With October under way, it finally feels like the back-to-school season is coming to a close—and a good time to take a look back at what we’ve been up to in the past few months. If you haven’t had a chance to catch up with us lately, here’s a quick overview of what’s new, what’s changed, and what’s coming up at Remind.
Of course, nothing was normal about going back to school this year. For us, one significant shift came in timing: Our biggest peaks in signups came in mid-September, instead of mid-August, as start dates were pushed back for additional planning.
As schools and districts prepared to start the year remotely, instead of the emergency measures they took in the spring, a record number of organizations also officially moved to Remind to consolidate communication and improve outcomes like distance learning and student engagement. As of this month, the Remind plan supports more than 6 million students across the US and Canada.
We also discovered that communication on Remind can look very different in a distance learning environment. For one thing, there’s a lot more of it—crucial in the absence of in-person instruction, but daunting if it isn’t planned or anticipated.
To make it easier for schools and districts to support two-way communication for their entire communities, we introduced default class settings for messaging, classes, and more. Our new video conferencing integrations also let administrators enable (or disable) Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom for their organizations on Remind.
And those aren’t the only new integrations on Remind. Over the summer, we also partnered with Smore and Canva for Education to encourage and simplify visual communication, whether you’re logged in on Remind or on your favorite tools.
With more organizations going back to school with Remind this year, supporting the onboarding process was one of our biggest priorities. Over the summer, we launched a brand-new Learning Center for customers—beginning with a self-paced training course for administrators that covers all the fundamentals of getting started.
To us, getting set up on Remind isn’t just a matter of provisioning accounts and calling it a day. Our webinars about preparing for the school year and supporting attendance during distance learning include actionable strategies that can be implemented right away, and we’re hard at work on more resources for using Remind at the class, school, and district levels.
Finally, in case you missed it: Remind is officially ISO 27001:2013 certified! It’s a bit of a mouthful, but it’s also the internationally recognized standard for protecting information security—so you can rely on Remind to meet (or exceed!) your organization’s security requirements.
For the school year? Well, that’s anyone’s guess. But what we do know is that whether you’re back remotely, in the building, or some combination of both, keeping students engaged and motivated is going to be especially crucial this year.
Later this month, we’ll be launching engagement reports to provide better visibility into engagement at an organization, so administrators can identify systemic issues and plan appropriate interventions.
We’ll also be sharing tips and resources for supporting two-way communication at every level in a school or district, so keep an eye out for more very soon. Back to school might be over, but the school year’s just getting started.
To get the latest news and updates from Remind, come connect with us on Twitter! And if you’d like to learn more about the Remind plan for schools and districts, just click here for more info.
