ETEC 542Thesis Power Point Presentation

Jennie O'KelleyDr. Newberry

THE EFFECT ON STUDENTS ACHIEVEMENT OF IMPLEMENTING A CLASSROOM WEBSITE AS A

HOME/SCHOOL COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

Introduction

“Parent involvement is considered one of the most powerful means for improving schools and for

increasing the satisfaction of parents and the community” (Bauch, 1998). Needless to say, there are

several barriers that teachers have to face everyday in order to communicate with the parents.

Schedules, time, language, and resources make communicating with parents challenging. With the

growing technology, many of these barriers are becoming easier to deal with than before. “New

technology applications are also emerging, where computer devices in the home give access to the

Web, the Internet, and other resources” (Bauch, 1998). With the use of a web-based communication

system, a web-page would include important information on upcoming events, contact information,

upcoming projects in the classroom and in the school, subject skills taught, many on line resources

for the students as well as the parents, and other information that was relevant at the time. Teachers

would also post messages to their parents on line which allowed one-to-one correspondence between

the parent and the teacher.

Topic IntroductionThe more involved a parent is in their child's school life, there better the child will do in school. However, involving parents

can be very difficult and challenging. By designing a web-based communication system, parents can stay in touch with the

teacher and school and be there to help their child. There have been many studys conducted that show that if there is a lack of

communciation with the parent and the school, the child is less likely to succeed or even graduate. In this presentaion, I will be

going over the importance of this topic and correlating subtopics of parent communication with the teacher and student.

I. Increasing parental involvement in the schoolsa. increasing communication between teacher, parents and studentsb. informing parents of upcoming events in the school as well as the classroomc. developing a system to track behaviors and attendance to notify parentsd. developing a on-line communication system

II. Failures in schools and in studentsa. Why students are dropping outb. the comparison between parental involvement and the drop out rate of studentsc. how to decrease the numbers of drop outs.d. prevention methods

III. Importance of communicationa. the more informed the parents are the better the students chances of succeedingb. different ways of communicating to parents

1. conferences, phone, meetings, and on line communicationIV. Benefits to a classroom website

a. What needs to be included on the website for it to benefit the parent.b. the accessibility of the website to all students and parentsc. appearance of the website in order to make it user friendly and understandable.

Increasing Parental Involvement in the Schools

Over years, teachers and students have not always communicated to the extent that was needed in order to help the student to

succeed. Many times, teachers teach and use an informal assessment on a few students to see if the whole class understands the

material being taught. Using a few students does not represent the whole class. Often times we take for granted that the

students will listen and learn to each lesson and be able to perform well on an assessment. However, many children do not

perform well on the assessments. Teachers can modify the teaching strategies, have tutoring, allow students to make-up the

work, but all of this will still not help all the students reach to goal of a passing grade. The “main problem is the lack of

communication in the classroom, from student to student and student to teacher” (Murie, 2004). Without adequate

communication between each other, the students did not explain to the teacher that they did not understand the material and

the teacher could not find out what was wrong. If the teacher could design a way to help the student to communicate more

with them, they are more likely to succeed. This is also important when dealing with the parents of these students. Parents

often don't know that their student is in danger of not passing until it is too late. Increasing cimmunication between both the

student and the parent, will help mend these miscommunications and hopefiully help the student to be successful in school.

Increasing communication between teacher, parents and students and informing parents of upcoming events in the school as well as the classroom

Children are able to communicate with their peers easier through the use of cell phones, fax machines, Instant Messaging,

texting, telephones, and Internet email. Many parents would not know that their children are communicating with these

people if the students did not actually tell them. With the technology now available to students, they are able to communicate

with children across the globe and get the chance to create relationships with other students and are able to learn about their

culture at the same time. However, parents need to have the same abilities with their children and to be able to contact their

teacher and have a way to find out what is going on in the classroom. Teachers try to keep parents involved and informed but

with all the barriers of limitations, it is difficult to always be successful. By the parents not only being able to communicate

with the teacher, but to also communicate with the schools over the use of Internet shows that “effective parent involvement

can be more effective than any other strategy for improving the schools” (Bauch, 1998). “Bill Gates of Microsoft emphasized

the importance of this relationship when he stated: ‘The vision here is of a connected learning community. The connection

between the school and the home is very valuable’ (Gates, 1997)” (Bauch, 1998).

Opening up a web-based communication system is key to helping working families to stay in touch with what their students

are doing. Email is an effective way to reach out to parents who hard difficult to get in contact with. This way they can email

back to the teacher at their earliest convience instead of during the working hours of the teacher. Sending out updates via

email also allows the parent to discuss those events with their student, to gain knowledge as to if they need any assistance.

Again, opening up this line of communication lets the student know that the parent is aware and cares about their education.

