JASON BURGER Reaching Parents through Social Media

Why?

Data: Teacher Communication Generally, a positive attitude towards the way teachers are interacting with parents, though there is significant room for improvement.

How? Use social media to communicate with parents on a daily basis and keep them updated with class goals, daily aims, class projects, examples of top-quality work, in-person and online events, and more. Create a forum through which parents will have an additional way to reach me for questions or feedback and hold me accountable. It is a goal that using social networks will help to facilitate a sense of community and pride that will reach beyond the virtual world and into the physical community. Develop a series of professional development sessions to share best practices with other teachers at my school.

Outcomes Objectives:  Parents will be able to access daily updates of classroom objectives, units of study, and frequent examples of top-quality work.  Parents will be able to contribute to forums through which to contact the teacher both privately and publicly in order to hold the teacher accountable and to gain insight into class and school practices.  Teachers will be able to understand the importance of utilizing social networking tools to facilitate parent-teacher communication.  Teachers will be able to develop their own plan for family communication using digital tools. Assessments:  Family survey data collected by Achievement First through Panorama surveys and analyzed by the end of the school year.  Positive responses will improve by 10 percentage points or meet network averages, whichever is greater for both AFBAMS teachers and for my own survey data.  PD participants will be assessed through their creation of a Facebook page for their class and through the development of an action plan for parent communication.

Social Media Platform: Facebook Phillips, et al. (N.D.) suggest that Pages can be used to “create an easy way for both teachers and students to share relevant links, like newspaper articles, online videos, or RSS feeds from your class blog or school website. Facebook pages also have collaborative features, including notes (these are like blog entries) and comments.” *Data from the Pew Research Center (Smith, 2014).

Why not...? Edmodo, Wikispace, Google Sites, etc.  Each platform requires proactive participants. Facebook taps into a pre-existing and familiar network of users.  Requires a certain level of tech savvy inappropriate for where the organization is at

Professional Development Overview Visit Wikispace at Click on right-hand tab for “Reaching Parents through Social Media”  Read one of the following two resources:  Fordham, Ian, & Goddard, Ty. (2013). Facebook Guide for Educators. The Education Foundation. Retrieved from  Phillips, Fogg Linda, Baird, Derek, & Fogg, B.J. (N.D.) Facebook For Educators. Retrieved from  Click on link to blog at and post to each of the following threads by Friday:  How can Facebook be used to facilitate family outreach?  What are some concerns you have about how to use Facebook successfully in the classroom?  Reply to the posts of at least two other colleagues on the blog by Sunday. Watch Jing Screencast “How to Create a Facebook Page”  Optional: Reference the Mashable article on How to Set up a Facebook PageMashable article on How to Set up a Facebook Page Create your own Facebook page and invite me to Like it!

Rationale for PD eLearning Initiatives Wikispace  Collaborative: capitalizes on all the great ideas in the organization  Asynchronous: good for busy teachers  Simple to edit: many teachers are unfamiliar with technology, especially web-design  Growth potential: keep Wikispace alive as a center for digital learning at school and build community and best practices around that. Weebly/Blogger  Intuitive threads to facilitate discussion  Ability to comment on specific posts and replies Jing Screencast  Accessible exemplar  Ability to work at one’s own pace and re-watch video  Meets needs of auditory and visual learners

Works Cited Fordham, Ian, & Goddard, Ty. (2013). Facebook Guide for Educators. The Education Foundation. Retrieved from ebookguideforeducators.pdf ebookguideforeducators.pdf Phillips, Fogg Linda, Baird, Derek, & Fogg, B.J. (N.D.) Facebook For Educators. Retrieved from Educators-English. Educators-English Smith, Aaron. (2014). 6 New Facts About Facebook. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from new-facts-about-facebook/ new-facts-about-facebook/