Social media can be an ally now that many parents spend more day to your Myspace than ever before. If you decide to use an educational communication platform instead of a standard one, make sure that staff are consistent with its use.

For example, nothing is more frustrating to parents than receiving one message from their child’s teacher in Prompt and then seeing the same message again in Yahoo Class or Bloomz. Now throw in foreign dating the various forms of video chat (Skype, Hangouts, Zoom, etc.) and you can see why failing to designate one tool for communication could lead to much frustration. Pick one and be consistent!

Yet another layer of communication is involved when you throw in things such as virtual collaboration and the distribution and retrieval of student work. Many school districts have a learning management system (LMS) that offer communication with parents about the distribution of materials. Google Classroom, Canvas, Seesaw, and Schoology seem to be the dominant players in this arena, but there are certainly others. Again, consistency is key: school and district leaders need to make sure that all staff are using the same LMS tool to keep things streamlined at home and to reduce the complexity of support needed from IT.

Some district leaders have employed a few simple techniques to make access easier. One is designating a portal or single interface that students can use to access all their work. Tools such as ClassLink, Smart, or provide single-interface portals that offer students one sign-on access to all of their approved applications.

Schools instead one site should think about giving mothers a “cheat sheet” because of their kid’s usernames and you may passwords into the certain applications you to definitely these are typically being able to access during longer distance learning.Continue reading→