Developing a system to track behaviors, attendance and to notify parents through developing an on-line communication system

There are several ways to reach out to the parents that don’t involve the parents such as conferences, back-to-school night,

summer programs, and phone calls. However, the problems with these programs are that they take time; planning and not all

parents are able to be involved. So what is a way that we can reach more parents more efficiently and easily? “By integrating

technology into communication strategies, schools can quickly reach more parents than before. Teachers often indicate that they

do not have enough time to effectively communicate with all parents, but by creating a distribution list of parents with email

addresses, for example, teachers can easily notify them of upcoming events” (Ramirez, 2001) Another great way is to host a class

web page where parents can access information about the class such as class assignments and school events. There are several

programs such as Blackboard and eChalk that teachers can use to have as a web page to store school information on. Several

teachers also have their own personal Web Pages that are just as effective.

The power of technology has helped so many teachers and parents to get involved. “Many teachers enjoy the ease of using

technology to inform their students about current events and topics of interest within their subject matter” (Ramirez, 2001).

However, you can always run into problems where not all of the parents in your class have computers or Internet access. In this

case, using paper form communication is best. “With the improvement of communication may come more parental involvement,

which in turn paves the way for higher achievement among our students” (Ramirez, 2001).

Failures in schools and in students. Why students are dropping out and the comparison between parental involvement and the drop out

rate of students

More that one third of students drop out of school each year. For minorities it is almost half will drop out of school during

their high school years. Most of these drop outs are between the ages of 16-25 who have failed to complete high school. The

top five reasons that most students drop out are because, they were bored with school (47%), they missed too many days and

were unable to catch up (43%), spent time with people that were not interested in school themselves (42%), they had too much

freedom and not enough rules in their lives (38%), and finally because they were failing (35%). It is assumed to state that

many of theses drop outs suffered from all five of these reasons and if parents were more involved, many of these could have

been prevented. There are other categories that were not in the top five reasons, but they still have a huge impact on why these

students dropped out. Reasons such as, needed to get a job in order to support the family, parenthood- they had a child they

needed to support themselves, and having to care full time for family members. “Nearly half (45%) noted that earlier

schooling had poorly prepared them for high school. High school are the years when many of the students start to become less

interested in school and more interested in other activities. Close to ¾ (71%) of the students that dropped out indicated that

they lost the motivation to stay in school around their 9th and 10th grade years. Many of these students would go to school late,

take longer lunches, skip classes or school entirely. The students also stated that their parents did not oversee their behaviors

and often times would not communicate with the schools to see why their child was missing classes. Of these parents, only one-

fifth of them were involved in the schools and that was mostly for discipline and not institutional purposes.

How to decrease the numbers of drop outs. What are the prevention methods?

Schools across the nation are trying to find ways to get these students to stay in school and graduate. Many suggestions come

up each year to help devise a plan to interact with these students. “Nevertheless, they suggested five actions that schools could

take to improve student's chances of completing school” (Azzam, 2007). First, make the school more engaging and real-world.

Students want to work on things that they are going to be using in the real world to help them get a job. Second, improve

instruction and more support for the struggling learners. Smaller class sizes, better qualified teachers, and tutoring or extra

time with the teachers. Third, improve the environment at the schools. Students have stated that their schools need more

supervision, stricter rules and great consequences. Fourth, insure that the students have at least one adult on campus that they

can talk to and feel that they can open up to about their personal struggles at school and in the home. Finally, and one of the

more important, improve the communication with the parents. Little less than half the students surveyed stated that their

schools contacted them or their parents when they were absent or had dropped out. Which indicates that these students were

able to not come to class and the school never informed the parents. A resolution that the schools came to was to have a multi-

pronged approach to dealing with the drop out epidemic. “Schools and communities should promote experiential learning,

smaller learning communities, and alternative schools. They should strengthen communication with parents to endure that

students come to school. Schools also need to develop district wide early warning systems- tracking absenteeism for example-

to identify students at risk of dropping out and provide more support” (Azzam, 2007).

Benefits to a classroom website and what needs to be included on the website for it to benefit the parent.

More and more teachers are looking at classroom web pages to deliver their messages to their students, parents, school, and

community. One of the most noticeable trends among teachers in the past few years is the number of them that are publishing

their own classroom websites. Some excellent reasons for creating a classroom web site is to improve the communication

between the parent, student and teacher. “In the time of hectic schedules and working parents, telephone calls during business

hours can be difficult” (Maddux, 2001). With the use of classroom web sites, parents can access the web at work or home when

it is convent to them. They can check the web site for homework, assignments, meeting schedules, their students grades,

attendance, behavior log or to e-mail the teacher. Another great reason to have a classroom web site is to give the parents some

useful links to resources that can help their child to succeed.

The accessibility of the website to all students and parents and the appearance of the website in order to make it user friendly and

understandable.

Studies have shown the importance in creating a school and classroom web page however, there have been studies that have

proven that school districts that link all their schools together through a web page, have greater success with reaching parents

and students. “Linking all the schools in the district and developing an active business-education relationship that may help

foster a deeper understanding and commitment from the community at large... developing communication across classes,

grade levels, cultures and even continents...encouraging parental involvement... introducing visitors to the unique attributes of

schools and allowing the showcasing of awards and achievements of the school, faculty, and students” (Miller, Adsit,& Miller,

2005). All in all, many benefits can accrue from creating a school and /or classroom website.

