Alrighty, welcome everyone. Hello, we are here today to do the Take 10 Creating a Classroom Newsletter. I'm Danielle Abernathy and with me we have... Hi, I'm Tiffany Anderle.
And together we're going to share with you a little bit more about using Wixie to create a newsletter. Now why would you want to send a newsletter home to your parents? One is to share upcoming themes for the class, foster engagement. You can share test and project dates to inform parents of skills that you're working on in the classroom.
Keep parents posted about classroom happenings, updates about field trips or special events. But the key is communication. Communication is the key to a successful classroom.
Now a few weeks ago I was visiting my sister-in-law and she was sharing with me a newsletter that my nephew Camden had created. The teacher had filled out everything, made copies and then the students had written something on the very bottom and she took pictures and sent them electronically. It was a lot of work.
I was like, they can do this in Wixie and with the new family center you're able to quickly share it right back. So let me share with you why Wixie to create your newsletter. You can add hyperlinks.
I'm going to share one with you. You could add images of your class such as if you've got a new class pet like this little bunny here or you can embed student projects right into the newsletter. So to give you an example, we've got quite a few that are already there.
If you go into the templates in design templates folder. So on the left-hand side, design templates. Go to the teacher folder.
There are quite a few new templates that are there. Tiffany is the design queen and she's designed a whole bunch of great ones. I chose three of my favorites just to walk you through why I like these three.
There's no wrong answer though. There's some great ones in there. The first one is this classroom connect connection one.
I love that it's very simple. I have my calendar. I could add what's going on each day of the week.
Homework assignments. Is there a test due? PTA night. Anything special for each day of the week.
I could even announce the student's birthday if I wanted to. Then over here on the right-hand side, I could type a message to the parents and then I can assign this to my students and where it says student spotlight, the students can type a message or draw a picture, share a funny joke, embed a Wixie project, anything they want to do to make it personal for when mom and dad opens it. So that's one of my favorites and it's a simple one pager.
Another one of my favorites is the school news. Now this one is a video. You're supposed to put a video right here.
So over on the right-hand side, you type your text, your note from your classroom, anything that you need the parents to know about and then the students can record a video or maybe you want to record the video and then have the students type their text. You could flip-flop it back and forth either way. But again, it's just another way of communicating and engaging with the parents but make sure the students have their chance too.
The third one that's my favorite is this one right here and I'm actually going to show you how to use this one. So let's go ahead and open this one up and you'll notice that the other ones all opened up as ready for me to customize or assign as is. This one, it's my personal one because I've made modifications to it and I've already assigned it to my students.
So the first thing I did was I added the date, I added a teacher's note, and then I also have down here, don't forget to return your signed permission slip. And then on the second page, I have upcoming events and then two boxes for the students. Now, I want to go back and show you this real fast on the first page.
If I go into show, if the parents were reading this and they go, signed permission slip, what's that? They can click on this and it will take them to the permission slip in the Google Drive. So what happened last night? Camden was supposed to have a field trip permission slip in his book bag ready for mom and dad to sign for him to go on a field trip. He didn't have it.
So the teacher's policy is you get one printed out copy. After that, mom and dad have to print out their own. And Candy had to go through and try to find it.
Well, she wouldn't have to if it was linked in the newsletter as it is right here. Okay, so awesome. And it's just up in my Google Drive and it's linked right there.
All right, so I've already assigned this to the students. So now I can go back to my home and I can go to my assignments. And you'll see that not all of my students have completed this, but that's okay.
Got a few. Just to give you an example, Daniel here has shared a Wixie project and that he needs lunch money. So that's great.
We've got the next student, Olivia. And Olivia has shared that she did a craft project this week and that her markers are dry. She needs new markers.
So just kind of an idea. We have the next student here, Zoe. She shared a project about how to choose the right news source and that she doesn't want to ride the roller coaster to mark that on the field trip and that she's a vegetarian.
So she needs a special meal at the field trip. And then Joey, he's sharing that he did a Wixie project about roller coasters and he needs a math tutor. So I've got all of them ready to go.
All I need to do from here is let's go back to my list. Go over here and I select the ones that are completed and then I choose the project wizard and then I go to email families. And all the parents that have already filled out the form and connected their accounts will now receive this letter, this newsletter right in their inbox.
And they're not just opening it because it's from me, but because it's from me and their child with a special note. If you're not familiar with the parent center, definitely check it out. First, I want to tell you to go to learning center and make sure you fill out that form right there.
And if you go to training courses, creating custom curriculum, that's if you want to create your own templates. Tiffany's created some great ones, but you might still want to create your own. That's great right here.
And if you want to learn more about the family center, then definitely come over here and check out the hot topics or just go straight over to your settings and go to families right here and you'll see who's connected, who needs a letter sent home still, or you could just add them yourself if you have their email. If you have any questions at all, please don't hesitate to contact us. Happy creating.
Thank you so much, Danielle. Thank you, Tiffany.
