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SALT LAKE CITY — Whether Utah parents are ready or not, it’s time to send our kids back to school as a global pandemic continues. The future of the school year is uncertain and how each school district is handling education varies immensely.
An undercurrent of constant stress reminds me I have little control. There are no good solutions.
Distance learning this past spring was an ugly experience for my family, and I’m vowing to do better. It’s critical our hybrid learning experience is better than this past spring — mission-critical.
Here are apps and digital tools available to leverage our success as we balance strange school circumstances with work and family obligations.
The Canvas Parents app
Canvas by Instructure is the online learning management system all Utah public K-12 districts and charter schools use. Canvas provides quick access to digital resources, facilitates the delivery of personalized learning, and helps teachers with administrative tasks such as centralizing assignments and resources.
Yet, in my children’s school district, even though the teachers used Canvas for assignments and grades, Canvas was not the preferred platform for parent access and grade updates — that was done through a parent portal on the school district’s website.
Besides being confusing and difficult, this meant during distance learning in the spring, my kids were using the Canvas versus district website grade discrepancy (which could lag a half a semester) as a ‘the teacher just hasn’t graded it yet’ excuse, when really it was an ‘I’ve not done any assignments for two weeks and am hiding it from you" fact.
It took until the end of this last school year for me to learn about the Canvas Parent app, and even longer to figure out how to link multiple children to my app. I’m not letting you fail like I did.
First, download the Canvas Parent app. It’s available in iOS and Android. The Canvas Parent App allows parents to "observe" the course activities of their child(ren). As observers, they can see course events, assignments, grades and even customize the notification settings based on student performance.
Second, watch this helpful Canvas Parent tutorial video on YouTube to learn how to link your app to all your school-aged kids.
Family calendar planning apps
This year I have children at three different schools with three different bell schedules. And then, to complicate things, my school district is only sending kids to school two days a week, based on our last names. Add in two working parents and it’s a bit of a logistical nightmare.
The only solution is an efficient digital family calendar. We love Google Calendar. Google Calendar is free, easy to use, and available on all platforms. All you need is a Google email address, which we chose to set up for each of our children so they can each access their own Google calendar, as well as shared calendars.
In total, we run five different shared calendars. I have my own calendar and share it with my husband. He has his own calendar and shares it with me. I set up a calendar for each school, showing bell schedules and early out days, and then shared the school calendar with each child who attends that school. In addition, our children have their own Google calendars and we share calendar events back and forth as necessary to populate the appropriate calendar for the appropriate people.
This sounds super complicated, but with Google’s color-coding options, each calendar has a different color. And, I can toggle calendars on and off in a split second. I can also set permissions that allow me to control who sees what and who can add or delete events.
If you are looking for a more robust family calendar app, OurHome combines task lists, a calendar, grocery lists and reward points to keep your home and family organized. Or the Cozi Family Organizer is a time-tested app capable of handling calendars, reminders and lists for large, busy families.
Academic apps to help with e-learning
Khan Academy is an online library of trusted lessons that cover math K-12 through early college. They also cover grammar, science, history, AP testing, SAT testing, and more. And it’s all free. They offer two apps — Khan Academy and Khan Academy Kids — which can help you if you find yourself struggling to teach lessons from home.
For kids 12 and younger, the Epic! app offers unlimited access to 40,000 high-quality ebooks, audiobooks, learning videos, and quizzes for kids 12 and under.
Duolingo is a popular free app for learning 35 languages through quick, bite-sized lessons. Through this app your kids can practice speaking, reading, listening and writing in a foreign language.
ABCmouse.com has an app for kids from ages 2-8. It provides kids with activities, quizzes, and storyline videos on a range of subjects. These include reading, math, science, social studies and art.
Apps to offer kids a cash incentive
And last, but not least, there is always good old fashion bribery. Consider rewarding your eager learners with cold hard cash — transferred electronically.
For apps that serve as a chore manager and virtual piggy bank, check out RoosterMoney or Allowance & Chores Bot. These apps will help you teach your kids about saving, spending and earning money through hard work and good behavior.
For an app that tracks allowance and chores and offers a tangible debit card attached to "the bank of mom or dad," check out Greenlight, which is an allowance app and debit card for kids that is managed by parents.
And if your child is old enough to already have a bank debit card of their own, consider setting them up a Venmo account.
If you don’t want to play with real cash, you can use a family economic system with carnival tickets or "family bucks" that your kids can earn and redeem for prizes or family experiences. There is no task too complicated to keep my 10-year-old boys from earning V-Bucks for Fortnight — not even math worksheets.
More from Nicole Carpenter:
Deciding how to handle back-to-school? 3 things you can do to find hope in the unknown
Parents everywhere are torn between the need to get children back in school and the fear that it is not safe for them to do so. Here are three things we can do to find hope in the unknown as we prepare for back to school.
