"Message OBSERVERS of Students Who..." in Grade books!

[jeff_pence]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

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K12 teachers MUST have the ability to "Message The Observers of Students Who...directly from the grade book. To maintain contact with Parents.

As a K-12 teacher, communication with parents (Observers) was one of the biggest challenges that almost turned our school away from using Canvas. Being able to communicate with the Parent/Observer in conjunction with, or at least as much as the Student, is incredibly important. For example, if a student is missing an assignment or needs to make revisions, as a teacher, I can send a message to the Student directly from the grade book. However, in order for me to contact the parent/Observer, I need to write myself a paper note and then go the Messages/Inbox (a more manual strategy). It would be better if communication between teacher and student were more transparent to the parent and to have an easier, more direct line of communication to the parent. I don't know if the new/in-progress parent app does more than allow parents to easier check grades. I think that for the teacher, improving the ways in which we can communicate with an Observer/Parent would greatly improve the functionality and ease of use of the Canvas platform.

Therefore, I propose that teachers have the ability to "Message The Observers of Students Who..." in addition to the current/only "Message Students Who" directly from the grade book.

NOTE: This is a resubmission of a feature originally proposed by by Amber De Petro on May 19, 2016.

[raudabaughwill]

Currently in the gradebook there is an option to "Message students who".   Would it be possible to have an option that says something like "Message Observers who" ?   A teacher brought up a great point with me yesterday.   She said it's nice that she can message students who haven't submitted yet, however many of those students are ones who aren't participating or logging on in the first place.  It would be nice if there was an option to message their parents as well.      Please consider this as I imagine it would be a very useful tool to many teachers! 

[aloomis]

Yes! Like! Support! Whatever is needed to make this upgrade. 

[TampaNative]

Yes, this is very important! Observers of the students need to be made aware when we are alerting them of situations because they might assist. The student has already blown it off so parent assist might be the help they need.

[rachel_groft]

PLEASE integrate this feature into Canvas!!!  Our K-6 teachers REALLY REALLY REALLY need this feature to communicate better with parents.  Adding it would be ONE MORE INCENTIVE for elementary teachers to WANT to use Canvas!!  

[rhonda_siqueiro]

This would be a tremendous time-saver for teachers!

[Gark2]

YES PLEASE, this would truly be appreciated... I'd consider this my "Secret Sauce" for connecting with families in CONTEXT, rather than using a third party app/service like "Remind.com" or worse yet, Email. Connecting from within CANVAS would truly make a difference. 

[stickney]

I would like to have a check box that allows me to chose if the observers are contacted.

[AlisonM]

For teachers of K-12 students it would be very, very helpful for teachers to be able to message students a list of every missing assignment in the course, from which they could click directly to each missing assignment. Ideally, this would be as simple as the great messaging that currently exists for missing individual assignments.

It would also be helpful to be able to message the student's observer this information at the same time without having to look up the name of the observer in a separate window. I realize that students can find this information themselves, but they cannot always be trusted to do so.  

[melissao]

Emailing observers would be so helpful with keeping parents updated.

[crhyland]

I love this idea and it would be helpful for K-12 institutions!