Remind101 is a great, free tool that allows teachers to remind families of important bits of information.

They've recently changed the character count so even individual messages are limited to 140 characters. The 140 character limit for whole group announcements was Remind's biggest flaw - making that applicable to individual messages as well means it is not longer useful at all. I can't limit all my communications with students to 140 characters and I can't ask them to receive 2 or 3 or more texts every time we communicate. I will be researching and finding another service for the fall. (It also sucks that they are implementing this in the middle of the school year. :/)

I really like how this sends reminders out to students cell phones rather than in email format. I think it's a more effective way of communicating with students because they are always on their phones and so they're more likely to see it. It's great because you can do this without giving out your phone number to students!

I love Remind for simply keeping in touch with Parents. it is especially helpful to communicate with my Parents who speak a different language. I love that it has a translator for both myself and the parent to use. The only con I have is when I am sending a group message to inform ALL parents, there is a limit on how may characters may be used. I usually have to send multiple messages to get out what I am trying to tell the whole class.