1. Save Paper/Reduce Carbon Footprint
A school can be more environmentally friendly by not printing out all their school calendars for all the students or printing out reminder fliers for upcoming events. Instead by directing everyone to the online school calendar, students and parents can get all the school event information in one place and schools can reduce their carbon footprint.
2. Save Time for School Administrators
Creating a paper school calendar can be very time consuming. A school can have over a hundred different groups, including clubs and sports teams. To create a central school calendar means organizing all the different groups into one calendar and working out time conflicts. When you think you’re done, a group may need to make a change, which can mean reworking the entire calendar. Sometimes a group may try to request an event in a facility that has already been reserved by another group and you are required to play phone or email tag to get the conflict resolved.
An online school calendar like Tandem streamlines the event management process. Groups can submit requests to add events, and the administrator can accept or reject with a click of the mouse. The software automatically checks for schedule conflicts before an event is added to the schedule.
3. Reduce Phone Calls to the School
One labor cost that schools often face is calls from parents, due to uncertainty about the school schedule. They may want clarification on when school will start on a given day, or the time of early dismissal. They may call to see if a baseball game has been rained out, or for the place of that days sporting event. These types of calls can be reduced by having an online school calendar that parents can access for answers to these simple questions. Often Tandem users inform us that setting up an online school calendar has greatly reduced the number of calls to the office.
4. More Effective School to Parent Communication
When a paper school calendar is sent out to parents, they may post in on their fridge or it may get lost. If they lose the paper or do not receive it, they are often left in the dark. Usually a paper calendar is good for informing parents about school vacations, but little else. A paper calendar can not alert the parent when an event has been rescheduled.
In contrast, an online school calendar is a living document. Parents can access the most up to date version of the school calendar in minutes. When changes are made to the time or place of an event, it is reflected to the online calendar as soon as it is posted. With Tandem, the school events can be synced with the parent’s Outlook, iCal, Google Calendar, or Cozi, so events will show up in their work or personal calendar as well. An online school calendar is much more convenient for parents, and provides them with instant information that they need.
5. More Effective School to Student Communication
Students also want information about what is going on at the school, both during school hours and after. An online school calendar is a great source of information on events that students want to be involved in. They can also learn about clubs that they might otherwise not know about, but would like to join to build their college resume and make new friends.
Tandem also provides a feature to where students can post pictures and news about school events and groups. This feature can be used by students to share photos and news with peers, like the math club hoisting the first place trophy or the stats of last Friday’s football game.
1. Makes information on school events more accessible for students.
Schools have tons of extra-curricular clubs and yet it can be difficult to get the word out that these clubs exist. If schools publish all their school events on a online calendar like Tandem for Schools, it will help students find out about the extra-curricular groups that they can get involved with. This can help them be more involved with school activities and also pad their resumes for college.
2. Makes information on school events more accessible for parents. Parent involvement is critical to the success of students and an online calendar encourages parents to be more involved with school events. An online school calendar effectively communicates the when and where for school activities and events, which makes it easier for parents to participate.
3. Alerts students and parents of time critical information.
One of the interesting features of Tandem for Schools is that it allows you to subscribe to an RSS feed, or sync the school calendar with your main personal calendar like iCal, Outlook, Google Calendar, or Cozi. When there is a change to the game time or a school delay due to weather, school administrators can make changes to the school’s calendar which will be immediately reflected on the online calendar as well as get distributed to parent calendars and RSS feeds.
4. Go Green
Printing paper calendars for every student and staff can consume a lot of paper and ink. Also paper calendars often become outdated as soon as they are printed because there will inevitably be changes to scheduled events, which leads to more paper being used to notify everyone. Going digital can save many, many trees.
Twitter has become a pop culture sensation within the past year, and as such it as acquired users from every demographic of society and every level of business. Not surprisingly, more and more educators and educational institutions are also turning to Twitter as a new tool to further goals and facilitate the rapid relay of information.
Many colleges are already well-versed in using Twitter to further information on their school, but secondary and primary schools are only now beginning to consider the service as a way to reach their pupils and parents. There are many different topics that could be very easily addressed in a micro-blogging format to a school-wide audience.
