Talking to Parents
This is my fifth year of blogging in my classroom. Every year I felt like I was doing a better job at blogging and being transparent about how I was using technology in the classroom. And every year, in May or June I would get these bizarre questions from parents clearly indicating that what I thought I was communicating was not what they were hearing. Many, many, many misconceptions about the internet, what was on the internet and how to access the internet became apparent. I spoke with my awesome friend and tech mentor, Kathy Cassidy about this disconnect and she shared that she often hosts a technology night at the beginning of the school year to talk face-to-face to parents about the internet. This seemed like a great idea, so I did my first Technology Night last year. About 1/3 of the families in my classroom showed up and I counted the evening as a success. However, 2/3 of the families had not attended. What about them? Nonetheless, I had no strange conversations about students being online, last year.
This year, I aimed to take it up a notch. Not only would I host a face-to-face evening (which I did last Thursday night, again with 1/3 attending), but I created a video of my internet/digital citizenship presentation. I added significantly to the presentation from last year, based on content from this class, in particular Ribble’s 9 Elements of Digital Citizenship.
Here it is:
Claire,
What a great idea to create a video for parents and others to watch. You are definitely taking learning outside the 4 walls of the classroom and your students are very lucky to have you. Your video is a great starting point to educate parents on what you are doing in the classroom.
Kristina