As we begin our second semester at ISB, I’ve been reflecting on quite a number of things. One of which is how do you bring parents into your classroom (digitally speaking)? 
One of the things I really like about my position as ES Technology & Learning Coach is the opportunity to work with a wide variety of colleagues, all of whom are in different places in their own personal technology journey as well as different grade levels of students.
Every classroom in the ES has a class blog. They are “windows into the classroom” and used in a variety of ways. Here’s some of the things our teachers do to bring parents into the classroom digitally:
- Newsletter posts (no more paper)
Some teachers create a newsletter pdf for parents to download – some write the newsletter right in a post - Class Magazine (using Youblisher)
Embeds in a post and turns pages just like a magazine. G4-5 students take turns at creating the magazine rather than the teacher. - All links are in one place – the class blog!
This requires the students & their parents to visit the blog to access information - Homework posted on the class blog
Sometimes the student homework is to get their parents to comment on a post! Kids love it when their parents have to do some homework too! - Use the email subscription widget – (Especially excellent to have ready at Back to School Night)
This handy plugin makes it easy for parents to sign up with their email account to receive an email whenever the class blog is updated. As the teacher, you can also see who is signed up to receive this kind of notification - Facebook Page (Parents can “like” the page & receive status updates)
Some teachers have trialed the use of a class facebook page as a “snapshot in time” into the class – due to our policy of discouraging our ES students having a facebook account – only the teacher logs in and updates this page – although wouldn’t it be great if it was a student’s class job to update the class facebook page 4 times a day with what was going on – images & reflections - Each class has a Collection on our school flickr account
This collection URL does not change so it’s linked on the class blog – everytime a new set goes in the collection, the link automatically shows the latest images!There’s some of our ideas. What things does your school/class do to digitally bring parents into the classroom?
What a stunning idea. When I was teaching I would have had a class blog in a heartbeat. Anything to help parents be involved in the learning. Though when I was recently involved with a local school for a year I did miss the school newsletter on paper. Having something to pin to the fridge with the dates readily available is old fashioned but effective.. I seldom actually WENT to the website to find the info I had to guess might be there.. Hope you are having a grand day.. c
Thanks C! I often wondered if the school newsletter paper would be missed. As a parent, (and this is just me) everything automatically gets entered into my phone and that’s sync’d with my google account (calendar/email) – and my family all access a family calendar since we’re all connected digitally. There’s still a paper calendar back-up in the kitchen too but it’s getting used less and less now.
We have class webpages and each student has his/her own google site ePortfolio (http://wp.me/p1Dq2f-hN).
The problem (for me) is the vast number of logins required for parents to access theri child’s learning. And, I want my expat kiddos to be able to show their work to grandma and grandpa. So, I’ve created a class webpage (5a3dragonslair.edublogs.org) that will, hopefully, become more sophisticated with time.
The thing parents love most are the news videos: http://wp.me/p1Dq2f-jy
Did parents have issues with the Facebook page? Can you share some of your permission slips?
Thanks,
Janet | expateducator.com
Hi Janet
Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving a comment. All our blogs are completely public thereby eliminating any need to remember passwords for visitors to look at our work – that’s always been the policy here at ISB (and one that I’m extremely grateful to have). I love that Student News Videos idea – I’m definitely going to show that to our ES teachers!
You can find a copy of our single blogging/podcasting permission slip here:
Facebook Pages: Whilst parents didn’t have issues with the Facebook page, our Admin team felt that if we were strongly encouraging our ES students to NOT have their own facebook account (we found that many did have an account & most definitely they are not old enough to have one), we would be sending a double standard message to the students by having a class facebook page – even though the page was administered by the classroom teacher/ the teacher logged into the page etc. So for now, we aren’t using Facebook pages as a way to digitally bring Parents into the classroom. I have heard of other schools that are successfully using Facebook with Parents though.
Hope all this helps with your questions.