Mod 1 Bog Entry:

In every school system that I have worked in, a common goal for teachers and administrators has been the improvement of communication with parents.  In some districts technology has been utilized to better effect than others, but all systems I have experienced firsthand have identified this goal as important to the district and directly affecting the education of the children in our care.  Mrs. Eggeman, in her doctoral dissertation on the perceived effectiveness of teacher web pages for enhancing communication, found that the use of technology actually may frustrate both teachers and parents.  I found this very interesting, as this is the situation I currently find myself in. Teachers in my district are technically required to update their online class information every week, but this often does not happen, or the information provided is not enough for the parents who check for it.  Eggeman found that teachers were frustrated with the lack of guidelines around using the technology, and parents were frustrated by the lack of updates or maintenance of the pages.

It seems clear that access to technology such as blogging or webpages alone is not enough to foster communication between parents and schools.  Patrick Larkin writes in his article in Principal Leadership about blogging, that communication is the most important job of the leader in any profession.  He, along with other administrators and educators, recognize how important of a tool blogging or web design could be to open lines of communication with families.  A teacher who spends the time to post the positive accomplishments of his or her students, homework assignments, or upcoming assessment schedules, is communicating with all of her children's families, all at one time.  This type of communication is rapidly becoming more expected in our schools, and if teachers receive the time and support they need to utilize these tools, the benefits could be enormous.

The last article I read was a study of blogging by Nardi, Schiano, Gumbrecht, and Swartz, who looked at several aspects of the phenomenon of blogging.  Most interesting to me was the assessment of people's motivations.  The authors identified five major motivations for bloggers: documenting one's life, providing opinions, expressing emotion, articulating ideas, and maintaining a community.  I can relate some of these motivations back to the field of education, as teachers foster a sense of community, articulate ideas, and document the "lives" of their classrooms.  I think that motivated teachers, given opportunity and support, and armed with the tools of online blogs or webpages, can extend their learning communities outside the walls of the school, and incorporate parents and families as participants.

Links to articles:

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.lib.rivier.edu/ehost/detail?vid=8&sid=f1433dfa-eb3d-4236-a5f8-eb63c2cda74e%40sessionmgr4&hid=8&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=fb5fc4c2&AN=1346632724

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.lib.rivier.edu/ehost/detail?vid=8&sid=f1433dfa-eb3d-4236-a5f8-eb63c2cda74e%40sessionmgr4&hid=8&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=fb5fc4c2&AN=250193258

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.lib.rivier.edu/ehost/detail?vid=9&sid=f1433dfa-eb3d-4236-a5f8-eb63c2cda74e%40sessionmgr4&hid=8&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=f8638049&AN=237053823