Open Night

Kiwi high schools have this wonderful ritual, around the middle of the school year, called "Open Night". Once a year we throw open our doors to prospective students and their families. Our goal is to show these prospects what a wonderful school we are and to compel them to enroll for the following year. The size of each school roll is a big deal as each school is nationally funded and more kids mean more $ in our budget.

So what has this got to do with IT use in education? Well, a few nights ago at our open night I decided to talk to the new parents about our intranet/LMS and how we use this to facilitate dialogue between students, teachers and parents. No more missed homework, lost resources, misssing newletters - it is all there on the intranet (mostly password protected sorry) - team approach to learning and communicating. Heads were nodding - it was all good.

Then I made a comment to the effect that, at our school, we want to operate like a primary school (elementary school in the US). We want to use our intranet to maintain and develop the close and involved relationships parents have previously enjoyed with primary school teachers. The ability to drop into the classroom and be involved with their kids' learning while no longer as easy as it once was in a physical sense would still possible in an electronic/virtual sense.

Parents were hugely excited by this idea. Many of them spoke of the disconnection they feel with their kids in a high school environment and a desire to continue to be a part of their kids education.

The parents are keen, the kids have always been digital natives - so who else do we have to sell this mode of learning to? There hangs a question.