With so many cities in the world in quarantine, many schools have had to find ways to stay in contact with students, continue with their instruction and keep parents informed and even helping students at home. Remote learning is becoming the norm these days and, as students, parents and teachers adapt to this new normal, Bloomz is here to help with the process.

One feature we've seen a sizable increase in usage is our

 Student Portfolios. No surprise here, though. Teachers have long been using Student Portfolios to keep track of a student's work throughout the year, saving pictures of the work and sharing that work with parents. But maybe some of the least known use (at least before COVID-19) was the ability to have students sign into Bloomz and submit the work themselves. Teachers can also send assignments to students through the app, so students can then work on their own and submit the work through Bloomz back to the teacher for review, before it get's added to their portfolio.

With so many students at home, teachers have now been gravitating to this functionality to share assignments with their students and having them submit for review. With this year's introduction of our student accounts, middle and high school students have also benefited from this functionality, having more participation in the app and communication with their teachers.

We also introduced several settings in our app, to make it easy and flexible for teachers to control what happens in the virtual classroom:

• Elementary, Middle and High School modes to the app, to set up classes in the different levels with predetermined settings.
• Ability to control whether students can communicate with other students
• Option to moderate students' submission to their portfolio
• Option to allow students to comment on other students' work and portfolios
• NEW! We recently introduced the option to allow parents to submit work to a student's portfolio.

To make things easier, we've put together these videos to help guide you through the process of setting up your classes and get your students going with remote learning in a few steps. Check them out:

1. For Elementary Level

In this video, Chaks Appalabattula, CEO of Bloomz, walks us through the Portfolios feature in Bloomz and how you can use it in the elementary grades to help with remote learning.

2. For Middle and High School levels

In this video, Chaks walks us through the Portfolios feature in Bloomz and how you can use it in the Middle and High School grades to help with remote learning.

3. Enable Parent Posting

In this video, Chaks walks us through the steps teachers and parents should take to post work to a student's portfolio on Bloomz.

To help schools manage their communication during the COVID-19 crisis, Bloomz has provided free access to our Premium platform to schools affected by it. We are very proud to be able to help teachers in this uncertain times communicate with students, parents and other teachers in their school communities.

We recently published an article with tips for day-to-day engagement in remote learning. Take a look!

If you are looking for more specific examples of how teachers use Student Portfolios in their classrooms, here are a few articles written by teacher Jude Miqueli with her experience and recommendations:

• Using Bloomz with Zoom & Other Tools
• Digital Portfolios: Capturing Student Learning and Progress
• 10 Times Videos Boosted Parent Engagement
• Performance Based Assessment and Student Timelines

If these are helpful, let us know in the comments below and share with other teachers in your school or social media.