In order to create a web site that is useful to the parents, teachers and students, consider the following four goals. First, an

introduction to the school- perhaps the schools mission statement. Second, an interface to outside supplement resources and

community links. Third, a section of good work to showcase achievements. Fourth, a type of data source to receive and deliver

data that is important to the school and community. These categories have proven to help inform parents and community

members of upcoming events. In creating a large communication system as a web site, there are a few things to consider for all

your viewers.

One of which is “minimizing loading time and conserving bandwidth is a significant issue” (Miller, Adsit,& Miller, 2005). It is

wise to keep the loading time of your pages and images to fifteen seconds or less. Within the web page, navigation aides should

be provided on each page to allow for a more smooth flow of the pages. This also keeps the pages similar and easy to retrieve

information. Another suggestion is to make sure that your menu bars are comprehensive and coherent. This allows for the less

technological person to use the site just as easy as the person with more technological skills. The overall appearance of the

website needs to be professional and easy on the eyes. People can often times get discouraged when they come to a website that

is bold and busy. “Major sections of a site might each have variation in design, like a different background or accompanying

logo, but “showboating” dozens of different fonts, graphic and designs impedes progress and violates design standards”

(Miller, Adsit, & Miller, 2005).

My Personal Website

Important pages on my site in order to increase parental involvement

School & DistrictInformation

Secured Student GradeReports

Teacher contact information

Expert Commentary

Since I have been working on my Masters Project in this area, I have seen many improvements in my students concern for their own achievement. They have begun to self monitor their grades, attendance, behavior and own involvement in the class. This year I moved to a new school where technology was the last thing to consider. Needless to say, many of my parents have never communicated to a teacher through technology other than the use of a phone. Having this website has opened the mind and increased the involvement of many of my parents. Students that have cruised in the past, are no longer able to since their parents are checking their grades and communicating to me more frequently through email. I have had parents come to me and state that it was difficult for them to contact the teacher over a problem they saw coming. One even stated that they felt like they were interrupting the teacher by calling. This creates a cycle where there is a problem and by the time the parent and teacher can discuss it, it is too late.

I have also seen many of my students making comments to their friends in other classes about the site. They tell them that I have all the homework posted, downloads for them to print out, notes on the lessons taught, so when they get home and they just so happened to forget about bringing something home, it is there on the website. This convenience has allowed more of my students to get higher grades and to build self confidence.

They know now that their parents care and are interested in what they are accomplishing in school. It provides the student with a since of well-being and success.

Surveys comments from ParentsThe parents were asked why they enjoy having a classroom website and would they change anything. Here are a few comments:

- It's instant, we got prompt answers. If there is any news, faster to receive, and parents are more aware on current or future projects or assignments.

- I think it is easier because you can email her and get a repsonse sooner. It is an easy way to communicate. - becase I am very busy and can rarely meet face to face

- Because we are able to communicate through e-mail we communicate more often and it is more productive. - Email allows communication between people on different schedules, different hours...Email is also a more immediate way to get information.

- it's within my time frame and helps me to return email when I can, versus waiting for a phone call or trying to set up a face to face meeting - I feel it is a faster way of communicating. It works for our family due to our busy life styles.

- Being the working parents that we are, and always on the go, It is VERY convenient to check on our own time, our sons grades and Improvement in class. Might be at midnight or later before we are able to follow up on our kids grades, BUT one thing is for sure, WE wish all Teachers would have a website in the years ahead for our children, It makes it that much easier to check up on our kids and help them in the areas that they need help with, Ms.O'kelley we thank you soo much for being the first teacher at Mc Kinley to start a website for parents, We will be the first to say PLEASE make this a MUST have for all teachers in the corona district. Besides being blessed with such a Wonderful Teacher like you, this just ads the Cherry to the Sunday. Our son has NEVER been on Highest Honor Roll, I thank the teacher First but I do give us, the parents credit as well due to this website we are able to follow up with his homework DAILY and get involved in his Extra Credit and Projects.

Survey comments from studentsThe students were asked, what they would change about the website. Here are a few of their answers. (Reminder- they are in the 6 th grade).

- I wouldn't change anything the website is great.

-I wouldn't change anything much.

- I think that the website is realy cool. I think that there should have more media. I also think it would be cool to be able to contact the other students on the website if the parents allow it.

- I wouldn't change anything else

- I will like to change the home page.

- nothing

- wouldn't change anyting because I like it the way it is it really helps a lot. Also i am really glad that we have that website. i could see what my grades are.

- i would put what would be your gpa so far!!!!!

- i would change the e-mail thing to your phone number- can u put a few more extra credit projects.- i would like you to have a section for missing olny to make it easier for us to see wat we need 2 get done - you should put educational games on the website

- you should put educational games on the website

- i think you need a phone number place for all teachers

Conclusion

This concludes my presentation and if you are considering using a classroom website

for your class, let me say- it works!Thank you for your time.

Jennie