One prime way Twitter can be utilized is as an information booth. No matter how many memos are issued over the course of the year, there always seems to be confusion over school information.
If your school uses an online school calendar with an RSS feed capability like Tandem for Schools, the school administration can integrate the school’s Twitter account with the calendar’s RSS feed. This would distribute tweets out to all followers of the school’s Twitter account.
Timely “tweets” at pre-arranged intervals before each event could remind students and parents about upcoming events. Reminders could be sent a week before, three days before, and on the day of the actual event. If school has to be closed or canceled due to inclement weather, a twitter blast can works in conjunction with phone calls and an online calendar.
Teachers can also utilize Twitter as a way to further their student’s independent learning. Many children are not likely to randomly begin searching out historical facts and videos while they are online, however, if they (or their parents on their behalf) received a tweet with a link to a specific educational web-site or an informative video that ties into current topics at school, they would be more likely to click through – especially if extra credit or bonus point promises were part of the tweet.
A further benefit, and perhaps the most important one, that educators and schools utilizing twitter offers is the ability to instill in students that while social networking is about maintaining connections with people you know, it is also a tool that can be utilized to acquire necessary information and to further learning and development.
As the new school year is approaching, does your school have a printable 2010 school calendar that your staff and students can access online or print for placement on their fridge? You can get a free printable 2010 calendar for your school by signing up for the free Tandem Basic online calendar.
Once school management sets up the school calendar it will be live online so that staff, students, and parents can access it by going to a specific url (typically yourschool.intand.com). From there they can print out the annual calendar or bookmark the page for future reference. They can also sync your school’s calendar events with a personal calendar like Google Calendar, iCal, Outlook, or Cozi or alternatively subscribe to the calendar RSS feed. Set up of the annual calendar is easy and takes just minutes. The public webpage is hosted on Intand’s secure servers.
Tandem Basic is much more than a static online school calendar. School management can log in to the administration panel and add new events or change dates at any time. These changes will immediately be reflected on the calendar web page and updates will also be distributed to members of the school who have subscribed to the calendar. Parent’s have often commented on the convenience of getting school updates to their personal calendar. To make it look official, you can also upload your school’s logo.
Tandem school administration software helps schools simplify school event management by allowing central control of the school’s events calendar and transportation through an easy to use browser based user interface. This has many benefits for school administrators in charge of coordinating school events.
Communicate Event Scheduling More Effectively
The school administrator in charge of planning school events can enter all the events going on at a school from Drama Club meetings to friday night football games into the online school calendar. Any student, parent, teacher, or coach can easily access information through any web browser to learn about a specific event, or filter the calendar to their specific needs. When an event time is changed by an administrator, the change will be immediately updated to the online calender.
Avoid Schedule Conflicts It is quick and easy for administrators to add events to the school calendar through a user friendly online interface. Multiple administrators can have access to add events to the calendar and Tandem will automatically alert you if there is a scheduling conflict. No more time wasted on back and fourth paper trails to get a schedule conflict resolved. Coaches can also request facilities and the administrator can easily grant them access with a click of the mouse.
Easy to Implement
Our school administration software is hosted externally on Intand’s secure servers. That means there is no complicated software to install. Our support team can get your calendar up and running in minutes and Tandem allows you to quickly import Excel data like school groups, staff members, and competing schools. If you ever have any questions, our friendly support team will always be happy to help you help you through them.
Manage Transportation
The transportation management functionality is available with the Plus version of Tandem for Schools. It helps administrators easily request and allocate transportation for school events. Tandem’s transportation module will prevent driver conflicts and manage fuel costs.
There are many more helpful benefits of Tandem for Schools. Schedule a free 1 on 1 demo on your own computer to learn more.
Tandem Plus (the upgraded premium version) is much more than an online school calendar, it can also be used to manage school transportation and share photos and news. With the photos and news function of the calendar, anyone registered with the calendar can submit photos or news at the individual events page.
To share a photo you can upload an image by clicking on the upload photos icon on the right side of an event page. This can be a great way to share photos from events throughout the school, without having to leave the calendar website. Before a photo is published to the calendar it must first be reviewed and approved a calendar administrator. Then the photo thumbnail will appear on the event page.
