Homework Module

VoiceGate’s Homework Module introduces a powerful new homework/absenteeism notification system designed to keep teacher’s and parents in constant contact via e-mail, voice mail and outbound homework message notification. Teacher’s can request confirmation a message has been received by parents so they know their correspondence has been delivered to the right person, on time, every time. The system is easy to use for both the teacher’s and the students or their parents while at the same time keeping the lines of communication open between these groups of very busy people.

Features

Benefits

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Or read below for a detailed description of operation:

System Administrator’s Interface
The system is programed via the System Administrator’s terminal. From the System Administrator’s screen, each teacher can be set up to have up to 10 distribution lists comprising up to 50 students. Access to these distribution lists is password protected. The teacher records a single voice message (detailing homework assignments) for a particular distribution list (group of students) and with a few easy key presses on their touch-tone phone they send that single message to everyone on that particular list.

Global Distribution of Messages
The system supports up to 10 Global distribution lists in which school faculty can send messages to any combination of users listed on the entire system. These lists can be used in event of emergency when the whole student or staff body needs to be notified about an event. ie: school closures.

Homework Messages
The teacher will is able to mark each distribution list with a class name and number. i.e.: Math Period 1 Monday, Wed, Fri; Math Period 2 Tuesday, Thursday; Actuarial Studies Period 2 Monday, Wednesday, Friday; etc. They are able to give each distribution list a name and will be displayed on the Administrator’s screen for ease of administration. Teachers can also record the name of the distribution list for confirmation prior to broadcasting the homework message to each student on that list They do this by simply recording the name of the list into their hand set. This gives the Administrator a visual, and the teacher an audible confirmation of the names of each distribution list
The teachers can then record homework messages and send it to each distribution list.. The system also uses this recorded “name” to inform the listener what class the message is pertaining to. Ie: “<Math period 1, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Mrs. Freezen’s class> the homework is page 9-20 inclusive”.

Message Broadcasting
Broadcasting a message to a distribution list is easy. Teachers can choose a distribution list, get an audible confirmation they are sending the message to the correct group of people. (The system will play the name of the list they have recorded identify to that list.) They can then choose to have the system call all people on that list and deliver the message by marking it as an “Urgent” message. Any message marked as “urgent” will trigger message notification (unless the System Administrator has disabled this feature for a particular user). The system administrator can define a global set of rules detailing time ranges of urgent message out-bound message delivery, and number of attempts the system will try to deliver an urgent message. Once the called party picks up, the system will say “this is XYZ school’s homework system calling, please enter your user id, please enter your passcode”. Once we get a match on user id and passcode, the system will say “you have x urgent message(s) and y normal messages, press 1 for urgent message(s) or 2 for all messages”. The system will play the messages starting with the urgent messages , finishing with the last “normal” message to be deposited into that mailbox.

If the “calling rules” tell the system to stop delivering messages at a certain time of day or night, the system uses a pointer to mark the last user called. When the dialing rules permit the system to start to try to deliver messages again, it will start from the pointer plus one on the system.

Flexible Homework Notification Parameters
The System Administrator is able to mark one or more students, or all students for outbound message delivery. (Some parents may not wish to have the system call them to deliver messages. They may wish to call into the system at their convenience) There will be a time to start calling, stop calling and a field to abort calling (Outbound calling rules). The System Administrator can send text-to-speech messages to any user by typing the message directly onto the System Administrator’s screen. Teachers or Administrators can also choose the users they want the messages sent to via a dial up method using the touch tone phone interface provided by this system to facilitate remote message maintenance. They can leave a message in a user’s mailbox and mark it as “Urgent”. The system uses the outbound dialing rules for outbound calling. The system keeps a log of all numbers dialed, number of attempts, status, date and time and student’s name. The System Administrator will be able to disable or enable the out-dial message notification feature on any mailbox.

Message Receipt – telephone or e-mail
Students or parent mailboxes will receive each message sent to a distribution list in which they are included. Student mailboxes are password protected with the ability to fast forward, rewind, delete and save.

Students and parents have the option of having these messages delivered to their e-mail accounts in the form of a WAV file. This is an optional extra to this module.

Password Protected
To pick up messages , parents can call the system, enter a user id and passcode and hear all messages residing in their mailbox.
They will have the ability to save or discard messages and reply to the teacher the message originated from. Messages will be saved for a maximum of 30 days.
Parents will only be able to reply to a message left by a teacher. They will not be able to broadcast a message to a group of teachers.

There will be two levels of System Administrator’s security (master and secondary). All users will have an individual passcode and user id.

Parent-Teacher Messaging

The parents will have to know the teacher’s extension number or last name in order to leave them a message in their mailbox.
After listening to a message, parents will be able to “reply” to each message residing in their mailbox.

Bulletin Board
The system supports a custom call routing tree of 11* 49 levels. Administrative staff can set up interactive calling “trees” to disseminate information to staff, students or parents regarding social, special or critical events.

School Absence Notification
This module can be integrated with the school’s data base. (optional). The system will take this data and using the calling rules for a particular student, deliver absentee notification in one of two ways :

Text to Speech Notification (TTS)
The system reads a line on a data file to the person answering the call. For example : This is (school name ) calling .Jordan Mick , grade 1512E was absent on 020321 for class 13. Please…

Different text or numbers in any data field will change the message delivered.

Verbal Notification
The system delivers the message as specified in a pre-recorded format. For example : “ This is XYZ school calling to notify you your child was absent from class today”
This method does not give as much detail as the TTS method. It does however, get the message across.

Notification Completion Success Detail

The system can be configured to have up to three alternative numbers for each student. The system will ask the person answering the call to “press 1” to ensure it is not an answering machine picking up the call. If it doesn’t get a digit , it will then try the next number on the list. If the system doesn’t deliver the message to a live person, the system could send an e-mail to the secretarial staff alerting them of a failed delivery.

Password Protection
The system administrator and all users on the system are password protected. Up to 6 digits. Hackers attempting to “crack” into the system get three attempts before the system hangs up on them. Modem access is also password protected.
Note :A secondary level of password protection can be added to the system administrator function if a school so desires.

Statistics
The system keeps statistics on all users. Number of voice mail accesses, time and date. All outbound statistics will be tagged to each user’s statistic fields. Data collected will be number of attempts, date and time of each attempt.


Bulletin Board
The system has two levels of password protection. The main password allows for complex system changes; the secondary password allows for minor system changes. The primary password allows access to the custom call routing tree where bulletin boards of 11*49 levels can be set up and changed . It can also be set-up to play different messages on different days.

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