Inconsistent
The app and site are not syncing and the app is constantly down when when the reports say it’s working.
Could be so great
In theory I love this app. But over half of the times I go to open it it says there are technical difficulties and it can’t open but to use the desktop version. Also for the 3rd time in 3 months of using it it has stopped sending me notifications that I received a message from a parent. So I have no idea. If it worked like it should, it would be great.
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Amy N
Awesome!
Terrible way to communicate
This app has so many things wrong and features that seem helpful but when trying to use them, they aren’t what they seem.
-Shows my message goes to 2 of 2 but only the last parent that messaged me can see it. So the other parent is left out of the loop causing the teacher to be the go between.
-Office hours are only available on the hour. There isn’t an option for half or quarter hour.
-The auto response doesn’t have an option to auto turn on outside of office hours.
-The iPhone app is incredibly spotty inside concrete block school buildings. No, I do not use school WiFi on my personal phone.
-There isn’t a text option for teachers. Therefore, I have to keep opening the website on my computer which I never sit at.
-Doesn’t translate into the languages we need.
All in all Talking Points needs an overhaul & needs to hire actual teachers to work along side their team to advise on features needed & how the features should work.
-Shows my message goes to 2 of 2 but only the last parent that messaged me can see it. So the other parent is left out of the loop causing the teacher to be the go between.
-Office hours are only available on the hour. There isn’t an option for half or quarter hour.
-The auto response doesn’t have an option to auto turn on outside of office hours.
-The iPhone app is incredibly spotty inside concrete block school buildings. No, I do not use school WiFi on my personal phone.
-There isn’t a text option for teachers. Therefore, I have to keep opening the website on my computer which I never sit at.
-Doesn’t translate into the languages we need.
All in all Talking Points needs an overhaul & needs to hire actual teachers to work along side their team to advise on features needed & how the features should work.
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Great app with flaws
This app makes my life as a teacher a lot easier, but it does have a few flaws that I would like to address:
How come teachers can’t “like” messages from parents, or even add emotions, so we don’t actually have to respond and save valuable time?
Sending pictures or videos through messages can be a real nightmare sometimes. I don’t even think sending videos is possible.
I’m really looking forward to seeing these improvements!
How come teachers can’t “like” messages from parents, or even add emotions, so we don’t actually have to respond and save valuable time?
Sending pictures or videos through messages can be a real nightmare sometimes. I don’t even think sending videos is possible.
I’m really looking forward to seeing these improvements!
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Required update is broken
I have a parent trying to talk to me, and I can’t get their message or respond, because there is a required update for Talking Points. It’s been loading for an hour but never updates. TP you have failed me, and now I get to deal with an angry student and parent because of your technology failure. 😡
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Great app at first glance but could use updates.
I am a preschool teacher with 2 separate classes and I also cover our 3rd-5th grade after school group so I’m juggling 3 different family groups which is why I prefer to have an app to communicate and this one caught my eye after I was having issues with a similar app. For a short time, all was smooth sailing. I love the option to have multiple grown-up points of contact as well as an option for messages to translate to home languages. Being able to toggle between groups was a huge selling point as well as the higher character limit on messages than other similar apps allow. The whole app is easy to use, navigate and is visually attractive. I also like that families are not mandated to adding a new app to their phones and are able to communicate via text while I send mass messages from the app. Finally, being able to schedule future messages has helped me stop forgetting to send certain messages.
While there are so many aspects that I love about this app, there are some rather frustrating things I’ve come across after using the app for close to a year and over the course of about 6 different classes.
First, as a parent, I totally respect an announcement cap of 5 per 24 hours, HOWEVER, as a teacher balancing 3 separate classes, I’d really love that number to also extend to being per class as well. Most times the information I’m sending out is either varying dates/times or all-together different info so having to ration which updates are sent out to make sure I don’t hit that cap is so frustrating when I’m trying to send all my information messages out at once. Also, while the character limit is generous, sometimes longer messages still have to be broken up into 2 or more messages which again makes me hit the announcement cap quicker. Having 3 different classes that will need 3 different announcements, potentially needing more than one announcement per message is impossible with a max 5 per 24 hour.
Next, periodically I run into the issue of either not receiving photos or my recipients jotting receiving photos. I have talked with customer service about this and eventually we are able to get them to go through but not know if they’re going through or coming to me is frustrating and can be confusing depending on the situation.
Another issue I’ve come across is that if there are 2 or more grown-up contacts in a message for a student (for example, both mom and dad) mom may send a message in that group thread, but dad doesn’t get to see that message so when I reply dad is confused about the context of the message and I then have to explain that mom had reached out. It’s a group message for a reason, I thought and this becomes even more difficult when dealing with students who live in multiple locations and I’m trying to keep all of their adults on the same page.
Overall, I’ve enjoyed being able to communicate with my families without giving out my personal phone number, however, these couple of issues really have me considering other options that are out there. Would love an update if these things are able to be resolved!
While there are so many aspects that I love about this app, there are some rather frustrating things I’ve come across after using the app for close to a year and over the course of about 6 different classes.
