eLearning

Papers30www.elearningp

apers.eu

eLearning Papers • ISSN: 1887-1542 • www.elearningpapers.eu

n.º 30 • September 2012

1

From the field

School website, cooperation, school-family relationships, primary school

Tags

Author

Sandra Vuk, August Šenoa Elementary School, Zagrebvuksan@gmail.com

Website – A Partnership between Parents, Students and Schools

The website developed by the 1.b class at the Augusta Šenoa elementary school is, first and foremost, a pioneering work stemming from cooperation among teachers and par-ents. The purpose of the website is to inform, activate, and involve parents, students and teachers who work in the classroom. Each activity is documented, giving insight into the everyday activities, and making the classroom visible and transparent to every-one. The project uses new technology (forum, gallery of student work, class mail), and enlists a partnership of parents, who made parts of the website.

1. Forms of cooperation between parents and teachers Cooperation between parents and teachers can be divided into three parts: a written form that the teacher presents to the parents, an individual form in which discussions between the teacher and a parent take place, and finally, a group form.

Advantages and disadvantages of new technologies

Advantages:

• Speed – all participants save time. Information is received and transmitted fast. A record of emails and communication remains (similar to a paper trail).

• It is possible to communicate at any time. You can select the tone of the response.

• A quick and inexpensive way of communication.

Disadvantages:

• Can only transfer short information. No extensive comments.

• Not all parents have access to a computer, nor internet access.

• Lack of computer literacy on both sides. Irregular checking of email.

Figure 1: Forms of cooperation (breakdown)

eLearning

Papers30www.elearningp

apers.eu

eLearning Papers • ISSN: 1887-1542 • www.elearningpapers.eu

n.º 30 • September 2012

2

From the field

2. Website – Classroom websiteThe purpose of launching the website1 was: the ability to gain insight into the everyday happenings in the classroom (student and teacher), participation in activities (class projects), control-ling homework, checking the class schedule and calendar, as-sistance in monitoring accessories, and faster communication between parents and teachers. Additionally, the website helped familiarize the student’s family with their projects - art2 and lit-erary works. The website would also serve the purpose of allow-ing the students’ successes to be shared with others and there would be a faster flow of information.

1 https://sites.google.com/site/senoa1b/

2 https://picasaweb.google.com/nasrazred.b

All of the above does not replace the need for live conversations or the necessary presence of parents at individual conferences as needed, parents’ meetings. It does not imply that access to the classroom website as an absolute necessity.

I perceive the classroom website as: a communication tool that allows students to express their thoughts and ideas, as an op-portunity to apply what they learned, as well as the ability to encourage creative expression and eloquence in the use of lan-guage.

We (parents and teacher) decided to use technology that is ap-propriate for our generation - the computer (connected to the Internet). Creative educational ideas have lasting value, if they proceed in a creative way. Through the process of making a class

Figure 2: The classroom website’s homepage

eLearning

Papers30www.elearningp

apers.eu

eLearning Papers • ISSN: 1887-1542 • www.elearningpapers.eu

n.º 30 • September 2012

3

From the field

website parents approached it jointly and creatively (consider-ing that most parents are IT educated). Published posts and ad-ditional Croatian language materials helped me to better meet students’ interests, effectively evaluate their progress, and I would send the best ones to various children’s contests.

Displaying the children’s artwork in the photo gallery enables students to experience the joy of creation, but also to see the results of their creativity. Their creativity grows wider in social meaning. By publishing projects on the classroom website, the children received feedback in the form of comments from peo-ple who have visited their site.

I consider it important to note that all of the activities that were implemented and were accompanied on the class website were an integral part of the teaching process. In fact, the connection between the teaching process and the publication of results gives meaning and vitality to the idea of classroom websites.

2.1 The website’s content

The website and it’s appearance depends upon which provider of free website building services is selected. In our case I chose Google Sites3, as one of the strongest providers of services (1GB

3 www.google.com

Figure 3: The classroom’s photo gallery

eLearning

Papers30www.elearningp

apers.eu

eLearning Papers • ISSN: 1887-1542 • www.elearningpapers.eu

n.º 30 • September 2012

4

From the field

of storage for documents, 1GB of space for web pages and con-tent, 1GB of space for a photo gallery, and 1 GB of space for email).

