Absolutely terrible!
I have been using Dojo for almost ten years and I miss it so much! Our district switched to Apptegy/Thrillshare/Connect this year and it is terrible. So glitchy and missing so many of the features of dojo that have been critical to my classroom management and communication. We were promised automatic translation and it won’t translate at all in a district with a large Spanish speaking population. Behavior tracking is tedious and not at all fun for the kids. There is no “buy-in” for them. We miss the cute monsters and fun sounds. Also missing the events feature. Being able to schedule classroom events and announcements and automatically send reminders is really hurting family engagement in my class. Very upset with this app.
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Pretty Awful
The most sensible things are missing for this communication tool. who needs a calendar, right? The app consistently freezes when trying to add or remove users to your room. The app gives an emoji and comment option, but those don’t work at all. Outside of being able to private message, this is a one way communication tool with very few options.
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Response from developer
We really appreciate your feedback. Please contact our Support team at support@apptegy.com so that we can better understand the issues you're describing and help troubleshoot along with you. You're describing bugs we haven't encountered before, but our team is investigating these aspects of the platform and conducting testing to clear up any potential issues.
Ugh
This app is a disservice to teachers. If your school or district is considering adopting Rooms as its primary form of home-school communication, DON’T.
Teachers already have more than enough on their plates without being forced to rely on a communication platform that makes a basic part of our job more complicated, frustrating, and inefficient than it needs to be. A school communication app should make it easier to connect with families—not create another layer of problems teachers have to troubleshoot and manage.
When districts choose a platform like this, they need to seriously consider the experience of the people who are expected to use it every single day. “It technically works” is not the same thing as being intuitive, reliable, or teacher-friendly.
Home-school communication is too important to be handled by an app that creates more work instead of reducing it. There are far better options available. Teachers deserve tools that support their work, not tools they have to fight with just to communicate with families.
If you are a district administrator researching communication platforms: please listen to the teachers who will actually have to use them before signing a contract.
Teachers already have more than enough on their plates without being forced to rely on a communication platform that makes a basic part of our job more complicated, frustrating, and inefficient than it needs to be. A school communication app should make it easier to connect with families—not create another layer of problems teachers have to troubleshoot and manage.
When districts choose a platform like this, they need to seriously consider the experience of the people who are expected to use it every single day. “It technically works” is not the same thing as being intuitive, reliable, or teacher-friendly.
Home-school communication is too important to be handled by an app that creates more work instead of reducing it. There are far better options available. Teachers deserve tools that support their work, not tools they have to fight with just to communicate with families.
If you are a district administrator researching communication platforms: please listen to the teachers who will actually have to use them before signing a contract.
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One of the Worst Apps
This is by far one of the worst apps I’ve ever used for communication I schools. Closes out or resets all the time, when trying to edit a message it closes out completely, freezes a lot, and just not ideal for fast quality communication.
New update still not good
I was hoping the new update would fix some of the issues. One issue is when you go to crop the image for Instagram it only gives you the square option in the app. If you use the desktop version, you get the other crop options, including portrait and landscape. Additionally, the times are off when it tells you when something is scheduled and when something has posted. They must be using their time zone and not whichever one is set for the account. Again, no problem on the desktop version. Lastly, when you try to do alternative text, if you copy from something else say a list of names or detail, detailed important information included on the flyer, it will not allow you to paste in the app, but again, no problem on the desktop.
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Teacher
Very frustrating. Parents are sending messages, but I can not view them on the App or web browser.
Worst App Ever!
Not sure why our school district partnered with this App company. The app constantly freezes. Not user friendly. My parents hate it!
Game Changer
Allows me to communicate on the go!!! Great customer service as well.
Very Useful and Easy to Use
We are new to Apptegy and I have been thoroughly impressed with how easy it is to use and what it’s capable of. Our school district is really excited about this addition to our communication methods.
Just no
This app is not good. I used dojo for 10 years before our district was forced to switch to this and it’s such a sad app in comparison. Drab colors, the messages don’t fully show and parents most likely won’t click them to see the rest. Photo uploads take FOREVER and then parents can’t even open them. Photos sent from parents to teacher and vice versa through the messaging feature don’t open or show on mobile. On the desktop you can’t see them all. It will say 14+ photos and only let you click on 4 of them. To see them you have to manually download all of them (no one will be doing that!) can’t post videos on the main announcement page. As others mentioned, it’s hard to find the parents to message them because it says their first and last name but not the child’s name so you have to go figure out which guardian goes with the child you are messaging about. On dojo it would say “Sally’s parent” so you knew easily. Also, I have parents connected to me from previous years which makes it really confusing as well. I don’t like this app at all and I know the parents don’t because they barely log in and read the messages or complain about it crashing and freezing. ALSO PLEASE ADD EVENTS FEATURE! Dojo had it and it was so much easier to schedule all the days off or events so parents could see them.
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Horrible
Literally one of the worst communication apps for school. I miss being able to use Band so much. Not having a calendar feature for Theater is ridiculous, can’t message a group of 6 or more people, you post an update for students and parents to see AND THEY CANT COMMENT! So you get the same question 15 times. The students just made their own Band app group instead and keep up with each other instead and don’t want to use the app because it does not function well. School districts are idiots for choosing this platform.
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Run away from this app
My district is forcing this on all buildings across the district. This is such a clunky app. It’s not user friendly. Lacks appeal for elementary schools. It lacks all of the things that make Class Dojo a great app. If I could give it less than a zero rating, I would. Promises are made about new features, but no timeline is given. Run from this app.
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Not Great
This app is not user friendly, doesn’t look nice or appealing, and is just overall poorly made. It’s inconvenient for staff and parents.
Great App for Schools!
I use this for constantly posting on social media for our organization. It’s easy to use and is consistently improving features!
Terrible
Doesn’t give notifications (even though that setting is turned on) so you miss time sensitive information, such as telling a student to ride car vs bus, etc.
Hate that we are forced by our district to use it.
Hate even more that it’s the same complaints over and over and the developers have done nothing to address this.
What a waste of school funds!
Hate that we are forced by our district to use it.
Hate even more that it’s the same complaints over and over and the developers have done nothing to address this.
What a waste of school funds!
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Not Great
All I’m asking for is to have a calendar function on this platform.
I’m 25 and chronically online, this app stinks
This app is prehistoric. I miss Remind. I have checked my notifications settings a million times and I still am not notified every time I receive a message. It goes to my work email which I don’t check after work. All my messages are difficult to locate. I’m 25 and chronically online. I can’t even figure out this app. Imagine the older teachers who don’t use technology on a regular basis.
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Response from developer
Please contact our Support team at support@apptegy.com so that we can better understand the notifications issue you're describing and help troubleshoot.
Unreliable
Frustrating and unreliable
FIX IT NOW
It keeps looping into the same message again and again and it won’t dare work. It keeps glitching and glitching. Why do schools even use this app?
Response from developer
Please contact our Support team at support@apptegy.com so that we can better understand the issue you're describing and help troubleshoot.
Pretty Awful
The most sensible things are missing for this communication tool. who needs a calendar, right? The app consistently freezes when trying to add or remove users to your room. The app gives an emoji and comment option, but those don’t work at all. Outside of being able to private message, this is a one way communication tool with very few options.
Show more
Response from developer
We really appreciate your feedback. Please contact our Support team at support@apptegy.com so that we can better understand the issues you're describing and help troubleshoot along with you. You're describing bugs we haven't encountered before, but our team is investigating these aspects of the platform and conducting testing to clear up any potential issues.
