I'm a parent, you're a parent, we're also in the educational community and have the opportunity to see both sides of parental communication in education. In an effort to avoid a bunch of random notes shoved in the bottom of the students backpack, we want to talk about some ways that we can use technology to make communication better, easier on both ends, that makes sense, and create a partnership in education between the school and the parent.

 

Transcript:

Danelle Brostrom  0:01  

Show Notes, shmoe notes.

 

Larry Burden  0:10  

It is an agent of chaos.

 

Larry Burden  0:12  

I've met agents of chaos.

 

Danelle Brostrom  0:12  

My child is an agent of chaos.

 

Larry Burden  0:25  

It's episode 89 of the EdTechLoop podcast. My name is Larry Burden and she's no longer using semaphore and signal towers, it's Danielle Brostrom. I have unearthed my past elementary school newsletters stuffed in the bottom of various backpacks for this week's moment of Zen. 

 

Moment of Zen  0:40  

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. 

 

Larry Burden  0:47  

We've taken the lid off the hibachi to let the sweet aroma entice our listeners to take a nibble at this week's meat of the show, engaging parents. I'm a parent, you're a parent, we're also in the educational community, we kind of see both sides. What have you noticed? Maybe on the, on the parental side first, as far as using tech to engage our, our partners in education.

 

Danelle Brostrom  1:14  

Yeah, I would like to totally avoid that scenario that you talked about where there's a bunch of random notes shoved in the bottom of the backpack, because that is for real. That is real life, I find those notes the bottom of a backpack and in the bottom of a locker and smashed in the corners of the car. So I really like to avoid that. So I definitely want to talk about some ways that we can use technology to make communication better, easier on both ends and stuff that makes sense. I feel like this is a podcast we do at the beginning of every year. And it's different every time which is good. I think we're evolving. So I'm excited to talk about this today, Larry.

 

Larry Burden  1:49  

You brought this up earlier, I did a little research, which is rare

 

Danelle Brostrom  1:51  

I know.

 

Larry Burden  1:53  

Thankfully, I came up with somebody else who had done even more research and has continued the research, Jessica Meachem, found her on Twitter. And she has a spreadsheet of almost every possible application that you could use to communicate with your parents, and has a list of all the attributes, What were your first reactions?

 

Danelle Brostrom  2:20  

Well, the first thing that I noticed is that I love that she's broken it down by security and privacy issues, because that's a big thing for me. And then she also talks about like the price, The communication that's possible. And, this is a good place for teachers to start. And they can kind of see what works out for them. And we do have a lot of teachers that are using these external services like Remind and Bloomz and Class Tag, there's, there's a lot of them that she's detailed there. My suggestion is to just be careful with these. And here's why. I think about the parents that have four different kids at four different schools. And then The teachers are using four different services. And I think that if you look at it from the perspective of your customer, who is our families, It can be a full time job to keep up with all those messages from school and and the different services and some give you notifications. Like I know were on Bloomz right now and we get notified if anyone comments, which is super annoying at sign up for parent teacher conferences time, because I find out that Johnny's mom signed up and then I find out that Jill's mom signed up and you're like, take the notifications off, but now I'm nervous, I'm gonna miss something from school. So just, I, I love a lot of these