Hays USD 489, KS 4+

This app by itself is ok, but when you compare it to the other platforms that it is meant to replace, you then realize that this is a massive down grade. This app has two main purposes, one is to send out information regarding events USD 489 and the other purpose is for communication between the teacher and the students. First I want to talk about the good, so I will be talking about the first use of this app. Sending out information about the school district is really cool and evening being able to adjust what notifications you get from different schools or organizations is really cool and has a lot of potential. Also, being able to see events regarding your school in one spot makes me feel very connected to our community. Now I want to talk about the problem child, the second use for this app. From what I have hear from teachers and students, this app is meant to replace our other forms of teacher and student communication like Email, Outlook, and the announcements on Canvas. Now there are many reasons why this is a bad distraction so let’s get started. First, there is no way to look at all of the teacher announcements at once which means you have to click threw each name to see if you might have an announcement. Compare that to Outlook where you can see it all notifications chronological order and if you do need to find something from a specific teacher, you can look it up in the search bar. Second, just like switching out the computers for iPads, this app does not prepare us for the real world. What I mean by this is that we will be using Outlook and Email in the real world to communicate with professors, bosses, coworkers, and more, not USD 489. Third, with USD 489, it is laid out like a social media app more then a professional communication app, which would be fine if it was used that way, but we are being forced to use it for communication. Overall, has potential, but is currently not better then the alternatives.

Ain’t nobody wanted this