Stakeholder Communication

When communicating with stakeholders about the integration of technology, three things come to mind for parents to understand:  skills that students will learn, digital citizenship, and how teachers are going to manage the devices in the classroom.  Parents are usually wanting to know what their child is learning.  It is important when integrating technology that parents understand that students are going to acquire many skills when working with technology.  Some of these skills include, collaboration among peers, problem solving and communication.  Teachers can be specific about what the students are learning when implementing tech projects in their classroom and share that with parents.  Digital citizenship is important for all students and parents to understand.  Parents would benefit from learning what the students do about how to be responsible with technology.  Parents also need to understand how the devices are being managed in the classroom and that not every lesson will require that technology be used.  Knowing how much students should be using the devices at home would also help parents understand how the technology works and still give them some control over how long their child needs to be on the device.  If these three things are communicated well with parents, then the integration of technology in the classroom will be more effective because the teacher will have the parent support needed to encourage correct student behavior with technology.