First, as a parent, I totally respect an announcement cap of 5 per 24 hours, HOWEVER, as a teacher balancing 3 separate classes, I’d really love that number to also extend to being per class as well. Most times the information I’m sending out is either varying dates/times or all-together different info so having to ration which updates are sent out to make sure I don’t hit that cap is so frustrating when I’m trying to send all my information messages out at once. Also, while the character limit is generous, sometimes longer messages still have to be broken up into 2 or more messages which again makes me hit the announcement cap quicker. Having 3 different classes that will need 3 different announcements, potentially needing more than one announcement per message is impossible with a max 5 per 24 hour.
Next, periodically I run into the issue of either not receiving photos or my recipients jotting receiving photos. I have talked with customer service about this and eventually we are able to get them to go through but not know if they’re going through or coming to me is frustrating and can be confusing depending on the situation.
Another issue I’ve come across is that if there are 2 or more grown-up contacts in a message for a student (for example, both mom and dad) mom may send a message in that group thread, but dad doesn’t get to see that message so when I reply dad is confused about the context of the message and I then have to explain that mom had reached out. It’s a group message for a reason, I thought and this becomes even more difficult when dealing with students who live in multiple locations and I’m trying to keep all of their adults on the same page.
Overall, I’ve enjoyed being able to communicate with my families without giving out my personal phone number, however, these couple of issues really have me considering other options that are out there. Would love an update if these things are able to be resolved!
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Don’t Get It!
This app stinks and won’t let you fix or delete announcements. It always glitches and getting someone to fix it takes forever! Overall a poorly made app!
A super useful app for family/school communication
This app is extremely useful for great school and family communication! I'm an ESL teacher and I use the Talking Points for Teachers app to communicate with instantly translated text messages with my families while they use the Talking Points for Families app. It's quick and easy to set up an account. As a teacher, I click "add manually" to add a family name and contact phone number, then select their language. My families tell me how much they love the communication all the time. If they have questions about activities at school or their child will have an early dismissal for a doctor's appointment the next day, they can send a translated text message to me, the secretary, or the school nurse. This app is so easy to use. Make sure to keep it updated.
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Frustrating and unreliable
This is my third year using the app as a teacher. While it has a great idea at its core and started as a decent service, the latest version is a disaster. This year it has virtually become unusable. It randomly logs you out without a possibility to log back in, asking for email verification, which never comes through! Customer service has to resolve it. However, if you are not in eastern time zone, they are unavailable most of your work time. Communication with families is crucial and time sensitive. Talking Points does not provide a satisfactory experience for teacher-family communication. Very regrettable!
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Ok App - Improvements Needed
The app used to be ok but glitchy. To be fair, the website is pretty slow too. The concept is amazing but 1. often times messages come to me from parents out of order 2. I’m the building ESL teacher and we have over 200 families so it’s frustrating that I can’t send the information to everyone I need to. 3. I used to be able to bypass this by having two accounts (teacher email and personal) but now I need to verify it and cannot. It feels like the 200 limit is on the low slide because there have been years I have had 180 students. Some of our elective teachers have far more. My district would never shell out money for the paid version making this app more hassle than it’s worth now.
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Struggles to load
I love this app. However it can be very frustrating and slow. It takes a long time to load sometimes and after using it for only 3 weeks I’ve already had parents complain about not being able to send a message because the site/app won’t load. It’s really my only complaint, so maybe other things about it are great!
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The app does NOT a work.
I scan access my account via desktop but the app does not work. It previously worked great. It is an issue that need resolved or my entire school will have to find an alternative app for communication with parents.
Unable to Login
I have not been able to login successfully using my Microsoft SSO.
Please update! Need this app for the school year!
I’m a special Ed teacher and I work with highly vulnerable populations. I use this app on my phone to stay in touch with parents throughout the day. It’s been struggling to load properly for days and is in desperate need of an update! I can use the web version just fine so I know it’s the app in need of bug fixes. Please update ASAP!
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App is okay, do not like the word count limit
As a teacher, this app is pretty easy to use and a good way to keep in contact with parents. Although the one thing I do not like at all is the word count limit per message/announcement is only 600 words. I sometimes have to send multiple announcements to parents instead of just one, and if I schedule the announcements they sometimes will send to parents out of order. I try to keep messages and announcements short and simple, but sometimes there is a lot of information to send out, and my parents do not appreciate getting multiple messages. I’d love it if there was a bigger word count than just 600 words.
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Frustrating!
I can’t even use the app because the numeric keypad won’t disappear after I enter the confirmation code to verify my email. I can’t hit a “submit” button after entering the code, so I’m just stuck on the confirmation screen. Rotating the phone doesn’t help because the screen doesn’t rotate. Pretty ridiculous.
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Great!
A wonderful app! One suggestion is to disable 2-way communication with students, but leave 2-way communication available for parents. This would lessen the risk for the teacher, especially when working with older students.
Can’t use it if admin????
Our school has used this for a few years. The first few years were great, but randomly I became an admin (settings wise) and now I can’t message parents making the app useless. It’s so frustrating because this is such a great tool but I can’t use it because of a title? It doesn’t make sense.
App won’t open
Just downloaded it. I’m on the latest iOS and it won’t open or load. So frustrating.
