For anyone who may be interested, I held a Parent Evening at my school to explain our Upper Primary student blogging program and to share some information in general about using social media in primary school classrooms. The evening attracted a small number of dedicated parents and was very successful. I also had the support of about nine staff members. I didn’t record the presentation as it was more of a free flowing exchange of information – there were references to specific kids and other aspects of the school not suitable for a generalised audience. However, some educators on my network were asking if I would share my slidedeck – so here it is for what it’s worth out of context. I’ve altered some of my own photographs of students to mask identity and done some other scribbling on some of the slides to be pro-actively protective. I’ll share the link to my Google doc notes to help add the content of my talk to the slides. I’m more than happy to field any questions in my comments.
16 Responses to “Blogging@School Parent Night”
- 1 Trackback on May 30, 2008 at 3:12 pm
- 2 Trackback on June 4, 2008 at 7:13 pm
A great post Graham….I’ve also added this to the list of links in the TALO wikispace so that in the future I can refer to you when speaking of a successfull model for negotitating blogging as part of curriculum activities with students.
Well done !:)
Wow! What a fantastic idea. I am impressed by the idea of inviting parents to this kind of information sharing.
Were the parents who showed up all digitally minded?
Thanks for sharing your notes.
Thanks, Graham. It was a great idea to talk to the parents, and that was a great presentation for them to see. .
Nice use of opacity, Graham.
Nikki, not all of the parents were digitally savvy but all were positive about the possibilities that blogging offered in the classroom – safely done, of course. I was asked two questions which I could not adequately offer a concise answer to but there were no deliberate curveballs thrown.
Dan, the opacity wasn’t quite as I wanted but I fashioned a makeshift effort in Photoshop. I did think there was a way to do it in ppt but pressed for time to make it all happen, I just opened up the screenshot in Photoshop, copied the selection of what I wanted to highlight, turned the colour down to dark then pasted the selection over the top. Crude, not too much choice about the shape but it worked. With more time, I could’ve done a better job. I also recycled an old presentation and used it as a template to save more time. The slideshow was like a script prompt that gave the parents something more interesting to look at besides my tired old face.
Graham,
Great demonstration of successful educational blogging and the rationale for it. Thank you for sharing your model.
Good model for a presentation to parents. Covers all the issues well. what was the knowledge base fo the parent body like?
cheers Martin
echo, echo…
me like-y!
Good stuff, sir!
Seriously, a solid, substantive example of blogging in education.
hi from italy, very nice and useful presentation. a very goody example of blogging in education
Graham,
Thanks for posting both the slide show and your Google docs. I teach college students, future teachers, and have been working hard to get them to understand that the same tools they use for their social lives, can make their way into the classroom. I’m amazed and how many never even considered it! I’ve diigo’d your page, in hopes of sharing it with students this fall. This will be helpful, because that audience of your presentation was parents of your students, and my future teachers will be able to see it from that perspective. Thanks again
@everyone Thanks for all of your feedback and comments. I just want to answer Martin’s question about the parental knowledge base. There wasn’t a large group there but all had the mindset of wanting to be more informed about blogging as a learning tool. The knowledge seemed to range from “This is the first I’ve heard of a blog and I want to know exactly what it is and how it works” to a parent who works in a sector focussed on ICT within the public service and was more focussed on how Web 2.0 ideas were being used in our classrooms and whether what we are doing was commonplace practice in schools, our own initiative or part of a push forward by our department. The parents also ranged from those who are quite nervous and have many reservations about their child’s involvement in anything online to those whose viewpoint was well, my kids are already out there and now I have some idea about what they might be up to.
Thanks for this information. I just happened to come across your blog and found it fascinating.
Hi Graham, I downloaded your notes on your parent night. thank you so much for making them available to us. I feel like I am a toddler on the blogging road but for me that is half the fun! I was surprised by how many of my students already are using the net as their social network, they have just started putting up their addresses on the class grafitti board – which one day I hope to use on or class blog. I thought I might start with a note home to parents and ask if they want an info night. Thanks again for sharing your passion and expertise! Regards Denise
Perhaps this would suffice as a topic / them for the upcoming http://mobilizethis.wikispaces.com event.
It sure is a great achievement Graham.