Original post by Judy Tai on October 6th, 2019.
Hi everyone,
The focus of my analysis is on instant classroom update to parents as a form of parent-teacher communication. In this presentation, you’ll see why so many schools in North America and Asia have adopted the use of instant updates, and how this trend has boomed drastically since 2010. At the same time, I’ve listed the pros and cons of this form of communication. I’d like to hear if you have tried using this method in your practice, or if your child’s classroom is currently using some form of apps to communicate with you.
Click here for my analysis.
This post caught my attention as I recently launched the Parent Portal for my school board’s VLE. Teachers were using a variety of third-party tools to document student learning communicate with parents. Since we are a K to 12 school board, we have to comply with Ontario’s Access and Privacy Legislation in order to insure student safety and privacy. A lot of great apps and tools out there do not comply with the rules set out.
In this post, Judy outlines the evolution of parent-teacher communication tools and summarizes their different features. The analysis also provides a good list of pros and cons of mobile instant communication tools for parent-teacher communication.
When it comes to privacy concerns (which is listed under negative concerns), I believe further analysis is needed when it comes to k-12 education. Any app, tool, website that is set out to communicate student information must comply with the rules and regulations in place.
Rules and Regulations for Schools in the education system in Ontario can be found on the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario website.
https://www.ipc.on.ca/education/ontarios-access-and-privacy-legislation/
https://www.ipc.on.ca/education/download-the-guide/