Empowering Parents Through Technology: To Improve the Odds for Children is an informative article that relates to my 20% project of how technology can improve parents involvement in their child's education. As proven, when parents and other caregivers are involved in children's education, students tend to do better. According to this article, "While there are many tools to connect schools and families, computers and Internet technology—combined with relevant digital literacy training and a school staff dedicated to parent engagement—hold particular promise as a way to overcome common barriers to parental involvement, such as time, distance, and access to educational resources as well as cultural and language barriers." Not only should schools invest in technology, but technology should link home learning environments and school to aid the parents in supporting their child's education. This article informed me that it is time for policy-makers, philanthropy, leaders in the state and community, and other stakeholders to recognize the power of technology and digital literacy and invest in empowering parents to benefit from these tools and skill, especially in these economic times.
Computer and internet are great tools that hold great promise for overcoming distance, time, communication, language, and access barriers to educational resources however, many low-income families do not have home computers and high-speed internet access. There is a strong correlation with families who do not have access to these resources and whose children struggle academically. A recommendation would be for creating home-school technology connections for undeserved families and ensuring low-income families have affordable access to technological devices. Once families have internet at home, the opportunities for connecting parents and schools, delivering educational resources, and other services are limitless. Some sources that can be used include student information systems, e-mail, instant messaging, and blogs to keep the parents involved and connected. This way, parents can monitor their child's performance and and progress. Communication through technology helps parents and teachers collaborate together to set shared expectations for students and to develop a plan.
With these technological advancements, instant messaging or online chatting allows parents and teachers to communicate while their students are working in the classroom. Also, a teacher can create a chat room and invite several parents to chat together about the curriculum, concerns, and their students. Schools with student information systems keeps caregivers and parents updated on their child's progress and it helps identify areas where students may need extra help. Student information systems allows teachers to enter grades, test scores, standardized test performance, attendance, tardiness, and other important information to share to a private web-based portal. Interestingly, some systems enable teachers to share daily comments with families, like feedback on assignments. Overall, this article has been very informative and interesting and I now feel more educated on how parents can effectively be integrated in students' lives through technology.
http://www.childrenspartnership.org/storage/documents/Publications/TCP-ParentTech-LowRezFinal.pdf