Week+Four+5362

=Planning and Designing School Based Information Systems= = = The quote I chose is also from the article //Meet the Parents// from THE Journal (2008). **"Students with involved parents are more likely to attend school regularly, earn higher grades, and have better social skills. The SEDL report also showed that students with informed and involved parents are more likely to continue on to post-secondary education."**

I work with students who have already reached the post-secondary education level, and I can clearly see the effects that parental involvement has had and continues to have on college age students. Although, the expectation is that when students reach college that the level of parent involvement will decrease dramatically, we know that students still need parents who are willing to be supportive and involved in order to achieve academic success.

I counseled a first generation college student today who was struggling with a lack of understanding on the part of his parents of what is required for him to be successful in college. His father did not want to provide the necessary tax information to help him complete financial aid paperwork. He stated he was often late for class due to not having reliable transportation and extra household chores to do. This is a 21 year old student who does not have a driver's license and rides a bicycle to school and also has some very challenging physical disability barriers to overcome. Since the student is over 18 I am not at liberty to discuss his needs or my concerns with his parents. Having no opportunity to communicate with the parents except through the student can be very frustrating.

I have often thought that students might benefit from being able to see a graph of their attendance, grades, and overall GPA in order to illustrate the amount of effort they put in to their studies and how it directly correlates to the desired outcomes. A student at the post-secondary level could in turn have something tangible to share with his/her parents in order to enlist their help in setting goals and achieving them.

For some students' families it is simply a matter of priorities. I have students who feel they cannot afford to purchase textbooks but somehow can afford cell phones and I-pods. In other cases it is economical or educational disadvantages within the family that create additional barriers for the student.
 * on Communicating with Parents ....**

I think sometimes in our desire to have the very best and most up-to-date technology tools for our students, we forget that the most important thing is instilling in them a desire to learn. I sometimes have to remind myself that every student will not come equipped with a family with a computer at home or internet access or the language skills or whatever else is necessary for academic success. I must determine to learn to adapt in order to meet the needs of my "customers", my students. The whole teaching / learning / guiding process becomes less frustrating to me if I can remember that each student is in the process of learning and that I must be the one who adjusts to meet them at their point of need and determine how best to move them the next step forward.

**on Sustainable Model classrooms .....** Emily, while watching a video today from PBS called Frontline: Digital Nation ( @http://video.pbs.org/video/1402987791/ ), Professor Sherry Turkle of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self stated that "Technology isn't good or bad, it is powerful," and then she added "and it's complicated". I thought to myself, a simple statement which communicated so much. I think that sometimes in our desire to model the very best and latest in technology tools and applications for the classroom, we ignore the fact that the simplist "sustainable" tools may have a more powerful effect over the long term. As I drive to work daily, I pass the construction site where a new school in my home town is being built. I often wonder what new technology tools will be selected to enhance the learning process of the students who will attend school there. I do not envy the person who is challenged with the task of determining the needs of students and educators for the future.

=Model Classroom= = = =Back to Informational Systems Management =