You can click on the thumbnail to see a larger version of the photo or you can click on the photo icon on the top of the calendar to see all the photos that have been uploaded from the school and even view school photos in a slide show format. This can be fun for students and parents, who can see school photos online and don’t have to wait until the end of the year when the school yearbook is finally published.
Additionally students, parents, and staff can upload text updates for each event. For example a parent can upload the result of a match or student achievements at a particular event. This can be helpful in communicating the outcome of an event to the school community or spreading important information that specific groups should know. To do this, you would click on the news icon on the right side of an event page and insert the text in the appropriate field. Once the calendar administrator reviews and approves it, the content will be published on that event’s specific page.
REDMOND, WA, July 28, 2009 — Single sign-on became a reality when Lake Washington School District (LWSD) announced the first implementation of Microsoft code name “Geneva” technology in a K-12 environment. LWSD is located between Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains, to the east of Seattle, and serves over 23,700 students. The goal of the project is to simplify student, teacher and parent access to school district applications by enabling single sign-on and role based authorization.
Using Tandem for Schools, the popular online events management and calendaring solution
from Intand Corporation as the pilot application, LWSD took the first step in realizing the dream of
school districts everywhere; to ensure the security and privacy of vital information needed by district
students and families with simplified, user-friendly access.
“Tandem for Schools has solved a problem for our district. Before we discovered Tandem for
Schools the only way to know what events were planned at our 48 campuses was to call or be on their
mailing lists. As of December 2008, all of our 48 schools use Tandem for Schools to calendar events and
to display them on school websites. Parents often have children who attend different schools and now
with Tandem for Schools, LWSD parents can subscribe to each school’s calendar and can keep up to date
on school events without having to visit each school website. We are convinced that Tandem for Schools
has resulted in increased parent participation in school events,” says Dr. John Vaille, LWSD Chief
Technology Officer.
Microsoft code name “Geneva” is an open platform that provides simplified access and single
sign-on for on-premises and cloud-based applications in the enterprise, across organizations, and on the
Web – hosted by Microsoft or others. With “Geneva,” organizations gain flexibility and cost savings
while avoiding the access management challenges of managing extra user accounts and passwords.
“Microsoft is pleased to work with Intand to help LWSD provide its students, teachers and
families with simple, secure access to educational resources and tools,” said John Chirapurath, Director
in the Identity and Security Business Group at Microsoft. “’Geneva’ is part of Microsoft’s Business Ready
Security strategy. It supports the strategy’s tenets of ‘integrating and extending security across the
enterprise’ and helping to ‘protect everywhere, access anywhere’ through interoperability with third
party solutions.”
Tandem for Schools is an online event and facility management and calendaring solution hosted
by Intand Corporation, built by a school for schools. Tandem for Schools eliminates multiple calendars
and scheduling conflicts at schools and district offices, delivers real-time event updates to personal
calendars for staff, parents and students, and enhances school and district web sites.
“It is rewarding to see the Lake Washington School District use Tandem for Schools to manage all
of the events in their facilities, while connecting with their parents, students and teachers over the web,
in an extremely safe and secure way. Partnering with Microsoft on the ‘Geneva’ server program
demonstrates our dedication to both cutting edge technology as well as best practices in internet
identity safety. Tandem for Schools can help school districts keep their schedules conflict-free and help
families connect to more school events. Intand’s implementation of this new single sign-on ‘Geneva’
Server technology will ultimately result in lowering the administration costs associated with managing
multiple types of web applications in a large school district setting. In challenging times like these, more
and more school districts are searching for innovative ways to reduce costs, maximize productivity and
streamline internal operations. Implementing applications that leverage this new state of the art
technology would be a very good place to start,” said Bryan Otis, President and Co-Founder of Intand
Corporation.
School calendars contain important events that should be integrated with the family or personal calendar. Calendar tools like Tandem for Schools allow parents to sync the school calendar’s events with a personal web calendar like Outlook, Google Calendar, Cozi, or iCal. This eliminates the need to manually enter events into a personal calendar for parents.
