I am a Parent... Engage me!

I am a parent to three children. A six year old, a four year old and a two year old.

Here's my 'wallet' photo of my children.

It's not kept in my wallet.

Its kept on my cloud account and accessed via my phone, tablet, laptop, desktop or TV.
It wont' degrade or get lost. I can access it on any device, I can show it or share it with anybody, anywhere. This photo was actually shared with my family, on the other side of the world, a few moments after it was taken. The use of technology has improved this parental experience for me.

As a working parent I miss out on a significant section of my children's day. My solution to this was simple. When I got home I talked to my children about their day. If they were not forthcoming with information I could simply ask their mother and she could fill me in on everything I had missed during their day. I could then engage my children in a conversation knowing that I already had some idea about what they had done, who with and how it went.

My children also attend pre-school a number of days a week. One of the main reasons we selected that particular preschool was because the school recognised the parental instinct of wanting to be engaged in the learning of their child.

The preschool has a simple set up of a desktop computer linked to a large screen monitor in each classroom. At the end of the day when parents collect their child they can view a PowerPoint presentation including many photos and short descriptions of what the children in that room have experienced during the day.

This simple sharing of information allows me to follow my children's learning and get a snapshot of what they have experienced. I can then discuss their day with them, armed with some knowledge, in order to engage them in conversation.

Eight weeks ago my eldest son started Primary School and this changed.

I now have no idea what my son is doing between 9am-3pm.

It is left to me to try and tease out of him what he has done, what he has learned, who he was with, what he experienced. I can not draw upon any knowledge that I have of what he has done because I have been supplied with virtually nothing.

I do not like this. I do not want to be excluded from his learning. I want to be engaged as the significant educator in my sons life, but I am not being given the opportunity to do so. During this eight week period I feel as if I am being passively discouraged as a parent to be engaged in his learning at school.

I should add at this point that I do not mean to monitor the teaching in his classroom with regards to its quality. I trust his teachers and the school, I just want to be engaged.

So, how can I as a teacher encourage the engagement of parents of children within my classes?

I believe the answer is to make the learning more transparent and share the experience with them in real-time.

Social media tools such as Twitter allow me to do this. I can very quickly take a photo and post it to a class twitter account. I can make a quick 140 character post describing what we have experienced in the last half an hour. Twitter allows private accounts where followers have to request permission from the account owner. This feature, accompanied by parental permission, could then be used to ensure the security of access to the account.

I recognise that some parents may not take advantage of this level of engagement, but if my son's school offered me the opportunity to follow HIS class twitter account and receive regular notifications about what they were doing I would bite their hand off.

Can Social Media Shape Education?

I'll start off by stating an obvious... social media is massive.

News is delivered almost instantaneously via social networking applications. Images are shared from individual personal devices to an audience of every networked device around the world.Videos are broadcast from a lounge room to an audience of billions. Audio can be recorded in a garage and played on international stations. Messages can be sent from a student and read by the President.

To me, that is amazing and exciting. With the use of one smartphone I can connect and share with anyone, anywhere, almost immediately.

Some educators may remain sceptical about the use of social media in school. After all there is a lot of noise that you have to filter through, such as this....

And yet, as a teacher, I have found myself asking 'can I learn from social media?'

This week saw a massive learning opportunity go viral around the world. The story was on everyone's phone, in all the newspapers globally, on every international news station. It impacted on individuals from all walks of life, from young children to adult scholars.

What colour is this dress?

Its very easy to dismiss this viral sensation as pointless. I did when I first saw the post appear on my Facebook feed. 

After a few seconds however, I reconsidered and recognised the power of a single social network post. It got me thinking how I as a Teacher could harness this power.

One simple image had generated such interest. Is it white and gold? Is it blue and black? 

Yes, the initial attraction to this issue is trivial, but as soon as the conflict occurs between who sees white and gold and who sees blue and black, a massive opportunity for learning is opened. Everyone wants to know why? Why do I see such a dramatic difference in colour when we are both looking at the same image?

Interest is sparked and a want, or need, to learn occurs.

That is why the following day international newsrooms such as BBC, SMH, NYT, etc are publishing articles explaining colour perception and ambient light cues.

There are two things about social media that I, as an educator, desperately want to harness:

1. Its ability to generate interest

2. Its ability to connect

If that one individual who posted the 'dressgate' image had posted a simple question of:

 'Could someone please explain colour perception and ambient light cues?'

I seriously doubt if the response would have gone viral. There would not have been such a global interest, there would definitely not have been published responses from BBC, SMH or NYT!

The image ignited an interest and a curiosity to learn more.

This could be an extremely powerful tool for eduction. 

How can teachers use the techniques that are so successful in viral social media in order to generate such an interest and need to learn....