Friday, September 14, 2018
Problem of Practice
I have decided to focus on the home/school communication as my problem of practice. The students are doing so many amazing things in class that are not being shared with their families. I can't rely on 9 year olds to tell their parents what is happening in school each day. People are busy and sometimes families aren't all eating dinner together or setting enough time aside to talk about their days. Time is an also an issue for teachers, adding something else to their plate seems unrealistic but the return is usually worth it. I want to find something quick and easy to get the information to the families without having to spend a lot of time on it myself. As a mom to a kindergartener I love every call, email or tweet from the teacher. It gives me an opportunity to ask specific questions about his day in order to remind him and pull more information for a better conversation together. I want to be able to do this for the students and families in my classroom.
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This is something I think we all feel like we can improve upon. Have you heard of ClassDojo? It is a great communication tool and makes communication more timely. Many use it for the behavior side, but it can also be used strictly for communication. There is an area to add videos, pictures, or text. The best part is you invite parents into your "class" so other people would not have access. In the communication area you can send out a text to all of the parents at once or you can send text to only a select parent. It is a great tool for sending a quick positive message. It also makes it easy for parents to send you a quick question.
ReplyDeleteHi Angie!!! I have heard of ClassDojo and I signed up last year because I wanted to use the random group feature of the website. I will have to check it out again, thanks for the reminder!!
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ReplyDeleteHi Kara, I made the following comment on Ellie's blog post, as she also identified communication tools as her Problem of Practice. While my suggested tool may get a little lengthy, you could just do short blurbs and photos, and then call it a day so that parents could get enough to spark a conversation:
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I think a blog would be a great medium for this. The reasons why are that along with the ability to post different types of media (photos, videos, links, etc.), people can receive emails of new posts if they subscribe to them (you can alternatively BCC forward that email you receive for a new post to all of your families' email addresses so that they automatically receive the updates even if they don't subscribe). Parents could also make comments. You could also make private blog pages for different groups, such as a parents-only page vs. students-only.
WordPress is pretty powerful for these reasons. I've had a Tumblr before, but I don't think the site sends New Post emails, so you'd have to rely on other third party tools to do communications, such as MailChimp or Constant Contact. (I personally don't like MailChimp for the simple that Google filters those emails out of the GMail inbox, and so a lot of people who aren't as computer/tech savvy won't readily see your email).
Hi Adia,
DeleteI have been leading towards a twitter since a couple teachers in my school use it but I do like the idea of a blog with the privacy. The notifications would also be nice rather than just checking twitter when you think of it, looking for an update. I'll look into WordPress, thanks for the suggestion!
Kara,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your problem of Practice and could relate to the parent engagement/communication aspect as an educator. I think a blog or Class Dojo are great resources to communicate with the parents/guardians of your students. Even starting a class blog with student involvement - in a project learning initiative – is a great resource to share with the families of your students. I enjoy creating and sharing short videos with parents that outlines aspects of what we are working on in class.