Duration: 2:33
Leamington School parents talk about how technology allows them to be involved in their child’s learning through the use of Facebook and blogs.
Carma Webb: We’ve made a facebook page that just the parents have access to, and now the children are so motivated knowing that their parents will see their work, or see their PE, or see their published writing every day. They actually ask me if I can publish that to the web, so I’m also getting lots of positive reinforcement for the children’s work from their parents. I think it’s also helping us to use our Technologically Capable cog, so children are seeing that using the internet’s really important, it’s a good platform for communication and we’re collaborating with the parents, they’re being involved with their children’s journey.
Jodi Brenton-Rule: The class facebook page allows us to be more involved in the children’s learning. We get to see what’s happening in the classroom and the teacher can also keep us updated with what topics they’re working on.
Sabina Lang: At the moment, for example, they’re working on poems, so the other day I could see how they are working on these poems, there was a bit of a description there and then we could see that the children were working in groups and yeah, that gives you a bit of an insight of what is happening in the classroom.
Carma Webb: I’d say just give it a go, see what happens, just be thoughtful and deliberate about what you put up and make sure it’s learning focused.
Sabina Lang: My daughter’s blog enabled our grandparents, for example, and other relatives to take part in their learning because they live overseas. It brought them closer together with my children and with their own learning, a bit of discussion actually resulted from that where they would talk on the phone and have a little discussion on things that were happening at school.
Jodi Brenton-Rule: The other challenge that we potentially had was the desire to use their iPads at home a lot more as well because they would give me that excuse that, well I’m in an iPad class, therefore I need to be working on my iPad, so they would have the time that we would allocate them as a reasonable length of time, but then they’d want to continue using it. But you know, I was seeing that they were using it in a productive way, they would be writing stories, or they would be doing maths practice, so while we still put limitations on it, I can actually see the benefits of them continuing with that at home.