Software: Ten Hot Trends
By: Lauren Hunter
Most teachers and administrators might be aware of the most current fashion fads, the newest entertainment spots or the coolest technology trends amongst their students: MP3 players, LED belt buckles, XM radios and PSP video games are just a few out there. But for private school administrators and teachers, the technology tools that are really hot aren’t listed in the weekly ad from Best Buy.
More and more private schools are jumping on the technology bandwagon as they search for ways to keep up with the fast pace of today’s generation. Everyone is busy, especially teachers!
This article aims to share some of the hottest school software technology trends in the hopes that your school just might be ready to take the plunge and invest in school management software, Web site building tools, online payment tools and communication tools that can empower your teachers and students in ways you never thought possible.
Here are 10 things, among many, that you can do with the latest school software technology.
1. Create Interactive School and Classroom Web Sites
Because schools cater to the youth of today, it is absolutely imperative to have a Web site for your school. No if, ands or buts about it. If your school has been dragging its feet, now’s the time to invest the time and energy—it can warrant a huge payoff in the future. Web-based programs cater specifically to Christian organizations and provide a host of services that can make setting up your school Web site relatively easy.
But the trend doesn’t end with just a Web site; the trend is for a school Web site to be completely interactive. One way this is done is by providing teachers each with their own classroom Web page, where they can list assignments, provide ways for students to post comments to teachers and to one another and more. Many of the following school trends all relate to the interactive Web site that a school needs to develop.
2. Develop E-Mail Communication for Parents and Students
As with any school, and education in general, communication is key to fostering a cooperative learning environment. In elementary school, it’s more crucial for parents to communicate with teachers on learning modalities, a student’s individual social needs, and general schoolwork issues. Junior high and high school-aged students typically become more involved, with parents stepping back a bit to let their child have more responsibility over their education.
At all levels, parents should be able to communicate with teachers via e-mail to handle routine information and special concerns that require immediate attention; students can also use e-mail to communicate with teachers in regards to making up late work, questions on particular assignments that don’t require immediate attention, and more.
Another great way that teachers can use e-mail to their advantage is by utilizing a school management program’s tools to group e-mail their students, or parents, or students and parents together.
Perhaps a teacher wants to remind their classes about an upcoming research project. The entire class can be e-mailed with just the click of a button when using a school management software program with these functions.
Also, it can make life much easier for teachers when they don’t have to make scads of phone calls to parents about trip forms, video release forms, or parent-teacher night. With one e-mail, a teacher can send out a field trip form to all parents and make sure the form actually makes it home with the students.
3. Share Data Between Church Office and School Office Management Programs
Most religious private schools are connected to a church in some way. Many of the members of your church send their kids to the school affiliated with your organization. This is especially important at the primary school level because Sunday school teachers might wish to share data with classroom teachers, and vice versa. By using school office management software built by the same software provider as your church management software, all data concerning both organizations can be streamlined in order to stay on top of all data management. If your CMS provider doesn’t offer school management software, you might consider changing to a vendor that can meet all your church and school needs, both online and offline.
4. Provide Online Access to Student Information
One of the hottest ways that schools are using their Web sites to communicate with students and parents is to provide online access to student information via the school Web site. Teachers can make great use of online software components to their school management software by creating sections online for secure, password-protected access to student information for both parents and students. Parents and students can have different log-ins and separate sections for information. Parents might have access to information and comments posted by teachers regarding discipline issues and curriculum challenges, while students would only have access to their grades and assignment information. Providing this type of access means families have 24/7 access to their child’s information and can easily stay on top of managing the educational process—from any Internet connection.
5. Give Teachers Access to Classroom Data at Home
Not only can students and parents access grades and other important data from home, teachers can, too. Most teachers do a considerable amount of work from their home offices. By backing up files to a flash drive-style media, they can plug in the drive on their home computers and make edits and changes to classroom data as needed, save it and then upload it to their computer at school.
6. List School Activities Online
One of the best ways to get more students and parents involved in school events is by creating an up-to-date calendar that is published online on the school’s Web site. The same thing can be done for individual classrooms and posted on Web pages for each individual teacher.
Sporting events, plays, field trips, lunch menu items, holidays, half-days, teacher work days and summer activities can all be posted online and kept fresh and relevant by implementing an online calendaring software management program. Check to make sure that whatever calendaring program you decide to use will work seamlessly with your Web site.
One nice benefit of posting events online is that schools can link right to Mapquest for sporting and other types of events, making it much easier for parents to get directions to away games. Now the school receptionist won’t have to field 20 calls a day asking for directions to the Friday night away football game.
7. Create Personalized E-Mail Newsletters to Students and Parents
For high schools, one trend is to use specialized software to publish customized and personalized e-mail newsletters to students and their parents.
Sports nut? Get a weekly digest e-mail newsletter of all the sporting events taking place at the school. Love drama? Create a weekly e-newsletter with all the new performances, plays and details on actors involved.
