How can I use digital tools to collaborate and communicate with families in order to support student success?

Throughout the MIT program, I have learned how important it is to collaborate with families. As a future secondary teacher, this can be quite an undertaking because of how many students I will have. For this module, I wanted to research ways that I can utilize technology to make collaborating with families easier. The resources I will actually be able to use will be impacted by my school district; however, since I am not working in a school yet my main goal is to become familiar with some of the available programs so I have background knowledge of the types of programs that could be helpful.

To answer my trigger question I read the article “6 Tech Tools That Boost Teacher-Parent Communication”. This article mentioned several types of programs that could help involve parents in students’ day-to-day learning in different ways:

·       Remind, a program which lets teachers quickly communicate with students and parents using text messages

·       Seesaw, a digital portfolio tool that lets students share their classwork with their families online

·       Thinkwave, an online gradebook that lets families stay up to date with their children’s progress

·       EduBlog and Weebly, which let teachers set up classroom blogs and websites to help families know what their children are learning and provide general information about the class and available resources

·       Twitter can be a fast way to update students and parents with classroom announcements and assignments

I also researched Schoology, a program that I have observed at several Seattle Public Schools. Parents can set up a Schoology account that is linked to their child’s account in order to see what their children are doing in class and monitor their children’s grades and communicate with teachers one-on-one and as a group discussion with other parents. One of my classmates mentioned looking up Skyward, which they use in their district. Like many of the other programs I have encountered, Skyward allows parents to view their children’s grades and test results and promotes teacher-parent communication with a social media-like platform. My classmate also mentioned SWIFT, which lets teachers create classroom websites including various features such as a class calendar, announcements, discussion board, and a list of resources.

I was also reminded to think about the reality that many parents may not have access to technology or have language barrier that would get in the way of their taking advantage of these programs. Whenever I use one of these technologies to give parents access to certain information, such as a class calendar or list of resources, I need to make sure that all parents have access to this information. One way that I can ensure that I am reaching all parents is to survey them at the beginning of the school year about their preferred means of communication. If some parents prefer to have information sent home with their children in a paper format, then I will make sure to have that available. Technology is a great way of making collaboration easier for teachers and parents, but we are not ready for it to fully replace other means of communicating.

During my search I have found many different resources that I can potentially use to communicate with families and keep them involved in what their children are doing in my classroom. I do not know what resources my school will have available for me to use to communicate with parents, but I have a better idea of what many of these programs can offer.

References:

Knutson, J. (2016, August 23). 6 Tech Tools That Boost Teacher-Parent Communication. [Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/education/blog/6-tech-tools-that-boost-teacher-parent-communication

Puget Sound Educational Service District. SWIFT. Retrieved from https://www.psesd.org/technology-services/swift-simplified-web-interface-for-teachers/

Schoology. Retrieved from www.schoology.com

Skyward. Retrieved from https://www.skyward.com