parent – Sylvia Libow Martinez

September 30, 2010May 15, 2017

Back to school: Student-led conferences

OK, fall is officially here so I suppose it’s time to wrap up the “Back the School” set of blog posts I’ve been doing.

Last but not least, Student-led Conferences. This is something that most schools do NOT do, but some do very successfully. So why is this practice not more well-known? Perhaps it takes a matching philosophy of student empowerment in all areas, including assessment and planning.

Traditional parent-teacher conferences are places where a teacher shares information with parents about their child, parents can ask questions, and together, they can steer the course of a successful educational experience for that child. That’s the ideal, of course, but even that leaves out the most important stakeholder, the student. How can this succeed if the student themself only gets third party reports about what happened?

Proponents of student-led conferences say that the practice put students in charge of their own learning, gives students a better handle on their own progress, and shows parents that student achievement is in the student’s hands, not theirs (or the teacher’s). The hallmark of an effective student conference is preparation, not just for the student to create an authentic report of their own progress, but also for the parents since this is not what most parents are used to.

Resources:

Student-led Conferences – Very recent and up-to-date information, examples, and resources. Multiple videos for a range of grade levels modeling best practices, viewer guides, handouts, and planning guides from Curriculum Services Canada. These videos show that student-led conferences aren’t just a stunt, but a serious reflection exercise for students, parents and teachers.

Student-led Conferences (Education World) – A good overview article of student-led conferences. Some of the links have gotten old, but enough are still working to make this a recommend resource.

How to Run Successful Parent-Team Conferences: Tips by the Dozen for Middle-Level Educators (PDF) – An article from Middle Matters magazine in 1998. These tips are timeless!

Student-Led Conferences Hold Kids Accountable (Education World) – quotes research about the benefits of student-led conferences, including higher rates of parent participation.

Successful Student-Led School Conferences – A number of resources and articles from MiddleWeb – Exploring Middle School Reform.

Sylvia

The moms are all right

The publisher of Parenting magazine and BlogHer.com just surveyed 1,032 moms on the effect of technology on parenting behavior. The study will be published in September, but you can download a PDF Executive Summary of the survey now.

From the press release:
Parenting and BlogHer found that the majority of moms surveyed have a very positive view of technology’s role in fostering communication and connections within their families:

87% agree that understanding new technology is important to stay connected with their children.
70% feel that technology can provide great ways for families to spend time together.
83% care about new technology because of the benefits it brings to their everyday lives.

These moms do see threats to their children…from both the Internet and television, but they don’t believe those fears have been realized: Only 5% report believing that their children have ever been engaged in addictive online behavior like excessive gaming, only 4% believe their kids have viewed pornography online, and less than 1% believe their kids have participated in cyber-bullying, sexting or inappropriate online communication with adults.

“The results of this survey were very encouraging,” said Nancy Hallberg, chief strategy officer of The Parenting Group. “Today’s moms are not fearful of technology and its growing role in their family’s lives – they view it not only as a tool to connect with other moms, but as a way to communicate with their children and teach them responsible ways to interact online.”

Link to a PDF – An Executive Summary of the survey.

The study will appear in the September issue of Parenting magazine, on Parenting.com, and on BlogHer.com.

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This appears to be all that’s online right now – but the Executive Summary PDF has some interesting tidbits. It clearly shows that these moms feel the benefits of technology outweigh the risks by creating new ways for them to communicate and model appropriate social connections with their children.

In other words – the moms are all right.

Might be an interesting topic for some back to school tech planning. For example, are we overestimating parental fear about online risks and other perceived negative effects of technology? Do we really know what they think these days? It could have changed drastically in the past few years as more and more parents find out that Facebook means stronger family and social connections. What does it mean now and in the future to policies and tech plans if our parents views are changing so quickly? Maybe schools should poll their own parents and ask some of these questions.

Sylvia

December 29, 2008

The Parent-Teacher Talk Gains a New Participant – NYTimes.com

The Parent-Teacher Talk Gains a New Participant – NYTimes.com.

