Israeli Start-Up’s New Platform Allows Teachers to Share Photos and Thoughts with Parents
Source: The Jewish Standard
A few young Israeli entrepreneurs saw an opening that they are filling with a new product called Remini, which is used a great deal in Israel, to some extent across this country, including by Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, Gan Aviv in Fair Lawn and Bergenfield, and by schools as far afield in every way as one in Dubai.
Remini allows teachers and other educators to upload photos and messages to parents. Messages can go to the whole school, an entire class, a specific group of parents, or just one set of them. Parents can save photos and messages on the child’s own timeline — it’s backed up in the cloud — so a child’s entire early childhood can be documented and parents — and grandparents, should the parents decide to invite them — can gain access to it easily. Parents cannot upload content to the main part of the app, although they can to the timeline, but if the teacher or administrator agrees, they can exchange private messages.
It can be organized in any way that the educators choose, and it can be used on all platforms — phones, tablets, and desktops. Each parent has a separate private place for each of his or her children.
“It’s been more than three years, and we’re kind of big in Israel,” Mr. Wasserstein, one of Remini's developers said. “We have agreements with the biggest preschools in Israel, and we have thousands of preschools there.” In North America, Remini has signed agreements with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Union for Reform Judaism. It has signed schools in California, Chicago, Miami, Ohio, and Boston so far.
Maxine Handelman, who is based in Chicago, is United Synagogue’s early childhood specialist, and she is excited about Remini.
“Early childhood programs have a very big need to communicate with parents,” Ms. Handelman said. “They have a lot going on. Truly, the more a school can make the learning experience visible, the better the education can be, because the parents can better understand their children’s experience.”
Read more at The Jewish Standard.