In some high schools, this could even become a project for the journalism class—e-newsletters can assist students in becoming better writers, while they help to encourage support and involvement from their communities. Create unique user profiles by allowing users to select topics they are interested in while registering online. Users will receive e-newsletters that you create targeting their specific areas of interest. This type of targeted communication is what the future is all about.
8. Provide Online Ticketing for School Events
For large high schools that offer lots of sporting, drama and other types of events, providing a way to take tickets online can be a wonderful benefit. Most schools don’t have a box office that is staffed 24/7, but by taking e-tickets online, students, parents and members of the community can reserve tickets online, choose their seats, put tickets on hold or even print out e-tickets at home. Implementing an online ticketing software program can help cut down on administrative time and provide easier ways for the community to better support school programs and events.
9. Register for Events Online
Another hot trend is to provide online registration for many school events. Schools often have clubs, field trips, sports teams, after-school programs and more. Some elementary schools might even consider registering parents to work as aids in their children’s classrooms through their Web sites. Instead of expecting your administrative staff or even teachers to take registration for events, this can all be done through the school’s Web site. Eliminate all the hassles by giving people the convenience of anytime, anywhere registration. Online registration can make obtaining head counts and event planning much simpler and save everyone time and energy.
10. Take Tuition Payments Online
The whole process of taking tuition payments is a huge nightmare for most private schools. Parents often send payments with their students, and it might take weeks for the administrator to retrieve a check and post it. Losing tuition checks--especially in elementary schools--is not altogether uncommon.
Eliminate the hassle and delay by making tuition payments possible through your school Web site. Parents can set up their accounts online, keep track of payment history, and set up recurring payments and payment reminders by e-mail. Schools can take payments for anything, including summer camps, athletic fees—whatever they need to accept payments for.
These top 10 software technology trends are just some of the ways that schools are increasing productivity, reducing administrative tasks, and involving more parents and students. I hope that you’re now considering implementing some of these tactics at your institution in order to improve the way your school operates.
Lauren Hunter is a trade writer and public relations consultant specializing in the faith-based and nonprofit technology markets. She currently consults to ACS Technologies, www.acstechnologies.com, and ServiceU, www.serviceU.com, as public relations manager.
Product Roundup
SchoolDude
SchoolDude is a leading provider of Web-native operations management solutions designed exclusively for the unique needs of educational professionals. Backed by their Legendary Service Program, SchoolDude’s integrated suite of Web-native applications is revolutionizing the business of managing educational operations. SchoolDude's Web-native tools for operations management offer easy-to-use, affordable solutions to help both small and large educational institutions save money, increase efficiency and improve services.
www.schooldude.com
Rediker Software's Administrator's Plus
Rediker Software's Administrator's Plus is a powerful, yet easy-to-use, student information system that quickly and easily manages your school's record-keeping. Since every school is unique, Administrator's Plus' integrated modular design allows educators to build a system that best suits their school's needs. Modules include a student/staff database, daily and period attendance, scheduling, grades/report cards, standards/skills, discipline, tuition/student billing, district management, PDA, Web access and e-mail. Their School Office Suite, a collection of software programs that are seamlessly integrated with Administrator's Plus, manage records in every department in the school. Suite programs include a teacher grade book, school Web center and programs for the cafeteria, library, admissions, development, health and business offices. www.rediker.com
Hunter Systems
Hunter Systems is a leading provider of school administrative software. Since 1986, they have been providing integrated software products that have been chosen by thousands of private Christian schools in every state and around the world. Hunter Systems’ focus is to help schools strive to become operationally excellent and partner with them in educating students both academically and spiritually. Based on their Plan for Excellence, Hunter Systems’ solutions are focused on solving daily school challenges in the areas of income management, school growth and student achievement.
www.huntersystems.com
Excelsior Software’s District Data Analyzer
From pioneering the electronic grade book to incorporating standards-based assessment, Excelsior Software has delivered technical innovations that meet the evolving data-driven needs of educators across the board. Excelsior’s newest offering, District Data Analyzer (DDA), is a tool that allows individual schools and districts to gain the full benefits of traditional data warehousing systems for a fraction of the cost. With the ever-growing need to accurately report information to parents and school administrators in a timely manner, all schools need the ability to draw useful conclusions from their data. DDA makes it possible for educators to make more informed, data-driven decisions by customizing and distributing the information they need in order to see a clear, broad picture of their school or district.
www.excelsiorsoftware.com
TMA Systems
TMA Systems is a leading provider of Facility Asset Management Software and Computerized Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS). TMA Systems can assist your education facilities in effectively accounting for, maintaining and extending the life of your physical assets from purchase through disposal. With TMA Systems, your school is given the ability to efficiently manage your workflow process from planning stage through the completion of the job. Unlike many CMMS providers, TMA Systems’ advanced reporting capabilities are built in to the base system, which allows you to measure and benchmark efficiencies in both cost and time. Most importantly, the information generated allows your maintenance department to make more informed decisions, which will achieve your ultimate goal of improving the performance of your facility.
www.tmasystems.com
