Picking our Favorite School Apps
We talked to hundreds of schools and boiled it down to these apps. Our top App is pretty new and might surprise you.
by Jay
May 9, 2019
There’s an app for everything these days and that includes school. Most Principals, Teachers and even Students don’t realize how a School App can improve communication, increase engagement and even help create a positive and connected school culture.
We reviewed dozens of schools apps with input from hundreds of middle and high schools and here are the 5 favorites:
1. Minga
Minga bills themselves as the “Ultimate School Communication Platform”. We kind of agree with them, and so do the schools we talked to that are using them. Minga focuses all your school communication and engagement into one simple place where you can post announcements, pictures, videos, surveys, elections and a very fancy school schedule and calendar, all in one place. It connect directly with all your students, staff and parents and also includes the ability for teachers to create groups for classes, teams and school clubs, so everything is in one place. It’s easy to use and looks and feels like Instagram a bit so students seem to pick it up very quickly.
Why did we love it so much? It’s one of the few apps that focuses on improving communication with students and school staff as much as the parents. It also lets teachers and admins post really beautiful content that students can interact with.
Our one flaw, it’s brand new so we only spoke with a dozen schools using it. We asked Minga and they just launched in 2018 but we’re loving what we saw and we recommend you check them out at http://www.minga.io.
2. Remind
Remind needs no introduction and boasts tens of thousands of teachers as users of its free solution and recently introduced a paid version with additional features for school or district management and control. Remind has some great benefits for schools because it can be really easy to setup and use for teachers, and really easy for users to subscribe. Although Remind does have a dedicated App, we heard from teachers most students rely on the text messaging feature to get messages via Remind.
So the positives; it’s easy to use and text messages are reliable ways to connect with students and parents. Remind is perfect for sending out messages in one direction.
The downsides; it’s a bit too easy and really limited to the type of information you’re posting. It doesn’t do well for collaboration and is really meant to send OUT information.
3. Edmodo
Edmodo has been called Facebook for schools, and it is easy to see why since it’s interface looks very Facebook-ish and was built more as a desktop tool than a mobile interface at first. Recently Edmodo released a whole new look to their platform that is fresh and updated. Like Minga, our favorite in this review, Edmodo focuses on the whole school community, including students, staff and parents. The interface is still a bit clunky but we love the unified approach.
What do we love; it’s a school platform that brings everyone together in one place. The desktop version is easy to use.
What needs improvement; it looks a bit out of date and students didn’t seem as keen as some of the other solutions on this list. It’s a bit challenging to setup and get started.
4. Bloomz
Bloomz has all the right features for staying in touch with parents. Sharing photos, calendar and schedule invites and direct messaging with parents are all valuable features in the Bloomz platform. It’s more of a parent communication app for a classroom, not really a school communication solution but teachers spoke highly of the app.
We love the look and feel. It’s easy to use for teachers.
It performs a bit slow and it’s functionality is limited to teacher/parent communication so we don’t see it as a great school solution.
4. Bloomz
Bloomz has all the right features for staying in touch with parents. Sharing photos, calendar and schedule invites and direct messaging with parents are all valuable features in the Bloomz platform. It’s more of a parent communication app for a classroom, not really a school communication solution but teachers spoke highly of the app.
We love the look and feel. It’s easy to use for teachers.
It performs a bit slow and it’s functionality is limited to teacher/parent communication so we don’t see it as a great school solution.
Review Categories
Community: Does the app effectively engage with your internal school community. This score was divided into four parts;
25% – Admin (does it engage admin and the district staff)
25% – Teachers (does it communicate and engage teachers and staff)
25% – Students (does it connect and inform the students)
25% – Parents (does it include and invite parents)
Features: Does the app have the features required to communicate information with your school. This score was divided into three parts;
30% – Announcements (essential school information)
30% – Alerts (real time alerts and notifications)
40% – Social News (positive school news and updates to build culture)
Design: How does the app look when stacked up against the best in the industry like Instagram and Facebook. This score was primarily based on the aesthetics of the app. How well was it designed and how good did it look.
Ease of Use: First and App needs to look good, but it also needs to feel good and be easy to use. This score was divided into two parts:
50% – Usability (how smooth did it feel and did it work well and as expected)
50% – Intuitiveness (did it makes sense? was it easy to learn and use?)
Value: Price is a bad metric to score because if the app is no good or doesn’t help your school, then $1 is too much. We scored this as the value of the platform. Generally prices ranged from USD$1000/year to $5000/year.