Lorna Costantini

George Couros, a principal in Stoney Plain, Albert joined the Parents as Partners webcast to share his work with involving parents in developing school improvement plans. Through out the recording you will hear George talk about his approach to working with parents as well as how he involved parents in flushing out the issues that arise in the school.

Will Richardson and Lee Kolbert shared their views on their philosophies as educators and how it impacts on their relationships with their child’s classroom teacher. Penny Lindballe  shared her insights as a parent. More details to follow.

This season's opener got off to a wonderful start with a fantastic presentation by Aviva Dunsiger a Grade 1 teacher at Anacaster Meadow school in Ancaster/Hamilton Region Ontario Canada. Aviva has a wealth of ideas for connecting with parents and making them an integral part of their child's learning. Please listen to Aviva's presentation and follow along with the Slideshare posted below. 

We have compiled this http://gl.am/zx2r6 link to provide you with all the links ( and more) that Aviva mentions during the show. How about replacing the agenda book with Twitter? No more lost in the back pack excuses and no more "did nothing today" answers.  Kid blogs, Today's Meet, audio recordings on Evernote, Twitter, Wallwisher are just a few of the many free applications which she has integrated into classroom instruction. 

Aviva and her colleagues at Ancaster Meadow school are leading the way. 

Chat log

 Presentation for parents as partners

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 ...