App review by Amanda Bindel, Common Sense Education | Updated March 2019

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Bloomz

Name: Bloomz
Item: Bloomz
Rating: 4
Author: Amanda Bindel

Full-featured parent-teacher communication platform

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Learning rating

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Community rating

Based on 18 reviews

Privacy rating

by Common Sense

Grades

K–12

Great for

Productivity, Classroom Management, Behavior Management, Parent Communication

Take a look inside

5 images

Streamline communication for a class, a school, or an organization.

Bloomz combines multiple tools teachers use frequently into one site.

Request classroom donations, schedule parent conferences, and more.

Contact parents by email or text, or share student work and images.

Keep track of student behavior, and share that information with students and parents.

Pros: Lots of functionality and options make Bloomz simple and effective.

Cons: Parent social network could be frustrating for teachers to manage.

Bottom Line: One-stop multi-tool for parents, teachers, and students.

How Can I Teach with This Tool?

In terms of learning, Bloomz's biggest advantage is that it makes it easier for teachers to keep parents in the loop as to what students are doing, how they're performing, and how parents can be more involved. Teachers can use Bloomz to facilitate organization of activities such as conferences and volunteer programs. They can also use Bloomz to effectively communicate information between school and home, eliminating the need for newsletters, agendas, and the like.

Teachers can also have students check their own behavior in the behavior management and reporting feature. If a teacher adds consistently to the photo albums and behavioral management system, it could be simple for students to snag that information and place it in their portfolio.

What Is It?

Bloomz, like many two-way parent-teacher communication apps, provides teachers with a simple way to effectively communicate with classroom parents. Parents can sign up to receive app, email, or text notifications. Teachers have access to a central website and can control a wide variety of factors, from how parents communicate (for example, with each other or only with the teacher) to what type of information goes out to families.

Among Bloomz's many features are helpful tools such as those to schedule parent-teacher conferences, request and organize volunteer help, or send out photo updates of student activities. Teachers can effectively eliminate the need to dig up contact information, make phone calls, and send emails to parents. A behavior management and reporting option awards students points for good behavior: They can watch a flower grow on their page as the points grow. Students can also use the app or website to develop their own digital portfolio.

Is It Good for Learning?

Bloomz provides a great deal of functionality and interactivity for maintaining a valuable, robust school-home connection. Parents and students can view a calendar, view behavior, sign up for conferences or volunteer work, and view photos from both the website or an app. Students will enjoy seeing the petals bloom as they watch behavior points blossom into a flower. This reward system may work for some, while others may need more.

Bloomz offers students the ability to develop and enhance their digital portfolio by reflecting on behavioral goals and class activities, uploading digital work, and looking through class photos. In-tool translation options allow all parents to communicate easily, regardless of home language.

Learning Rating

Overall Rating

Engagement

Parents will appreciate being kept in the loop, and teachers can get them more engaged through volunteer sign-ups, conference management, and messaging.

Pedagogy

Parent and teacher communication is key to student success, and Bloomz provides an effective way to maintain that link. Students can monitor their behavior and create portfolios of their work.

Support

Tons of support options include easy-to-follow video tutorials, a translation feature for non-English-speaking families, and a blog full of ideas and inspiration.

Common Sense reviewer

Amanda Bindel Classroom teacher

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Community Rating

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Featured review by
Nurturing L. , Classroom teacher

Classroom teacher

Parent-Teacher connectedness

Teacher can share assignments, post videos and monitor progresses with a virtual portfolio. All of this benefits both teachers and parents by showing a child's learning progression through pictures, videos and work. The app also has a behavior monitoring option as well. The greatest advantage to using this app is the ease of communication between parents and teachers. I highly recommend this app for any classroom.

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Data Safety

How safe is this product?

Unclear whether this product supports interactions between trusted users and/or students.

Unclear whether users can interact with untrusted users, including strangers and/or adults.

Unclear whether profile information is shared for social interactions.

Data Rights

What rights do I have to the data?

Opt-in consent is not requested from users at the time personal information is collected.

Users can control their information through privacy settings.

Users can create or upload content.

Ads & Tracking

Are there advertisements or tracking?

Data are shared for third-party advertising and/or marketing.

Traditional or contextual advertisements are displayed.

Behavioral or targeted advertising is displayed.

Continue reading about this tool's privacy practices, including data collection, sharing, and security.

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