free Technology for Teachers welcomes SendHub as a new advertiser. SendHub is a service that allows you to send text messages to groups of up to fifty people at once for free. SendHub is an opt-in service. You give parents and students a code to text to opt-in to be a part of one of your groups. You can manage up to three groups in a free account. When you're ready to send a text message you can send it to one or all of groups at once from your cellphone, from your tablet, or from your computer. Learn more in the video below.


SendHub from John Fallone on Vimeo.

Applications for Education
Students and sometimes their parents can't help but look at their phones when they hear the alert that they have a new text message. Capitalize on this compulsive behavior by using SendHub to send reminders to students about homework and other important information for your class. You can also use it to send out encouragement and praise for a job well done.

Pinside - Collaborative Sticky Notes

Pinside is a free online sticky note service. Pinside can be used to create boards of notes for yourself or boards to share with others. You can create a mix of private and shared notes within one account. Sticky notes on shared Pinside boards are designed for creating to-do lists. As each item on the the notes is completed you and or your collaborators can delete completed items.

Applications for Education
Pinside could be a good little tool for students working on group projects to assign tasks to each other and check them off as they go. Pinside could also be used by students to create a board of action items for each of the courses that they are taking.

Soshiku - A Good Tool for Assignment Management

Soshiku is a free personal planner designed for high school and college students. Soshiku lets students organize their assignments by course, add assignments, and receive text message and or email reminders before each assignment is due. Students can add assignments to their calendars directly on the Soshiku website or via text message. Registering and getting started with Soshiku is quick and the user interface is very intuitive and easy to learn. Soshiku has been optimized to run on iPads and Android tablets too.

Applications for Education
Soshiku is a good service for students to manage their assignment due dates. The options for assignment reminders can be received via email or text days or weeks before each assignment is due.