We would like to design parent interaction, connection, communication into the 1:1 learning environment. There are a couple of thoughts as to how parent involvement can be designed into the virtual aspects of the 1:1 classroom. One thought is a discussion area where parents and the teacher could discuss classroom items relating to everyday happenings in the classroom. A second is a request from the teacher which would provide a space where communication could be around specific issues involving the parent's child. It has been presented to me that this discussion space could also be used for student led conferences when parent schedules do not allow them to attend during the necessary time.
The first discussion area should be quite easy to design. This may be a simple discussion area on the home page of the teacher's classroom website. The design of this discussion area will depend on the privacy required in this discussion space.
The second discussion area is not so easy to design. The reason is the privacy required for each parent to discuss items about their child with the teacher. This cannot be a discussion area open to the public or groups of people. It must be private to only the parent of the student and the teacher. I will look into how permission settings will allow for this to happen. It may be that each parent will require a discussion forum to be individually setup. The important issue here is the privacy necessary and taking the steps to make sure privacy is designed into this discussion space.
