Motivating students to want to come to class is a difficult challenge for most teachers, but a new attendance tracking app is making that a bit easier.
The New York Times recently reported that attendance at Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Harlem has increased since teachers have been using Kinvolved, an app that lets teachers take each student’s attendance with the swipe of a finger. If a student is absent or tardy, the app automatically sends a text message to the student’s parents. Teachers can also customize these lateness alerts to include the number of class minutes missed.
Etta Covington, a science teacher at Wadleigh, has already seen a difference in the amount of students arriving to class on time. The Times article quotes Covington as saying that on average, only seven out of her 30 students come in on time. However, since using Kinvolved, that number is changing.
Ms. Covington said she could already see a deterrent effect. “This one, you used to hardly ever see,” she said, indicating a ninth grader perched behind a lab table, pencil and notebook at the ready. “Now she is one of the first in class in the morning.”
The article reports that Kinvolved’s goal is to “spur greater parental involvement by increasing the details parents receive from their child’s school while making the communication process more efficient.” The app sends attendance notices in numerous languages, and can be used to inform parents about school events or class tests in addition to attendance details.
Kinvolved is another example of the many apps and software services available to schools that can automate or streamline traditional school practices. With mobile device management apps, emergency notification apps, and others, schools can communicate and manage important information and property much easier than in the past.
While mobile apps are convenient and often inexpensive, it’s important that schools take the time to consider how they are going to use the app to solve the problem at hand. In the case of Wadleigh, school administrators were coached by Kinvolved’s staff members to help them use attendance data to shape the programs they put in place.
“Kinvolved is a tool that gives us the attendance number, but it doesn’t give us the qualitative information that will allow us to address the issue,” said Mr. Bangura, Wadleigh’s community school director. “There are legitimate and structural reasons that some students are late to school” — like the responsibility to drop off younger siblings at a babysitter — “and we are trying to put some solutions in place by communicating with the family.”
Understanding how technology will help to solve, but not completely solve, school issues is important to its success in schools. Without a plan to properly utilize technology in schools and classrooms, it is likely the technology will not make a positive and lasting impact on education.
To learn more about successfully integrating technology in the classroom, check out this guide to ensuring digital learning makes an impact on education.
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