Before this class I was reluctant to use a lot of new technological resources. I dreaded the process of trial and error and error and…??? I had been gradually learning new things until…this class started and bammo! Here I am, fears of technology being stress-invoking and confidence-stripping are realized. Why? Because I am trying to create a blog today after fiddling for some time on a newsletter template yesterday. Eventually, I made it work. Hopefully, the blog will come too.
I won’t give up! I value the possibilities the blog will offer me to communicate and connect with parents when it’s done. I am still motivated to make it work…IF I CAN MAKE IT WORK.
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MY PROJECT: A SECURE BLOG ON WORDPRESS FOR COMMUNICATING AND SHARING WITH PARENTS + AN EMAIL NEWSLETTER TO BOOST SUBSCRIBERSHIP
My blog: visual and textual, static pages and connected links, ongoing posts with photos/text about our school day, reminders, Q&A, etc. TBD.
Format: simple font, short texts, easy to navigate, cheery appearance and will ‘look’ the same over time.
For who: primarily for the parents of my students.
Special considerations: security (I want it to be completely password protected) and setup is challenging and there will be some ongoing maintenance for me in the future.
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I see another possible benefit to starting up this blog: if parent involvement increases, will student achievement also improve? We know that the parent-school connection can have a significant impact on a child’s success at school and I think more effective home-school communication can definitely nurture this relationship. Here is some evidence gathered by two Harvard students from their study on: The Effect of Teacher-Family Communication on Student Engagement. They determined that there were decisive improvements in terms of student achievement when parents were contacted regularly. They state, “we find that frequent teacher-family communication immediately increased student engagement as measured by homework completion rates, on-task behavior, and class participation.”
http:www.scholar.harvard.edu/…/kraft__dougherty_teacher_communication_jree.pdf
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Does all this communicating with parents through ICT create/improve Structural Coupling? I think so. If my simplistic understanding of SC implicates that the more we talk, the more we are one, then I’m sure a dual-directional blog can produce this result. For example, if I hear feedback from parents and I consider it, apply it and make changes and likewise, they do the same, on a continual basis, are we not becoming more aligned? Are we not more connected, influencing each other, and better working towards our common goal of their child’s success? In this case, we don’t use ICT for the sake of it. We use ICT for what it can allow us to do, together.
Jenny would ask: “are we broadening perspectives and deepening connections?”
Yes, we are.
“a dual-directional blog”- This is a phrase but I’ve never heard of before I’m very intrigued and I’m gonna look into it further. I assume this means that you’re putting out communications and through your blog parents are able to respond back to you and in conversations. I think that this concept has good potential to create community among parents of the students in your class.
It makes sense that building learning relationships with parents is going to improve student school success. There is going to be a stronger network of support for the student, remedial strategies will have additional support at home. Students will have a sense of the importance of what they are doing in school because their parents are interested and knowledgeable about what is going on.