Using Technology to Communicate with Students and Parents

  Using technology as a means of communication with my students' families has been of utmost importance, even pre-pandemic. Due to the advancement of technology, most of my students' families prefer electronic forms of communication to paper, phone call, or in-person. Since the majority of my students' families are non-native English speakers, they have voiced that the electronic means of communication are preferred because they can more easily get these messages translated. Translation apps such as Google Translate and the like are simply tools and are not reliable, so this is both a strength and a weakness of digital communication; however, this is the technology on which what many of my families rely. I have personally found TalkingPoints to be another effective app for communication, but have never tried it for larger pieces of information that need to be communicated. A major strength of digital communication is the ease with which to communicate. With smartphones as the norm and most people having access to their emails readily, it seems logical for communication to happen this way. A major weakness of digital communication (for my teaching context) is the inconsistent reliability of Google Translate's translations. I always tell my colleagues to re-copy and paste what they want translated to families to see what it comes out with to double-check because there are times when phrases or titles do not translate well and it could make or break what they have intended to communicate. I have also tried to show students how to use tools such as the Read and Write extension, since some people find the translation through Microsoft to be more accurate and reliable, and since more can be done with that text than Google Translate. The difficulty is in both teacher/student buy-in since many times it is perceived as another item to learn, or another to-do list item.

I try to remind my colleagues (and as a team, we try to do this as well) to keep our communication with families (letters or via email, but especially email) as concise as possible, with as simple language as we can, yet with the information we need to convey. One year in pandemic living has made this especially important when almost all of the communication from school is received digitally. Recently (within the last several months) we were told to follow-up with parents via email and add read receipts as a way to document our communication over something that needed parental response. I ended up following up with most of my parents who did not respond via email with a phone call instead and got a much better response from them. Author Shelley Turkle (2010) from Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age makes many compelling points regarding how true connections can be made and argues that this happens when devices are put away and out of sight, and that even the presence of a silenced phone interrupts the connections we make. Ever since reading her writing, I have resolved to have the most important conversations with people either in person or over the phone. She maintains, as Mike Moore (2015), that apologies and conflict resolution is done best in person. I have found this to be true, as well as the point that Moore makes regarding emailing to problem-solve and to retrace steps when there is a communication breakdown to only make matters worse. While there is a part of me that falls under the Millennial stereotype and would rather receive a text prior to a phone call, I have also learned that sometimes it is much easier to pick up the phone and let my tone of voice calm a stressed coworker, friend, family member, etc. So much of our emotions are lost when the communication is done digitally and purely with text. I realize that the irony of typing this while we are living in a global pandemic is strong, but at the same time, we can still use technology to help to mitigate some of these losses when it is impossible and unsafe to meet in person.

Where mask-wearing covers most of our faces, so we can't see each others' mouths, we can see each others' eyes, hear and read tone of voice in speech, are forced to enunciate and project our voices (from our diaphragms). When we are unable to hold meetings and conferences in person, we are able to hold meetings virtually (where we can be unmasked), whether with families, or colleagues. I have found that while coordinating a time for a virtual meeting can be more involved, it is the best solution that we currently have given our circumstances. The biggest obstacle is that we are at the mercy of our Internet connections, and I'll be the first to say that my district has had terrible connectivity issues pre-pandemic, and one of the buildings in which I work is one of the worst buildings with regard to connectivity issues. There is no perfect solution where technology is concerned, but the fact that we even have this capability is better than not being able to connect with families at all. I heavily use and rely on GoGuardian as well as a means to monitor what my students are doing, but more importantly, to be able to use the messaging feature on there (before joining the class meeting) to pull students out to work with me. Being able to see what my students on GoGuardian has also helped when there are significant language barriers and I need to see what my students' screens are. Instead of muddling through trying to help them share/present their screens with me, I can just look on GoGuardian. When a student is late to my meeting, I can see if they are fumbling with the technology (especially when you consider the early elementary grades and students who cannot read yet) or if they truly forgot. Even these nuances with technology gives a new light to what is needed for families when there are virtual meetings or there is a lack of response.