While embracing digital schooling, communication is missing.
Technology has played a critical role in enabling learning throughout the epidemic and its ever-shifting conditions. Using tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Classroom and the improved learning management systems (LMS) capabilities have enabled teachers to reach students even if they can’t meet in person. Still, school-to-home communication has remained mostly unchanged over the years. A lack of access to technology or a language barrier can make it extremely difficult for some students to interact with institutions. Students learn best when their parents, instructors, and administrators work together to meet their educational and personal needs. Gaps in communication between families and schools can lead to decreased student participation and possibly increased dropout rates.
The fourth iteration of communication is getting closer.
From handwritten notes and mailed-home report cards (version 1.0), all the way up to email blasts and schoolwide SMS notifications, our communication method has gradually transitioned from analog to digital and from one-way to two-way over many years (version 2.0). Even now, in this day and age, when learning systems such as LMSs (version 3.0) have cumbersome messaging functions built-in, students and parents still need to seek notifications actively.
It’s critical to use technology that gives parents and guardians the freedom to receive messages whenever and however they choose. Communication should be tailored to the recipient’s preferences via computer, tablet, smartphone, text message, or email. A teacher or organization’s ability to understand the needs of its students or parents and how to improve is critical. Improvement through regular evaluations of its communication strategies is an excellent starting point.
An understanding of how parents and other stakeholders access communication is crucial. With a communication platform, educators can quickly identify families that aren’t being reached through traditional means, devise new strategies for getting them, and run information audits.
Refine technology and communications by thinking like end-users.
We’ve come a long way in the last two and a half years and learned a lot. Teachers, students, parents, and learning guardians can all serve as role models for how we should design our products and services.
Thinking like a user helps schools and publishers fine-tune their technology and communication methods. We found that some fundamental tenets stay the same in communication no matter how we transmit messages. Keep the message concise, give connections to people who want to learn more, and work to enable two-way translation to have successful electronic communications.
Some things never change: humans will always communicate.
Empathy should be your go-to tactic.
Regardless of your position, it would be best if you had a strategy for your communication. Take the time to listen. The COVID-19 epidemic heightened every emotion over the last couple of years, which is why 95 percent of decisions made by stakeholders were based on emotions.
Authentic communication entices a wide range of people. Be open and transparent.
In addition to bringing in new students, honest and proactive school communication helps current students recommit. Use the pandemic to build your relationship with current families and school personnel and make communication more effective. Maintaining a regular cadence of truthful communication is essential to strengthening existing relationships and building new ones with new audiences.
The COVID-19 epidemic turned our world upside down, but it also revealed opportunities for us to influence our future. This pandemic has shaped how schools communicate with families, students, faculty, and staff, and it will continue to do so in the future.
Identify your “single” user.
With the “single user in mind, you’re concurrently solving problems for all of your other users.”
Students and parents are the two most similar types of users. Approximately 100 SMS are sent daily by the average adolescent. There are 3,000 SMS sent per month. It’s essential for students and parents to know what’s going on and to have a sense of connection with the educators who are guiding them.
Despite their well-meaning intentions, many students still fail to see the importance of passive communication. With all of the text messages, Instagram notifications, and Snapchat messages, how do you keep track of your email?
Many parents feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of messages and the regular demands to check websites from coaches, instructors, after-school activities, and employers. Educators’ primary purpose is to help a child succeed, which entails increasing parental participation, reducing absenteeism, and establishing meaningful relationships with a child and their parents. Teachers have the most challenging job in the world with tremendous obstacles. Tools that magnify and save time are essential for teachers.
As long as educational technology is changing the way teachers and students communicate and collaborate both in the classroom and outside of it, the more we need to reassess how you communicate and see what needs improvement and what needs to be scrapped.
The goal is to create an environment in which students can succeed.