Part B - Application of TPACK

Using the TPACK model, I am integrating technology as an additional way to try and have effective communication with my students' parents or guardians. I have been using my class website for a long time, but not nearly as purposefully for communication. In the previous months, my website has simply provided a resource for parents and students, but did not allow for active communication between the three of us. Through this project, I will be using increased technology to make materials, information, and feedback more accessible on a daily basis. I will keep it more up-to-date on class information and more informative from both parties. This technology will continue to use the development of my webpage on weebly missczerney.weebly.com. Through that website, I will post a Google Forms survey for them to complete, use Google Calendar to convey important dates in my classroom and the school, use the comment forum to allow parents to give additional feedback or ask questions, scribd to upload homework and worksheets, and I will also give additional links for parents that may be helpful to aid their students in learning and homework. Using these technologies, it will make my website their first step in gaining information, this may also cut down on the miscommunication and continual emailing from parents.

As I mentioned, this will keep parents on track with my only my classroom, but our grade level as a whole. For those that are more involved in their student's life, they will be able to follow with our lessons in class and gain an understanding of the skills and strategies I am asking their children to practice and demonstrate. In the past, this resource has been primarily for introductory information and a resource for student research, but not I am using the technology to portray that content to make it accessible for parents. The website will be well organized and easy to navigate. I will try to keep it simplistic, and may need to include more information on the initial page to help parents navigate.

After hosting parent-teacher conferences, a lack of communication became a common complaint from parents. It was not necessarily geared toward me, but rather our new teacher. I took it upon myself to make any changes I could to improve our overall communication as a grade level. I will also be making assignments available for parents when their child loses something. We have struggle a lot with staying organized and getting our work completed outside of school, so I hope this will help. Some parents will have constant access to these resources via their telephone. My only problem is that the parents without internet will still need the paper copies of notes and information. Student will continue to use this site for informational resources, but that information will be extended to our parents as well so that they can learn the material as well.

So far, I have given the survey to parents, included a Google Calendar, and given a feedback post on the site. Since these changes, I have seen an increase in viewing on my website statistics. I hope to upload worksheets and additional practice for students soon. I would like to get to the place where I have tutorials available for parents on the strategies we are using in class, which would use some kind of vidcasting resources. Also, in the survey I had parents create a code name for their student so that grades can be communicated through the website as well.