Last fall (in the Northern Hemisphere) Remind added a response system to their popular mobile messaging service. That response system only allowed students and parents to reply with digital stamps to express that they received and understood messages. Today, Remind introduced a chat option for teachers who use Remind.

Remind chat will allow students and parents to reply with text to a teacher’s messages. Just as Remind has always done, the real phone numbers of both parties is hidden.

When I first heard about Remind chat a couple of weeks ago (Remind gave me early access to it) I was leery of it because I was concerned that students and parents would be messaging teachers at all hours of the day and expecting rapid responses. Remind alleviated that concern when I saw the “office hours” setting in the Remind chat service. “Office hours” allows teachers to specify when they will allow them to state when they will be available for messaging. Teachers can also pause or stop chat exchanges at any time.

Applications for Education

Remind’s new chat feature is being rolled out slowly. You can request access for it beginning today by entering your Remind class code here. The chat feature is one that Remind says has been requested by a lot of teachers. The feature should make it easier for you to quickly bring clarity to a message that a student or parent didn’t initially understand. Before using the new chat feature I would set office hours and clear guidelines for the kind of conversations that you will have with students and parents through the Remind chat feature.