Blog Post #G

Communicating and Collaborating with Social Media is a very crucial part in communicating with parents and students outside of the normal school day. Although communicating with students is very important but communicating with parents is needed too. Communicating with parents with help keep them on board with their child's education and will allow them to support their children to their best ability. However, communicating with parents can be very difficult. For example in the textbook it states that more than one in three families use the internet to communicate with schools, if only once or twice a year.  On the bright side research says that online information may promote family involvement in the students success in learning. Teachers will only benefit themselves and the students by posting the grading policies, assignments and notes online for many reasons. By students have access to online information, the teacher does not have to spend as much time explaining assignments in class because there is a description online. Parents will have access to all of the work that their children will be doing so by doing this, they are informed with the work their children are being presented with. Parents will also be allowed to access when their children have homework. Communicating verbally and electronically will benefit the parents, teachers and students in all sorts of ways. I believe that parents should be involved electronically with their students assignments because they will be able to access all the classwork and homework. Due to this, the parents will already know how much homework their child will have ahead of time as well as projects, class work, etc. Most parents now a days focus on the system called Gradebook because all of their children's grades are on this website as well as absences and a description of the assignments.

Grades, assignments and communication can be done electronically however so can learning how to spell. In the book there is a paragraph in regard to using text messages to teach about how to spell. There can be some issues with this because most students use slang when they are texting and do not use punctuation. Surprisingly in the text book it states that text messages can teach students how to build better relationships, meaningful educational experiences, and a more cooperative environment. By using text messages students can learn the patterns of word sounds and the structures of word spelling. I was very shocked by this paragraph because I was unaware that text messaging could teach something. Most teachers and schools band texting/cellphones. I always knew that technology should be used in the classroom more because this generation grew up around technology and that is how we learn best however, teaching children how to spell while texting was a new fact for me. Technology in the classroom does more good than bad. 

Not only was text messaging teaching students how to spell a surprise but so was twitter for teachers. As I read about twitter for teachers I realized that there are some good advantages to this social media. Teachers can follow other teachers using the hashtag to organize information in regard to similar topics. Teachers can also search different hashtags to search general conversations about education or instructional technology. Teachers can also post about upcoming assignments or new resources for parents to see which would tie back to the huge component of communicating with the parents. However, teachers take some risk when using social media especially like twitter. All posts need to be highly professional and there should never be any personal information shared. I think that teachers reaching out to students and parents through social media such as twitter is very helpful because the majority of students have twitter so they will most likely see the post and the students will be most likely to look at the post. All in all, communicating with students and parents regardless if it is on the internet or social media is very important. Without the bond with parents, teachers, and students there will be no involvement or support. 

I made a Gliffy down below!(:

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References: 

Textbook - Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc