paar mix

Exchange Ideas, Not Headaches

The application for your virtual student exchange and travel exchange programs.

Features

• Exchange administration manages the state of the exchange and which features are available to the participants.
• Participant List management allows you to review responses, partner selections, and partner chats.
• Participant Profile/"About Me" Form management puts you in control of what information you ask your participants to respond to. Choose from templates we have and customize as you see fit.
• Partner Selection picking gets participants more engaged in the partnering process giving them input as to which participants most interest them.
• Finalize partnerships as an administrator by reviewing partner selections and determine final matches
• Partners can chat, video call with each other as well as interact with and complete activities you assign

For Traveling Exchanges

• Communications between chaperones and participants
• Itinerary listings

Our Story

Life for Paar Mix began in 2016 when I began as a volunteer on the staff/parent committee organizing a student exchange between a German immersion K-8 school in St. Paul, Minnesota and a couple schools in Germany.

Matching students would take hours reading over and sorting stacks of paper profiles (Steckbriefs). As the school enrollment grew, so did the challenge of matching more and more students. In this exchange, students travel and stay with their partner in their partner's home, so there were also additional challenges like allergies and medical conditions to take into consideration.

We moved the paper forms to a unified Google Form all students completed. Then using my software skills I developed a simple web application using the form responses to complete the matching process.

While that matching was easier, it still seemed too complicated. So the next year, I updated the application and empowered the students to select potential partners giving them some access to responses from students on the other side of the Atlantic. That proved to be a wonderful change. Most partnerships resulted in students who selected each other (each student selected 5-10 potential partners) and the rest of the partnerships included one partner selecting the other.

In the past year we've removed the Google Forms product from the workflow and created our own form editor. We've also added chat and 1:1 video calls between partners to support virtual exchange.

Today

I've decided to offer Paar Mix as a product available for other schools to use as part of their student exchange. Paar Mix is an application from Pink Shirt Labs, my solo-adventure as an entrepreneur.

Interested?

If you have interest in using Paar Mix for your virtual or hosted exchange, drop your name and email and get subscribed to our list announcing when the application will be available.]

Questions?

If you have questions, or want to be an early beta user, send me an email @ hello@paarmix.com.

Thanks for your interest in Paar Mix.

Josh Metcalfe

Founder, Pink Shirt Labs