Tuesday, October 11, 2005
The Way To Grow
It just makes sense that schools adopt the 21st century methods of communication via email, or Teacher Web pages keep parents in loop by Ray Parker (via Edwonk)"Now Gilbert parents won't have to struggle for scraps of educational information as more teachers post updates on the district Web site."
Our I.T. guy setup (5 years ago) an email, homework online and faculty conference system through FirstClass . Our teachers were each trained individually to learn how it could benefit them and their classes. By year 2 it was a schoolwide effort (and expectation on the part of the teacher) to use this system as a means of communication and posting assignments. Now, we have 100% participation...give or take a couple of resisters. And in all honesty, our lower school (K-6) teachers are more avid users. Whereas the upperschool uses the system to JUST post homework.
One of my goals is to get some buy-in to have students have their own school email account. It seems crazy that they don't. But way back when, some student abused the system and now there's somewhat of a consensus to not have it. All in all, it's a huge success and cuts down on the everyday complaints that are not necessary. For example, I left my homework sheet at school. Or...do you have additional curricular enhancements for my child? Most of our classes are virtually 24 hours because the information is always accessible and updated.
Now we have teachers who are branching off into the blogosphere...very cool.
Our I.T. guy setup (5 years ago) an email, homework online and faculty conference system through FirstClass . Our teachers were each trained individually to learn how it could benefit them and their classes. By year 2 it was a schoolwide effort (and expectation on the part of the teacher) to use this system as a means of communication and posting assignments. Now, we have 100% participation...give or take a couple of resisters. And in all honesty, our lower school (K-6) teachers are more avid users. Whereas the upperschool uses the system to JUST post homework.
One of my goals is to get some buy-in to have students have their own school email account. It seems crazy that they don't. But way back when, some student abused the system and now there's somewhat of a consensus to not have it. All in all, it's a huge success and cuts down on the everyday complaints that are not necessary. For example, I left my homework sheet at school. Or...do you have additional curricular enhancements for my child? Most of our classes are virtually 24 hours because the information is always accessible and updated.
Now we have teachers who are branching off into the blogosphere...very cool.
# posted by Mrs.Bowllan @ 9:48 AM 