However parents can’t just buy Tandem for Schools if they like the convenience of a comprehensive web-based school calendar. It has to be purchased by the school or district administration. That is why Intand (the makers of Tandem) in partnership with Cozi have developed a site for parents to vote for Tandem if they would like their school to consider Tandem as a calendar management solution. Parents can visit the site to vote and learn more about web-based school calendars at http://www.schoolcal.org.
From the Cozi blog:
If you wish you could magically have school calendar dates appear in your family calendar, you’re not alone! In fact, that’s the top choice of most parents when asked what type of calendar they’d most like to integrate directly into their family calendars. Imagine how much simpler life would be if you could automatically add school vacations, teacher conferences and early dismissal days right into your family planner.
Some schools already make calendars available to do that, but most schools don’t yet. That’s why Cozi is eager to introduce you to School Calendars Now (www.SchoolCal.org). School Calendars Now is working with parents to encourage schools across the U.S. and Canada to publish their annual calendars as Internet calendars (known as iCals) that can easily be added to the calendar programs parents use most, such as Cozi.
A school office can often serve the role of customer support for the school community. When parents have questions the first option that usually comes to mind is to call the school office and ask. However, is this really the most efficient option for both parents and the school? Sometimes the questions can be very simple, like “what time does school get out today” or “is the softball game rained out?”. Although this might seem like a convenient way to get information, what about the alternative like having a central information source for the school that is available to be viewed online. Instead of having to call the school, what if parents could view the online school calendar instead? They wouldn’t have to wait on hold, which can save them time and also reduce the number of calls to the office for simple questions. For many corporations that have call centers, each call is estimated to cost as much as $20 per call or more. By reducing calls to the office, this could save money for the school or free up the school administration to focus on other tasks.
Our school calendar application, Tandem for Schools, can help your school reduce calls to the office by centralizing information at your school’s calendar website. Tandem was designed to help schools communicate effectively with parents. The calendar can be updated with the latest information almost instantly. Parents can sync a Tandem school calendar with their personal calendars like Outlook, iCal, Cozy, or Google Calendar, which will update them whenever changes are made to the school calendar. Parents can also subscribe to RSS updates with any RSS reader like MyYahoo or Google Reader. Finally, the online school calendar is available 24/7, so parents can access information at any time from anywhere that has internet access.
One way to schools can raise money is by renting out their school facilities to the community. They could rent out their school gym for local recreational sports leagues or the auditorium for company meetings in the summer. Many schools rent facilities to Boy or Girl Scouts or even weddings. However a paper-based sign up process could be too time consuming for both community members and school administrators.
Tandem for Schools provides a streamlined process for facilities requests that is completely online. A community member can fill out an online request form that is sent to the administrator in charge of facilities rentals. They can approve or deny the request and the requester will be notified via email. Once approved the rental time slot will be scheduled on the school calendar, to automatically prevent any double booking of that facility. A handful of event bookings can potentially pay for a year of Tandem for Schools and can start generating a positive cash flow that many schools desperately need right now.
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REDMOND, WA, July 28, 2009 — Single sign-on became a reality when Lake Washington School District (LWSD) announced the first implementation of Microsoft code name “Geneva” technology in a K-12 environment. LWSD is located between Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains, to the east of Seattle, and serves over 23,700 students. The goal of the project is to simplify student, teacher and parent access to school district applications by enabling single sign-on and role based authorization.
A school office can often serve the role of customer support for the school community. When parents have questions the first option that usually comes to mind is to call the school office and ask. However, is this really the most efficient option for both parents and the school? Sometimes the questions can be very simple, like “what time does school get out today” or “is the softball game rained out?”. Although this might seem like a convenient way to get information, what about the alternative like having a central information source for the school that is available to be viewed online. Instead of having to call the school, what if parents could view the online school calendar instead? They wouldn’t have to wait on hold, which can save them time and also reduce the number of calls to the office for simple questions. For many corporations that have call centers, each call is estimated to cost as much as $20 per call or more. By reducing calls to the office, this could save money for the school or free up the school administration to focus on other tasks.
One way to schools can raise money is by renting out their school facilities to the community. They could rent out their school gym for local recreational sports leagues or the auditorium for company meetings in the summer. Many schools rent facilities to Boy or Girl Scouts or even weddings. However a paper-based sign up process could be too time consuming for both community members and school administrators.