Schools play a crucial role in the development of information and communication technology skills for every family in their communities (Barron, A., 2010), and finding ways to do it should be the main focus in every building. Opening computer labs to students and parents in afterschool hours is helpful, but having someone available in the lab to teach certain strategies is even more important. In our building, we have taken first steps in providing support to families. We offer weekly Mentor Me meetings to parents of ELL students during which a Spanish-speaking teacher demonstrates technology tools used by students at school and allows parents to learn and experience how they may transform and support learning at home. We have also built and implemented our very first Parent Academy night this month. We offered multiple sessions on different topics and tried to demonstrate that technology is an organic part of learning and not a stand-alone thing. We showed how technology can be used at home to assist students with homework assignments, promote critical thinking, and help students become fluent digital citizens. Only 42 parents came to our first Parent Academy (we have almost 1300 students), but we are determined to continue this approach. We need to think of strategies to attract more families; therefore we asked the parents who came to share their thoughts about the event (see the video below) in hopes to make the rest of the community interested in learning together.
Resources
Barron, A., Hohlfeld, T., & Ritzhaupt, A. (201). Connecting schools, community, and family with ICT: Four-year trends related to school level and SES of public schools in Florida. Computers & Education, 54. pp. 391-405. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2010.02.004
Barron, B., Martin, C., Schatz, C., & Walter, S. (2010). Predictors of creative computing participation and profiles of experience in two Silicon Valley middle schools. Computers & Education, 54. pp. 178–189. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2009.07.017
Rideout, V. (2013). Zero to eight: Children's media use in America 2013. Retrieved from Common Sense Media website: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/research/zero-to-eight-2013.pdf