Review by Sandy Wisneski, Common Sense Education | Updated October 2019
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ClassTag

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Flexible user-friendly tool gets teachers and families in sync

Subjects & skills
Subjects
N/A
Skills
  • Communication & Collaboration
Grades This grade range is based on learning appropriateness and doesn't take into account privacy. It's determined by Common Sense Education, not the product's publisher.
K–12
Great for:
Common Sense says (See details)
Teachers say (3 Reviews)
Privacy rating (How we rate)
Not yet rated
Price:  Free
Platforms:  Website

Take a look inside

5 images
The dashboard customizes communication with families.
ClassTag has many features to stay connected with families.
There's helpful support for both teachers and parents.
Scheduling of parent conferences is easy.
Teachers can share photos of classroom activities.

Pros: Excellent how-to info makes it simple for teachers to get oriented and creative.

Cons: Occasional sponsor advertising is added to parent communication; some features may be redundant with tools a school already uses.

Bottom Line: Effective communication platform with practical options to meet classroom needs.

How Can I Teach with This Tool?

ClassTag offers easy communication with families. Once you create your teacher account, a demo classroom guides you through its features, and there are prompts when setting up your own class. It's possible that some of ClassTag's features duplicate communication tools your school already uses, such as announcements, but these can be personalized to meet your needs. You might also consider some of the specialized features -- such as the volunteer request and to-do items -- to help coordinate special projects or events with your students and their parents. The photo announcements are a great way to bring families into the classroom and share weekly student activities, helping parents feel connected.

The Parent-Teacher Conference tool is an especially helpful scheduling tool: You could certainly use it to schedule parent-teacher conferences, but you could also consider using it to help students and parents schedule other appointments with you or to sign up for time slots to make a presentation or participate in an event. Keeping families updated on classroom needs for supplies or volunteers is managed easily with ClassTag. It would also work well for communicating weekly student homework with the added ability to link to files.

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Put this tool into practice:

ClassTag is a messaging tool for teachers and their students' families. Teachers set up a free account and create a class, and they can add parents directly or send parents an access code to sign up on their own and join the class. Teachers can use the app to create announcements and activities or schedule events/conferences.

There are four types of interactive "Activities" -- events, volunteer requests, to-do items, and parent-teacher conferences -- that have special interactive features to let parents or teachers sign up for tasks, such as bringing a snack or donating supplies. Parents can sign up for these items on their own, or teachers can add them to time slots or tasks directly. Teachers can add pictures and file attachments to their posts and can customize the "feed" for their class to pin certain posts at the top of the page to draw attention to them. Teachers and parents can also customize how the tool sends email alerts and reminders; items can be sent out to an entire class or to specific families. Meanwhile, teachers can view a summary of their posts for the week and get a summary of how their students' parents have interacted with them over time. 

The most appealing part of ClassTag is the variety of communication tools that help teachers stay connected with families. There are tons of features available, and a new teacher account comes preloaded with a sample class that's full of sample content and examples to get teachers started. Plus, the menu for adding content includes helpful cues that make it clear which features do what; it's really useful to see which feature asks "volunteers to be somewhere at a certain time" and which asks people "to complete a task."

ClassTag enhances any existing school learning management system (LMS) because of its personalized approach for connecting with families, even with the occasional sponsored advertisement added to communications. Activities allow teachers to share classroom photos, ask for support from volunteers, remind parents of upcoming events, and schedule conferences. In that regard, ClassTag excels, and it might just be the go-to solution for keeping track of all the big and small ways that parents can lend their support, creating stronger communication.

Overall Rating
Engagement Is the product stimulating, entertaining, and engrossing? Will kids want to return?

ClassTag has practical applications for busy schedules. The simple interface makes it easy for teachers and families to use the site effectively. 

Pedagogy Is learning content seamlessly baked-in, and do kids build conceptual understanding? Is the product adaptable and empowering? Will skills transfer?

This tool supports communication between teachers and families and connects them with events and activities in the classroom.

Support Does the product take into account learners of varying abilities, skill levels, and learning styles? Does it address both struggling and advanced students?

The interface and on-screen help text are excellent, and the built-in demo class makes it easy for teachers to quickly understand how to use the features, along with helpful support articles.

Common Sense Reviewer
Sandy Wisneski Classroom teacher
About our ratings and privacy evaluation.

Teacher Reviews

(See all 3 reviews) (3 reviews) Write a review
Featured review by
Tanya L. , Classroom teacher
Classroom teacher
Leland P Brown Elementary
Olympia, United States
ClassTag vs. Bloomz
This year I decided to switch to ClassTag after using Bloomz for a year. I really liked the ease of use of Bloomz, but I had read that ClassTag had some features that would make my communication more equitable (better translation features and ability to print out automated newsletters for parents that don’t sign up), so I made the switch. For photo and video handling, I prefer Bloomz. ClassTag seems like it takes forever to load and then upload pictures, but it seemed almost instant in Bloomz. The ...
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