BACKGROUND
Read more: Parental Involvement in Education - Research on Parental Involvement, Effects on Parental Involvement, Obstacles to Parental Involvement, Controversies, Current Issues
The three predictors of parental involvement mentioned in the above quotation are manifested in the School2Home netbook project, as seen in the "Parents" section of the S2H Web materials.
- Following an initial online survey to measure parent computer skills, 6 hours of parent training involves the parent-child team, showing them together how to access the child's digital textbooks and assignments. For many in our parent population, this is the first time they have ever seen and understood exactly what their child is doing and learning in school.
- It is not the student who receives the netbook, it is the parent, and only when they show up on the first day of the 6-hour training workshop.
- The focus of the S2H program is the correlation between parental involvement and student achievement achieved through increased communication between school and home. For the first time the general curriculum and individual student records, previously inaccessible and remote from the Central MS parent population due to language and economic challenges, becomes available and understandable. (Parents Involvement in Education Can Encourage Technology in Classrooms)
HANDBOOK
Riverside Unified School District links to the S2H-sponsored "Student and Family Netbook Handbook for Central Middle School," with basic information and district guidelines for general netbook use. We thank Stevenson MS for the original version.
PARENTAL CONTROLS
School2Home provides a booklet on digital citizenship and netiquette to augment the important segment on parental controls during the 6 hours of training. Visit the Web site to order copies and you can download this Netcetera booklet in English and in Spanish from the RUSD "School2Home Program Overview" Web site.
The California Technology Assistance Project (CTAP) has available the following:
Digital Citizenship Tools, Resources & Best Practices-NECC09
View more presentations from Anne Bubnic.
PARENT TRAINING
6 hours of scripted training, presented in three Workshops in English and Spanish, are required for the student to receive his/her netbook. Parents are pre-screened for personal compter skill level and this level, (high, medium, or low) is used to place them in them in a slow or fast training class. But even the fastest class must include how to use Blackboard, for student assignments and grades, and Cybersafety, including how to set parental controls. Basic required skills include:· Use basic word processing
o Create, save, and access documents
o Organize documents, create folders
· Search the Internet, including locating the school Web site to access:
o The school calendar
o Staff and faculty email addresses
o Blackboard
· Create an email account and understand how to:
o Email teachers and ask questions about assignments
o Email the attendance clerk to excuse an absence
o Email site administration regarding discipline issues
· Use Blackboard to access the following for your child:
o Attendance
o Grades
o Digital textbooks
o Lessons, assignments, and task due dates
· Learn about Cybersafety
o Sexting and Cyberbullying
o Spam, Spyware, Viruses, Phishing
o Plagiarism and Fair use of information
o Parental Controls
ANECDOTES:
5-10-10
Here’s an anecdote that demonstrates the parent interest that’s been generated:
“A woman arrived tonight with her arm in a sling, saying that it hurt, but her daughter insisted that she come to the Make-Up class. When I asked her what happened, she said she and her daughter were in a car accident this morning (!). Her daughter was too shaken up to come to school today, especially because this same girl had been the victim of an attack a few weeks ago while walking home down a Riverside street, but the man had been caught. So after two major traumas, this girl still wanted her laptop so bad that the mother showed up tonight, as basically a walking wounded. “I really want her to have this laptop, she said.”
