Part A - Description of Need or Opportunity

After completing 50+ parent teacher conferences recently, the need has never been clearer for more effective parent communication. This has been an ongoing process with trial and error, but I hope that the inclusion of more technology availability will help to allow parents to be more involved and more informed about their child's classes as well as their performance within that course. I have tried several methods to communicate, but not through technology. This is so important because so often parents are not involved because their student does not convey the message of homework or the material we are covering in class. As we get closer to the End of Grade test in NC, I need to have flawless communication to provide parents resources and additional information to aid their students' learning at home.

This will be an ongoing process for the duration of the school year on a weekly basis. I will utilize free technologies to provide this communication and will access parents as more of a resource than I have in the past. The costs will be nothing but time, and the only situation in which this will not benefit a parent is if they are unable to access the internet at any time. These resources will primarily be used by parents, but students will be shown how to access and use this information as well to help them take responsibility for their learning.

Parents will be able to access these resources and information at all times through my class website and contact me via email. Going further than that, I will have information on my website or sent via email that utilizes more technology to improve the parent - teacher relationship. Countless resources have been reviewed on the importance of communication with parents and the results it can have for students. Although, I must keep in consideration the demographics and time constraints of some parents who are not able to be with their students after school, but as a whole, I hope that student achievement and homework participation is able to increase. This will also build a greater sense of collaboration and community within my classroom.

Resources supporting the importance of parent - teacher communication:
Scholastic "Building Strong Relationships with Parents"
Reading Rockets

Edwards, P.A. "Tapping the Potential of Parents." Scholastic: New York, 2009.

From the parent's perspective Parent-ing Ed.org

Using technology in communication

Resources to be considered for communication using technology:

(I am currently using Weebly and email)

Skype

Voicethread

Instant messaging system

Blog

Survey Monkey or Google Forms

PollCode

Scribd

Dropbox

Jing

Wikispace

Google Calendar

During this course: I plan to survey parents about technology and the best ways to communicate with them. My website will also offer resources and documents, such as homework, reading contracts, newletters, poll questions, question board, videos, etc. My website will be the main host for the technology that I will use to communicate with them. I will also be using e-mail to send notifications or information that will also be available online. This will require me to use new technologies, while utilizing email and website creation/editing.

First steps: survey parents and begin primary email contact to send digital copies of work and again inform them of our class website and the materials available there. Then provide tutorials for parents, information about the course, and poll questions to get to know them more. Make myself more accessible and available for communication using technology.

Continuing the project: After the end of the course, I will continue to adapt my resources and parent communication tools to best serve their needs. When talking to parents at conferences, they need more materials and resources to work on with their students besides homework. I hope to grow this communication into a successful way to digitalize their work creating portfolios and report their grades using technology. This will increase parents knowledge of our classroom.