Teachers should use technology to communicate with students, parents and peers because it is a very effective communication tool. Teachers can communicate with parents directly on the Internet through e-mails and blogs, or they can use other forms of technology to create newsletters and fliers. Technology makes just about everything more efficient and more accessible. Students are often excited by the use of technology in the classroom, and it can help to spark their interest on certain topics. Students are able to go farther, explore more, and investigate more quickly with the use of technology. Teachers are able to show off student work through class blogs and even newsletters. Being able to see their child's work allows parents to feel more connected to the classroom and gets parents more involved in their child's education.
Desktop Publisher and Microsoft Word can both be greatly used to a teachers' advantage. With these programs they can make newsletters (as I mentioned before) and even worksheets for their students. In this class we made both and I was pleasantly surprised to see what I could create with just these programs. Desktop Publisher allows teachers to make their own, original worksheets so that they are not limited to the worksheets provided in the basic curriculum. We made a worksheet and a flier in class in Desktop Publisher from scratch. With this program, possibilities are virtually endless.
These tools allow teachers to communicate with parents and students without calling or scheduling a meeting. The goal as a teacher should not be to eliminate meeting with parents entirely, but to make necessary communication more efficient. Parents and teachers both have very busy lives, and incorporating technology into your communication as a teacher works very nicely when neither of you have time to sit down and discuss the progress of their child. As stated earlier, class blogs can help to show student work and allow parents to ask students or the teacher more specifically about what is going on in the class. When used correctly, technology tools are able to improve communication not only between the teacher and others, but also the parent and student. Parents can ask their children to tell them more about a project they saw on the class blog rather than asking the monotonous question we have all heard far too often, "So, what did you learn at school today?"