Today’s New York Times features an article about student participation in teacher-parent conferences. Good news: good facts and stories woven into a compelling article that supports student empowerment by including them in their own education. Bad news: it’s not new, and leaves out the mountains of research and practice about student conferences.

But, Google to the rescue! Here’s a great collection of resources from Education World (and hurray, recently updated) about how to plan and implement successful parent-student-teacher conferences.

Sylvia

November 22, 2008May 8, 2017

Should your school participate in the XO G1G1 program?

Thinking about creating a school program around the One Laptop Per Child XO laptop computer? At the recent NEIT 2008 conference (see my post, The people in the room are the right people), several schools were thinking along these lines. Would the Give One, Get One (G1G1) project be a perfect holiday project, raising funds for something that would help the poorest children in the world, and potentially benefit the school as well?

For example, if a school raised $2,000, that would be enough money to purchase ten XO laptops. The school would get five, and five children somewhere in the world would get the others.

As we talked about the options, there were some good ideas for using the XOs that I’d like to share.

“field trip” computers for recording audio, video and notes
start a computer club where students participate in the XO community
have them in the library for check out
use them in lower grade levels

At the end of the day, it’s really up to the school and how involved they want to get. Even something as small as promoting the program as an option for gift giving with a global purpose is worth doing.

Here are some questions that came up, with the answers if we could figure them out from the XO site.

Q: How does the XO compare to other small, inexpensive laptops on the market?
A: There are technical details on the Amazon XO site and even more on the OLPC wiki. However, my contention is that for most Americans, unless you are willing to buy-in to the XO learning principles and participate in the grand global experiment, the XO is not for you. If you are choosing a laptop simply on technical specifications or price, I’d suggest passing on the XO. (My checklist of “what not to expect” when you get an XO.)

Q: If my school participates in the G1G1 program, do we find out who gets the “other” laptops?
A: As far as we could find out, that is not possible. This isn’t like and “adopt a child” program, you don’t get a letter telling you who gets the computer. However, you can find a lot of stories about what kids are doing with their XO laptops around the world on the XO wiki. I imagine that it would be fairly easy to find a school somewhere to establish a “pen pal” relationship with. Also, with the Give Many program, if you donate enough money to purchase more than 100 XOs you can have your donation go to a particular country.

Q: Should we tell parents to do this and get a laptop for their child for home use?
A: If you do, you need to manage expectations for parents. These computers are not just cheap laptops or expensive Leapfrogs. Most parents will not be expecting to have to do their own tech support, system updates, or learn a new operating system. Again, see my checklist of “what not to expect” when you get an XO for some suggestions of what you do and don’t get with the XO.)

Q: We have lots of computers, we don’t need more. Can we just donate money?
A: According to the XO site, you can simply donate money in any amount. You can also just purchase one laptop that goes directly for donation for $199.

Q: Does it come with Windows?
A: There have been recent news reports about the XO being able to dual boot Sugar (the operating system designed for it) and Windows. The laptops purchased through the G1G1 program will NOT have Windows installed.

Q: Does it come with a hand crank?
A: No, that was just an early prototype that seems to have caught a lot of people’s imagination. It comes with a regular AC power adapter.

Q: Should we do the G1G1 program and then donate the computers to a nearby, needier school?
Only if the school wants them. These XOs are different than other computers and will need special maintenance and care. Some schools have created “exchange” programs, where students provide support and training for other schools. If you are willing to create such a long-term relationship, this might be an extraordinary learning experience for your students.

Q: How long is the G1G1 program running? Holidays are too busy, but we could do something in the spring.
A: This is one question we couldn’t find a really solid answer to. The OLPC wiki says it will be an ongoing program, and that “While the promotion has no scheduled end date, the advertising will run from Nov 17 to Dec 26, to take advantage of the holiday giving season.” However, much of the news about G1G1 has stated that the program ends Dec. 31, 2008. There is an open question on the “talk” page of the OLPC wiki about this, but no one has responded yet. It’s possible that people are also confusing last year’s program which ran for a limited time.

My inclination would be to trust the OLPC wiki and assume that Amazon is committed to this for the long term… but keep checking back!

Sylvia