Using Droplets as a Remote Vocabulary Teaching App

Droplets is intended for families: A parent / guardian creates a main parental account and assigns individual profiles to each of their children.

Disclaimer: Because Droplets was not designed as a teacher’s aid, it has inherent limitations when being used as such. Please be aware of the following if you decide to use Droplets in this manner.

Teachers will need to give email / password access for their Droplets account to all of their students or to the students’ parents /guardians. Therefore we suggest teachers NOT use their Apple ID email or any email that they use for professional or private correspondence. If possible, they should create a new email address specifically for this Droplets account.
Parents / guardians can easily access other student profiles from the Droplets profile page. Because Droplets’ parental gate is designed for families it is less secure than the stricter privacy walls often required by educational institutions. Therefore we suggest that teachers using Droplets set up explicit privacy rules—asking their students / parents / guardians never to access any other student’s profile or any features behind the parental gate.
Note: Because Droplets stores no profile data (profiles are simply names), privacy shouldn’t be a significant concern. But students can access and see others’ progress. For collaborative learning, this could be intentionally allowed.

Why should my students use Droplets?

Droplets will help your students learn new vocabulary through fun, fast-paced games with simple mnemonic images. Your students will have the ability to choose from 35+ languages so that you can pick the best language that suits their needs.

How do I get Droplets?

If you have an Apple / iOS device download Droplets from the App Store. If you have an Android device, download Droplets from the Google Play Store.

How Secure is Droplets?

Given Droplets was designed for families, its security is light. There is a parental gate on Droplets profile page that keeps kids from accidentally purchasing premium accounts, but beyond that anyone with the Droplets account access can see all the profiles for that account. Therefore we suggest that teachers using Droplets set up explicit privacy rules—asking their students / parents / guardians never to access any other student’s profile or any features behind the parental gate. To be safe teachers should suggest that, after the original set up, students / parents / guardians should never return to the profile page.

Note: Because Droplets stores no profile data (profiles are simply names), privacy shouldn’t be a huge concern. But students can access and see others’ progress. For collaborative learning, this could be intentionally allowed.

How do I set up my teacher’s Droplets account?

Log in with an email address (that you are comfortable sharing with your students and/or their parents / caretakers). Select the language your first student is learning.
Suggestion: create a new email address specifically for this Droplets account.

Note: you need to select the language learned for each profile created, otherwise it will default to this originally selected language.

How do I add a student’s profile?

Click on the profile button in the bottom right of the screen. Click on Access parent area in the middle of the profile screen. Enter the year you were born* to access features behind the parental gate. Click on Create Kid Profile and enter the child’s / student’s name.

Note: Don’t rely on this code as a security feature. Droplets does not store this code, and in reality, anyone with access to the Droplets account (students & their parents / guardians) can access the parental gate features by using any 4# code below 2000.

How do I remove a student’s profile?

Click on the profile button in the bottom right of the screen. Click on Access parent area in the middle of the profile screen. Enter the year you were born* to access features behind the parental gate. Click on profile you want to delete and then click on Delete profile in the upper right corner of the screen.

Can my students learn different languages?

Yes, you can select a different language for each student profile.

Is there an administration page?

Not really. Droplets was designed for independent learning with basic parental monitoring capabilities. You can manually select each profile to see each student’s progress*, but there is no dashboard that shows stats or additional information.

Note: As indicated above, this feature is NOT behind the “parental gate.” All profiles can see and access other profiles.

How do streaks work and what do they tell me?

Streaks will tell you how many days in a row your student has completed a session. A session must be completed in full to count toward the streak. If using Droplets as an educational tool, you can check your students’ streaks at the end of each day to ensure that they have completed their daily 5-minute Droplets study session. If they miss a day, the streak will reset to zero.

Is it possible to upload custom content?

Not currently but it is a feature we’re considering.

The parents of my students are worried about screen time. Are there time limits involved?

Yes, the free version of Droplets limits each student to 5 minutes a day.

Can my students learn different languages?

Currently more time requires a premium account but during the COVID-19 crisis we are offering free 1-month premium licenses to all teachers who request it by contacting us at droplets@languagedrops.com. With a premium account your students have unlimited access to Droplets.

Please check the guidelines for setting up a "teacher" account here or feel free to reach out at droplets@languagedrops.com