Communication is Key.

Communication is especially important while we embrace more blended learning environments and the means to enable students to respond to their teachers, ask questions, and initiate communication. It is extra important to be vigilant with the progress - or lack thereof - that a child is making while they are working remotely. Purple Mash has several tools that allow you to keep tabs on every child's progress from afar and ensure that the learner knows you are thinking of them and they are still a valued part of their school community.

2Email is an obvious one as it allows you to touch base with students and ensure they know you are thinking of them and tracking their development. This program allows you to send through instructions, ask them how they are doing, and generally ensure they know how to get hold of you when they need to. It allows you the one-on-one contact that is often missing from a distance learning situation and offers the opportunity for the child to share what they are going through and to contact you directly should they have any queries about their work.

2Blog is another communication tool in Purple Mash. It has a simple and versatile way of setting up Blogs for the classes, groups, and individuals within your school. Blogs are viewable from the Purple Mash Home screen Sharing section.

• You can create a blog for a particular class topic, a particular piece of work, or any other project of your choice.
• Teachers can view and approve blog posts and comments before they can be seen 'live'.
• Blogs can be viewable by selected groups, selected classes, by the whole school or they may be public (if you choose).
• If a blog is public then members of the public can also be set to comment on blog posts.
• Explanatory videos can be embedded.
• Students can be set up so that they can add blog posts, comment on others' posts, or have view-only access to blogs.  Access to each blog is easily customisable.
• Students can attach their work to blog posts and it will be "live", so if they have, for example, created a game in 2Code, that game will be playable from the blog.
• Students can create their own Blogs using the My Blogs tool.  Any students made Blogs are private and viewable only by the teacher and student unless the teacher makes them visible to others.

The powerful 2Do feature within Purple Mash is another means to communicate with students. It enables teachers to assign tasks and content with just a few clicks of a mouse to any classes, groups or individual students and can form a line of communication when setting the tasks and through feedback from the students and the teacher. The communication can be typed or audio recorded.

During 2020 it has been sometimes tricky and even more so important to keep the lines of communication open. If students are familiar with a digital process it can alleviate some of the anxiety. Students who might need to self-isolate can become anxious about keeping up with the rest of the class. They want to know they have not been forgotten and want to remain part of the community that their school represents. Added to that, these tools are great for keeping tabs on how the student is doing, both from an educationally developmental aspect as well as emotionally. So go forth and communicate!