BLC18

Using Google Sites, Google Forms, Blogger, padlet, and Flipgrid classroom teachers can connect to parents and students, fostering a community of learners. This session will show how to use these tools to get information out of the classroom in efficient and effective ways.
The purpose of this presentation is for teachers to build pedagogical tools centered on parent and student communication. Participants will be able to create a new Google Site to be used as a parent portal and connect to a student and teacher run blog. Participants will create their blogs and develop ideas of how to implement best practices to get the blogs up and running at the start of school. Teachers will create forms to use at the start of school and gain a better understanding of Sites, Blogger, and Forms as a communication tool and learning tool for students.

Showing participants how to use these tools in a step by step format will help participants with using these tools on their own. I will break down how I created the parent portal, including ideas and the process I went through to get to the final site that was designed. I will work with individual participants to create their own site, modeling how to use Google Sites along the way. We will transition to blogger, which will include showing the student voice and their reflections about blogging. We will discuss why blogging is an effective communication tool.

Participants will see various ways to use Flipgrid and Padlet to engage parents in their child’s learning process. Developing ways to reach out to the home has a large impact on student success.