Final Narrative on Final Project

My Web Page Link

I created a Teacher Web Page for my final project in this class.  I firmly believe that positive and ongoing parent involvement in their child's education is paramount that child's academic success.  Wesch believes that collaboration is the key to success.  As a kindergarten teacher, I want to foster a collaborative relationship with parents during the school year.  

As a techno-traditionalist, I do communicate with families and colleagues via email; in class, I use such devices as computers, desk tops as well as chrome books. I access various websites to gather resources and new ideas.  In addition, I am exposed Google Docs, Word, Excel, and Google Slides.  As time goes on, I am hoping to transition from a timid digital immigrant to a somewhat digital native.  I feel that Boyd's terms, immigrant and native are terms that can make people feel defensive or uncomfortable, I understand what he is trying to convey.  I also believe that just because a young person may be a digital native does not  make them fully capable of handling all the information that literally is at their finger tips.  As  teacher, I need to be able to help children process such information as well as help them navigate the internet in a responsible and meaningful well.  In kindergarten, I want my students exposed to sites that encourage learning, exploration, and imagination.  In my class, we learn about all things frogs!  Using the internet, this tool provides videos that can bring frogs to life!

As an ELL early childhood educator, I want my families engaged in the education of their children.  However, I have struggled year after year to get my families involved.  This past school year, I had 23 students, with 20 being with me for the entire school year.  Of these twenty families, only three (3) or 15% were actively engaged in consistent communication with me.  

I have been wanting to create a teacher website for some time now but my inability to do do was frustrating and weighed heavily on me.  Through taking this class, I have learned the skills to create my first teacher web site using Google Slides.  With the guidance and input from my professor and classmates, I have successfully created the shell of the website, which you can access by clicking on the link at the top of the page.

Since I believe that parent involvement is a key academic success of my students, I wanted to create central location where ALL  my parents will be able to access information on their child's school experiences.  As a parent, I could not wait to open my sons' folders when they came home from school.  As a teacher, I knew some of the questions I could ask that would elicit a more detailed response to the question, "What did you do today?" Many children will respond with, "Nothing".  
Turkle believes that the art of conversation is being lost to technology taken over.  I wanted to give parents a tool to help foster conversations between parents and their children. (Turkle)

Prior to taking this class, I did not have the resource and KNOWLEDGE to create a teacher's web page.  I tried to seek out assistance from work colleagues as well as out IT department but was usually met with resistance.  I was pointed to various on line tutorials but those proved to create more frustration on  my part.  Through the knowledge imparted and gained in this class, I have taken the first steps in creating this tool for parents to foster a stronger relationship between parents and me.  In creating this tool, I am hoping that parents will be more engaged in their child's education.  By creating this web page, parents can refer to specifics in their child's day.  This will be an ongoing and fluid document that will change over the course of the school year.  

In addition to fostering positive involvement between parent and child, I also want to foster a collaborative relationship between parents and myself.  As a teacher, I can only offer so much.  Parents need support and resources to help provide for the needs and wants of their child.  Schools can only do so much.  By fostering a collaborative relationship between all three entities, my hope is to provide a strong foundation to benefit the students to come through my classroom.

Will be uploading the self-assessment rubric in a separate post.