This could be very helpful. I used to have a private tuition company back in my uni days. Keeping parents updated was rewarding but often took a long time.
Having something like this would have been great for all - parents, teachers/tutors and most of all student.
Maybe the landing page isn't obvious enough. It's a 60 second update per class, not per child. There's the option for teachers to send an individual message to a specific family, which of course will take some more time, but most of the time our pilot teachers just focus on the class update.
The landing page definitely isn't obvious enough. I got the idea eventually, but I had to work for it, and it wasn’t in the big print.
Part of the problem is unclear copy upfront. Here’s the first sentence:
> Today We Learned is a website and app that guides teachers through a 60-second update, which empowers parents to start learning conversations at home with their children.
How can guiding teachers empower parents? It doesn’t provide enough information to make sense. Being guided through an update is a passive thing to have happen to you; there’s no reason for us to assume that the teacher is taking action here, or that the update goes not to them but to the parents alone. Presumably the writer wanted to avoid any forthright statements that the teachers will have to work for the app to be useful, but in doing so they buried the purpose of the program. And the only other sentence above the fold, rather than clarifying, is boilerplate: and this is a good thing.
Looks like an interesting app, though. I’d be curious to know what percentage of users actually go in for the paid mobile app—email and web access being the universal here.
Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate the detail you've given. I'll take some time to more carefully test the copy with people not already familiar with the product.
More relevant to the topic; while Alexcason has a fair point in that teachers are already overworked, if TIL's research page is accurate (and I have no reason to suspect it isn't), then it seems like there's a large payoff for the relatively small time investment. Good job!
We have these conversations regularly with our kids, they are very important. If you can actually get a lot of schools to go for this that would be amazing.
Is it only free for schools and teachers in Australia or everywhere?
Thanks for the feedback - I'm glad you see the value in it.
It'll be free for schools worldwide. If we get enough interest in a particular region we'll look for a local organisation to partner with, like RAC has here in Australia. (My co-founder and I are big believers in helping businesses find sustainable/effective ways to invest in education).
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 36.6 ms ] threadHaving something like this would have been great for all - parents, teachers/tutors and most of all student.
No teacher will ever use this voluntarily.
Part of the problem is unclear copy upfront. Here’s the first sentence:
> Today We Learned is a website and app that guides teachers through a 60-second update, which empowers parents to start learning conversations at home with their children.
How can guiding teachers empower parents? It doesn’t provide enough information to make sense. Being guided through an update is a passive thing to have happen to you; there’s no reason for us to assume that the teacher is taking action here, or that the update goes not to them but to the parents alone. Presumably the writer wanted to avoid any forthright statements that the teachers will have to work for the app to be useful, but in doing so they buried the purpose of the program. And the only other sentence above the fold, rather than clarifying, is boilerplate: and this is a good thing.
Looks like an interesting app, though. I’d be curious to know what percentage of users actually go in for the paid mobile app—email and web access being the universal here.
More relevant to the topic; while Alexcason has a fair point in that teachers are already overworked, if TIL's research page is accurate (and I have no reason to suspect it isn't), then it seems like there's a large payoff for the relatively small time investment. Good job!
Is it only free for schools and teachers in Australia or everywhere?
It'll be free for schools worldwide. If we get enough interest in a particular region we'll look for a local organisation to partner with, like RAC has here in Australia. (My co-founder and I are big believers in helping businesses find sustainable/effective ways to invest in education).