Broadcast allows you to communicate with parents by email or SMS through an easy-to-use web-based interface. One great feature is that you can send and receive SMS messages within the Broadcast app. Watch the short video below to see more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2gKj7gvW4o
Broadcast simplifies notifying parents. You can select classes of children to send a message to, and that message will automatically go to their parents. Creating customised groups is easy and enables you to target parents of children in clubs or other extracurricular activities. You can even personalise SMS messages by automatically inserting parents’ first or last names into the message.
Broadcast communicates in two ways, SMS and email. If parent doesn’t have a mobile phone, or an SMS is sent but there is a problem with the delivery, Broadcast then automatically sends an email. There are detailed message delivery reports so you can ensure your message is getting out to parents, and contact them by other means if they have not received it.
While sending email is free, topping up SMS credits can be done in two clicks, and you choose the number of SMS credits that suits your situation.
School Jotter now has SIMS integration which means that creating and updating parent and child accounts is automatic meaning no administration time for your staff, and accurate information about your parents and students in Jotter.
Broadcast app simplifies your communications and make for more effective relationships between staff and parents. Try it out now in the School Jotter app store, or request a free demo!

Back in June we launched a new and exciting competition asking teachers and pupils to design a new app for our best selling School Jotter suite.  After all these are the people that use School Jotter and are possibly best placed to guide us on future apps.
The entries were varied and showed a great deal of creativity, we were very pleased with the response. It was a tough job but the decision was unanimous!
We are very pleased to announce that the winner was a pupil from Scargill Junior School in Rainham, Essex. The school will receive the full suite of School Jotter apps, worth £7,000. These include Jotter Learn, Resources, School Merits, Blog, Survey, Forum, Portfolio  and Messages. We hope that the pupils and staff enjoy their prize.
Here is the winning idea and we are sure you will agree that the app icon is eye catching and the description is thoughtfully written.

More information can be found about the School Jotter suite of apps here. Please remember we are always open to suggestions and ideas from schools, so please let us know, prize not included!

We had a fabulous response to this competition, seeing the Tour de Yorkshire really captured your imaginations! A very big thank you to all of the fabulous pupils and schools that sent entries to us. You made the judges job very difficult!
Our winning entry is from a year 3 pupil who attends Skipton Parish Church Of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School. The team is called Speeding Sharks!
 

I think you will all agree this is a perfect representation of the Tour de Yorkshire which gave Yorkshire an exciting and colourful weekend.

We would like to showcase some other fabulous entries that we believe deserve a well done! 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
If you would like to know more about our Bloganywhere app you will find more information here.

Blogging is now regarded by teachers all over the UK as a must-have way to improve literacy skills. It is in the new curriculum and is a great way to motivate your pupils to write for a real audience and get feedback from their teachers, peers and parents if the blog appears on your school website.
With our new blogging app, Bloganywhere, you can improve written English in your class, as well as encourage collaborative working and promote reflection.
On Wednesday, 16th July at 12pm, we are running a free webinar that will explain the benefits of blogging, and then demonstrate how you can harness these benefits with our blogging app, Bloganywhere.
If you would like to join us for this webinar, please email with your name, school name and school postcode to info@webanywhere.co.uk or complete the Get in touch box and we will send you an invitation.
You can find out more about Bloganywhere at www.bloganywhere.co.uk.

Blogging is becoming more and more popular in schools. At Webanywhere, we’ve often had teachers asking us if we could help them with creating blogs that their school could use. So, we’ve developed a brand new app, Bloganywhere, which makes creating blogs and writing blog posts easy for both pupils and teachers.
The Bloganywhere app is part of our Jotter Suite – which means pupils’ blogs can be accessed via one log in page within your school. We’re also developing the app so that, in the next month, it will allow you to post your school’s best blog posts direct to your School Jotter website.
Blogging itself ticks many curriculum boxes – from improving literacy and typing skills to encouraging online collaboration and reflection. Find out how your school can benefit from blogging by downloading our free guide, 7 Reasons Why Schools Should Blog here.
You can read about Bloganywhere, our featured app over at schooljotter.com, here.
Or, if you’re ready to get blogging straightaway, book a Bloganywhere demo here.

It’s day 2 at the BETT show, and we’re as busy as ever at stand F380.

If you’re at the show, here’s a few offers we’re running which you might want to take advantage of:

– We’re offering 50% off our popular primary school VLE, Learnanywhere, all day today if you come to the stand for a demo.

– You can claim a free Spellanywhere account if you track down one of our dinosaur mascots and have your picture taken with them. Just tweet the pic and tag @webanywhere_ltd and we’ll get in touch to set up your account. Steve Ding (pictured), our Head of Primary Division looks like he’s claimed his already!

– Our orange shirted experts are offering free LMS checks all day, come over and have a chat about your system, how it’s performing and where you might want to develop it in future.

– On the LMS topic, Keith Taynton is giving a seminar at the stand on “Flipped Classroom” later today at 3:00pm – no need to reserve a place, just drop by.

We’re really looking forward to meeting up with everyone at the show, and we’ll have something fresh to offer each day, so watch this space or keep an eye on Twitter: @webanywhere_ltd.

 

 

Teachers are becoming open to the possibilities for social media tools in the classroom. In the hands of the right educators, they can be used to engage in creative ways and inspire discussion among even the softest-spoken students. However popular social networking and content sharing sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are often blocked by schools because its content can’t be moderated – even though they can be a good source of high-quality teaching resources.
Student Jotter is a system for e-portfolios and secure social networking that enables teachers to incorporate safe, secure social media into their lesson plans. Teachers can share their lesson plans, quizzes, videos, podcasts and other resources in a shared library. A community section allows teachers and students to network and collaborate with other members who share the same educational interests.  Class discussions are no longer intimidating for some students to participate in.
Everything is hosted in the cloud for free. Some great tools are included:  An online gradebook, customised quizzes, secure messaging, classroom blogs, the ability to track assessment and a customised profile page.  Student Jotter also enables students to easily share their work projects with classmates.
The interface is easy to navigate and teachers can monitor and edit any of their students’ messages and blogs posts. They can also control how private they want the e-portfolio to be; student-and-teacher only,  allow parents to log in with a password, or make them publically available.
In summary, School Jotter is a better way for teachers and students to organise themselves, and a place to put their work.
Is your school using social media for teaching and learning? What resources do you use? Let us know by leaving a comment below!

This week’s winner, nominated by the Webanywhere team, is Cheetham C of E Primary School, Manchester – well done!

As you will have noticed we have now completely redesigned our main Webanywhere.co.uk interface to provide clearer signposting of our main content areas. Over the next few weeks we’ll also be launching new versions of our product-specific microsites for Learnanywhere, Student Jotter, School Jotter, JotterCMS and Payschool.

We’ll be adding blog posts detailing new product functionality as when it’s available so why not bookmark this page.

From today we are starting a new weekly series called “Websites of the week”. Our intention will be to showcase our favourite new School Jotter website designs to inspire our visitors. To nominate your school’s website for inclusion, please send us an email.
This week’s winner, nominated by the Webanywhere team, is Moorhouse Primary School in Rochdale – well done to Moorhouse Primary!