Final Project - Audience

 

Who is my website for?

Our school communities include a combination of learners, and everyone should be seen as a potential learner. Parents, teachers ... represent learners who are potentially seeking guidance and support. (Miller and Bass p. 20)

Initially, my intent was to develop a website oriented just toward the teachers. While I understand that students and parents would benefit from access to resources, I was particularly focused on teachers, as this is a constituent that is often left to their own devices when it comes to finding and curating usable learning and teaching resources on-line.

As I continued to reflect on who my audience would be, I thought of the support students receive through their teachers individual web presences. I also thought of the very limited support given to parents, as parents are often the ones given short shrift in digital supports at schools.

Of the three groups, students generally get the most support in schools, followed by teachers and then parents. In my role as a EdTech specialist supporting teachers, I had a website for students with links to resources agreed to by the teachers I collaborated with, but there was nothing for parents.

I think of my own experience with my daughter's new school. As a new student to the division she got little support getting started with the schools EdTech. She got help from a fellow student and the TL to get her Edsby account going. I had to actually work with her to get onto her divisional Microsoft account too. If I wasn't so involved with Microsoft tools at the moment, that might not have happened.

As parents were got zero support learning about the tools available to us. We just learned that there is a parent portal for Edsby. It is only now that we have the login information for Edsby that we have access to information on how to use it. This was a communication lapse on the part of the school.

With these thoughts in mind I am broadening my audience to include all three groups - teachers, parents, and students.

The site I build will be somewhat generic, as I don't know exactly what website development tool(s) I will have access to in the school I become a TL in. I plan to develop different sections, some specific to teachers, parents or students and some applicable to all three. I will identify whom sections are oriented toward. Where the section is applicable to all three, I will sub-divide the section to guide users the the information pertinent to them.

Once in an actual school I might develop more than one site based on the reality in the school. For this project, I will create one site. While I can't be everywhere helping everyone personally, I hope to create a website that can act as a resource to assist teachers, students and parents.

Letting People Know

There are many ways to let people know about a resource that is available to them. While I would need to see and learn about the environment and culture of the school I would be a part of, some of the ways I could inform each constituent listed above include:

Teachers: 

As noted in earlier blog posts, teachers are busy. Opportunities to communicate to them are therefore limited. A couple of ways I would use to inform them of the site and encourage its use include:

• Staff meetings - I would ask for time at the initial staff meeting in order to introduce the site and go through the items of interest to the teachers. I would inform them that I will follow-up with an email including the link so that they can add a bookmark to their browser to easily find the site going forward. If necessary, I would remind them how to bookmark the site and the advantages of doing so.
  
  In subsequent staff meetings I would ask for time to demonstrate an EdTech item (PD source, class tool, productivity tool, etc.) and use the site as the starting point. I would be sure to include training tools for the item introduced in the website. This would help reinforce the website as a tool for the teachers.
  
  
• Collaborative meetings: As one of the school EdTech leaders, I would be looking to create opportunities to collaborate with teachers beyond just providing books for inquiry projects. I would take this opportunity to reinforce that the LLC website is there as a tool to support them - professionally and with their lessons.
  
  At these times I would encourage them to provide feedback on what would help make the site useful for them and offer the opportunity to include links to sites they think would benefit them and their students. This could help take the burden off them to curate and maintain their own web presence (if they have one). They could then direct students/parents to the LLC website, helping drive these two constituents to the site as well.

Students: 

Students are always in need of guidance in the use of technology. I say guidance because students are often more comfortable using and learning technology than adults. I am going on the idea that I will be working with either K-5 or K-8 students, as these are the students I have worked with in the past. I am also going on the idea that the LLC will have computers in it. Some ways I can communicate with the students include:

• LLC time: In my previous school I had a site known as the Airport (which surprisingly is still there - and according to teachers still used). I inherited the site from the previous EdTech teacher. As Google Sites evolved, so did the site. I would work to make sure LLC machines (if there are some) at a minimum have the website bookmarked so it is easily accessed by students. Ideally, the LLC machines would have the website as their browser home page.
• Classroom: If I am successful in my teacher collaboration, I would expect the homeroom teachers would also have students use the website as a starting point for different activities. The Airport was a tool that supported the students with links to resources and teachers as a place to have resource links shared. It took the burden off teachers to maintain resource links.

Parents: 

Parents often are the least informed regarding technology used in the school. At a minimum I would want to provide links to information on the core technologies used in the LLC and the school. This can include some of the same how to use videos that teachers and students would benefit from (I am thinking of Microsoft tools) and links to commonly used resources.

Parents are actually one of the more challenging groups to share with. One of the biggest complaints at my last school was the volume of communications parents received from so many sources. Some of the ways I would communicate with parents include:

• Teacher web presence: Most teachers in Manitoba have some form of web presence. I would ask the teachers to include a link to my website on whatever web tool they used to keep parents informed (e.g.: website, LMS page)
• Teacher start of year communication: Another common early years practice here is for homeroom teachers to provide a start of year communication. Sometime this is part of the family start of year meetings. I would provide teachers with a short paragraph introducing the LLC and the website and ask that they include it in their communication package.
• School website: I would ask the Principal if I could get a prominent space on the school website (main page if possible) by pointing out the value the parent component of the website would provide to parents.
• Posters: Finally, I could create posters promoting the website that include both the address for the website and a QR code that parents could scan to go straight to the site on their phones.

How this all works out ultimately depends on the school I join as a TL and the technologies available at the school.

I have an idea of what I want to include and whom I want to serve with this website. Next, I have to determine how I will organize the site and the initial content I will include.

Sources

Information

Miller, S., & Bass, W. (2019).  Leading from the Library: Help your School Community Thrive in the Digital Age. International Society for Technology in Education.