Show hosts Matt Montagne, Lorna Costantini and Cindy Seibel welcomed Mike Herrity, Assistant Head master at Twynham School In Christ Church in the UK. Mike gave an overview of the way that Twynham School works with parents. They engage parents around their student's school work through the use of a portal which is accessed by students, mentors, parents and teachers. Mike talks about the success stories that they are enjoying with increase student achievement with the support of parents. Through out the show you will hear Mike share advice such as "Listen first and then design";" parent engagement is beyond the data", "its more about the pedagogy than it is technology". Twynham School uses a Sharepoint portal to support students, teachers and parents. Of particular note is the mentorship program put in place for year 11 students. The program uses a biweekly session with mentor and student to review the student progress and develop strategies to improve their work. Parents have access to the discussions which have taken parent/student conversations beyond the "did nothing today". Parents of 15 and 16 year olds have something concrete to discuss.

Chat log

 Karen Bantuveris from Volunteerspot joined show hosts Matt Montagne and Lorna Costantini to discuss parent volunteerism in school. Karen is a management consultant in Austin Texas. A little over a year ago she came up with a scheduling tool that freed up teacher and parents time organizing events. Karen provided a long list of fund raising tips, community building activities and teacher stratetgies to increase parent involvement in schools.

Cindy Seibel show host shares her masters work with Matt Montagne and Lorna Costantini. Cindy developed a parent portal implementation guide.

From the guide, Cindy explains:

There is a significant body of research demonstrating the contribution of parent engagement to student learning. Based on this research, school districts are implementing technology solutions to support and improve relationships with parents with the hope of producing improved student outcomes. This project created an Implementation Guide for one technology solution, a K-12 Parent Portal.

The question what is a parent portal surfaced and Cindy responded to the question with the following video.

The challenge to all of us is to review the guide and then take it to parents and school boards to embrace and implement.

Chat Log

Tonight's session was the first in a series of brainstorms about a special project that would creating digital parent courses. Show hosts Matt Montagne and Lorna Costantini welcomed Justin Reeve, Colleen McGuire,  Penny Lindballe to the show.

The purpose of this project is to ...

 For most parents the most common interaction with their child's classroom teacher happens at parent teacher interviews. For years that process has been the norm, but now it is changing. In more and more schools, students are leading conferences, and, overall, the word is that they‚are doing a fine job.

Conversations Edtechtalk show host Lisa Parisi and Ginger Lewman from Turning Point Learning Centre in Emporia, KS  joined Matt Lorna and Cindy to share their experiences using student led Parent Teacher conferences.

Chat Log

Parents as Partners hosts Lorna Costantini, Cindy Seibel and Matt Montagne welcomed Jacqui Strachan, Gay Stephenson from People for Education, Tanya Weiner, webmaster for Ottawa Carleton Assembly of School Councils and Ross Button from Upper Canada District School Board as they talk about how they communicate with parents. We had a difficult time with connections and audio. Ross, Tanya, Gay, and Jacqui shared some excellent ideas about how to moderate parent online communities as well as increase participation.

The recording has been edited to remove some of the transmission problems. Please be patient there was some very good conversations.

Chat Log

Penny Lindballe and Joanne McMahon brought show hosts Cindy Seibel and Lorna Costantini up to date on their introduction of web 2.0 tools in their school. Wired Wednesdays are happening with Penny at the local library. Parents are working with Penny learning how to use Google applications like the calendar and setting their Facebook privacy settings. It is exciting to see Penny take a leadership role in educating parents. Joanne is celebrating the addition of 3 other teachers and her principal to the roster of teachers blogging in her school. It certainly shows that good examples bring forth participation. We wish Penny and Joanne another successful school year

Chat Log

The Parents as Partners team welcomed Larry Ferlazzo, a high school teacher  from Sacramento, California Larry  as he discussed his new book “Building Parent Engagement in Schools”   http://engagingparentsinschool.edublogs.org

Larry shared his experiences in engaging parent using home visits and community partnerships.

Chat Log

Matt, Cindy and Lorna traced their steps over the past school year. Highlights of the year were discussed and plans for next falls series were suggested by participants in the chat room.

Chat Log