My exposure to a school environment has been as an interested and highly involved observer - a parent. My use of multimedia technology in this context has arisen from a perceived need to connect to the school, those parents who were unable to be involved in the school activities.
I utilised multimedia technology, taking photos, video and recording the children's music to create slide shows and produce DVDs for parents with the aim of bringing into the home, a snapshot of the classroom experience and enhancing parents' understanding and appreciation of their child's school environment.
I opted for a stand alone multimedia application (DVD) rather than online because my material contained high quality images of school children.
Beyond this, I think there is an important role for the use of multimedia technology in educating parents about the education of their children.
The importance of parents being familiar with multimedia technology and the web was highlighted in a talk I attended a few weeks ago given by NetAlert. The speaker, Dr Michael Carr-Gregg spoke of the results of one survey that showed that children spend far more time on the internet at home than at school. He encouraged parents to educate children about the precautions and safeguards required when using the web rather than prohibit its many uses.
I think more than ever there is a need for schools to give substance to what is sometimes merely the rhetoric of a school/parent relationship. The challenge for parents is to embrace and master technology rather than fear it. The challenge for educational policy is to assist parents in achieving this.
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I have been challenged recently by the potential of email in the classroom. Many of my students who were computer illiterate at the start of the year are now able to send, reply to and use attachments with email. Now that has been established we have been able to extend our learning environment. Boys will send me work to edit which once I have done I will send back to them. They will be inspired by lessons and then create presentations on PPt for example and email them to me and the rest of the class. I can also send lessons from the interactive whiteboard to them to use at home (see my blog spot for more on this: http://fjschwarz.blogspot.com/2007/03/week-3-interactive-images-in-multimedia.html). I think the next step is to get them using blogs. Anyone tried it with primary aged kids?
http://fjschwarz.blogspot.com/
That was a great intro
The ever-changing landscape of education has been a prime mover for educators to constantly communicate the changes with its stakeholders especially parents & one emerging trend of communication is through the web. In my school, the parents communicate with the staff through the school's website where they give their feedback or queries about the school's programmes & their child's learning development. Parents are motivated to be more IT savvy as it is very convenient for them to posts their comments just with a click of a button. Hence, we are constantly upgrading & updating the website to ensure its relevance.
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