As educators it is important to understand our students on a personal level, but also to look at data and research about their generation. This week I enjoyed looking at a variety of statistics about my students' generation and technology use.
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| Checkout the complete report here Source: Speak Up! |
I loved seeing that 55% of parents want to receive text messages from their child's school or teacher. Again, we tend to use phone or email blasts to reach parents, why not text message them? It would be great to know a parent's preferred method of contact, so it is easier to connect to discuss their child's education. Having parent contact with every student can only help the student's overall academic experience.
I also found it interesting that 76% of high school students use YouTube, however, only 27% of teacher either use or plan on creating videos to supplement content taught in their courses. YouTube would be a great way to help support students through the learning process.
This valuable research is important to review every year, as students and technology change so rapidly. I am definitely going to keep these reports in my "toolbox" to ensure I am meeting my students needs.
Interesting read: Do smartphones have a place in the classroom?
My school used phone blasts and emails to reach our school families as well. I've always wondered if using one of these texting apps would be beneficial or even something that a parent would want. It makes sense though as our phones are always in our hands. Texting parents seems like a very stream-line way of getting in touch with them about reminders.
ReplyDeleteMy school did use phone call blasts, but we ran into the problem with parents changing numbers and not updating the school. We run into the same issue with email addresses too, or the info was entered incorrectly due to not being able to read what was written on forms and/or typos. Great statement about the disconnect between what many schools use and what parents and students use to receive communication. I'm tempted to poll my parents and ask them if they want to be texted, just to see if the trend in our school has shifted. If so, I'm happy to do this for my parents.
ReplyDeleteThat was an interesting statistic about the use of YouTube. I think too many people see Youtube as a way to view people doing silly things or countless fuzzy wuzzy cat/dog videos.
I love using Crash Course with my 6th graders. I find it's an easy way to create playlists of video clips that can be shown to students. I use YouTube to store my flipped learning English--parts of speech videos. It's free and easy to use--2 things teachers love! I do wish Youtube didn't eliminate the ability to make slideshows. If teachers are worried about the ads that show on the side, here is a great source to eliminate inappropriate side ads. https://safeshare.tv/ is my go to site before I show videos. All you do is paste the URL of the video and poof! The ads are removed. This works for Vimeo too.
Great point about students using different platforms than adults. Many times that is the reason- they don't want to be where we are! I wonder if schools began using Instagram and Snapchat if it would cause the students to flee to something new. Hmmm.
ReplyDeleteYour point about the text messaging is spot on. My twins are in high school and many of their teachers use Remind.com, especially the AP history teachers. I have signed up to receive alerts which has really helped me with that extra nudge to get homework/projects in by deadlines. The beauty of Remind is that it is volunteer. You could ask your parents that are interested to sign up (they chose text, email or both). The Remind thread can even be embedded on your website (or blog!) so those parents that don't want texts or emails still have access to the information being sent.
I completely agree with you that we need to meet our students where they are. A lot of my students have told me that Facebook is for "old people." My feelings were instantly hurt by this because I don't consider myself to be old. But you are right, if we want to effectively reach our parents and our students we need to know them better.
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