The class website is divided into the following major sections: our events, our class, classes and calendar, notices and news releases, letters, and entertainment. Each section was continu-ously updated with content throughout the 2010-2011 school year, accompanied by all the events that the class participated in.

Looking at the analysis of website traffic, the most visited part of the website was a subpage where the daily homework was

listed. It should be noted that it was because of parents’ initia-tive that a forum4 was opened for both parents and teachers.

With regards to the biggest success as a result of the forum, I can mention the project A Healthy Diet, which was fully agreed upon, planned, and conducted on the forum, while the part of the project that incorporated real food was implemented in the classroom.

The website menu is located on the left hand side. Those who develop their own classroom website can choose to have the

4 http://prvasici.forumcroatian.com

Figure 4: A project example and it’s appearance on the website

eLearning

Papers30www.elearningp

apers.eu

eLearning Papers • ISSN: 1887-1542 • www.elearningpapers.eu

n.º 30 • September 2012

5

From the field

menu located in a different spot as well as the material and top-ics that will be published on the site.

3. Website security and participantsGoogle provides its users the option to view visitor statistics, measure retention time on the site, and who and what was downloaded (taken off) from the site, etc.

Images of the students were taken during “Carnival” and are displayed on the website. Photos of students’ activities (field work, field trips, birthdays) are published with the consent of parents (signed) and students are not named for privacy rea-sons. If unusual activity is noticed in the photo gallery, albums are locked and parents receive a password via email. Three par-ent meetings (workshops) were held on network security and how students should use computers.

4. ConclusionPersonally, for me, this period of two years that I am editing and creating classroom websites is interesting, sometimes hard, but very nice and exciting. The hardest part for me was opening the door to my classroom and “baring” my teaching to the world, showing everyone the beautiful and somewhat sad side of our business (equipment, layout, classrooms, water buckets instead

of a sink, etc.) and be present every day on the Internet.

The teacher in the teaching process is alone, he or she does not have anyone with whom to share their good or bad ex-periences. Through discussions on the forum, I received feedback that was not superficial like the casual and brief conversations usually held in the staff room. These substantive suggestions from par-ents, other teachers, friends who encour-aged me to think and didn’t leave me indif-ferent, but encour-aged me to change

my classes, myself and introduce new ways of teaching, accept-ing a network connection as part of everyday life, making the most out of what the website could provide.

The website led to new friendships with teachers from around the world, these connections proved to be one of the most im-portant characteristics in the recognition of teachers, regardless of language. Such that at this time we are collaborating with Indian teacher Unmesh Inamdar; with Chiu-Chu, an American professor at the University of Michigan, exchanging artwork, discussing ways of education, displaying pictures of projects and so on.

Figure 5: Google Analytics

eLearning

Papers30www.elearningp

apers.eu

eLearning Papers • ISSN: 1887-1542 • www.elearningpapers.eu

n.º 30 • September 2012

6

From the field

LiteratureZloković, J., Dečman-Dobrnjič, O. (2008). Children at risk – the responsibility of families, schools and society. Zagreb: HPKZ.

Zloković, J. (1998), School failure - the problem of students, parents and teachers. Ri-jeka: Faculty of Philosophy.

Bašić, J. i dr. (1994), Integral methods in working with chil-dren and their parents, Zagreb: Alinea.

Copyrights The texts published in this journal, unless otherwise indicated, are subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivativeWorks 3.0 Unported licence. They may be copied, distributed and broadcast pro-vided that the author and the e-journal that publishes them, eLearning Papers, are cited. Commercial use and derivative works are not permitted. The full licence can be consulted on http://creativecommons.org/licens-es/by-nc-nd/3.0/

Edition and productionName of the publication: eLearning Papers ISSN: 1887-1542Publisher: elearningeuropa.infoEdited by: P.A.U. Education, S.L.Postal address: c/Muntaner 262, 3r, 08021 Barcelona (Spain)Phone: +34 933 670 400Email: editorial@elearningeuropa.infoInternet: www.elearningpapers.eu