edte.ch: My Proposal to use Google Docs for Online Reporting to Parents
John Sutton
· 1 year ago
Interesting idea.
Can Google Docs be configured in such a way that a parent can only see documents relating to their child, and will this be easy to achieve, or a major admin task to keep up?
How is progress going to be reported on in National Curriculum terms?
How often will teachers be required to update reports, and what would the update entail?
Have you looked at the online assessment, tracking and reporting system called Incerts? http://incerts.org At present this system records assessments, tracks pupil progress and generates target reports and curriculum reports with bank level security. The only step left to take is to organise secure parental access. The only downside is the cost. But the potential saving in teacher time more than outweighs this.
Nick Hood
· 1 year ago
Fantastic idea, Tom: I would love to see how the pilot goes especially in terms of getting parents engaged in the process.
Here's a rare example when I envy my English colleagues - in this part of Scotland, google docs is banned by Local Authority web filtering policy.
Good luck!
tbarrett
· 1 year ago
@Nick - thanks it will be interesting to see what occurs with the pilot. It is such a shame that some Scottish LA filtering blocks some of the most powerful tools on the web.
@John - thanks for the comment. GDocs can be configured to share just one document. The statutory requirements for reporting to parents would of course be met as a starting point. The timing of updating the report is something I want to explore - but the premise is that regular, smaller chunks of reporting will spread the burden and workload that I have felt.
Cheryl Oakes
· 1 year ago
This looks like a great>Tom, we are beginning to use Google Forms to collect information from our staff of 250, when we are collating information. That part is working well. I will be interested in watching your progress.
JaniceWW
· 1 year ago
This sound like a very interesting idea. I look forward to following your progress. I have been investigating the use of e portfolios. I have found all sorts of different ways schools are doing this.
Glen Westbroek
· 1 year ago
Tom,
I believe that having each child's "portfolio" on a separate google doc solves the problem of who can access a specific student's information. I like the online portfolio option you are pursuing. Good luck in your efforts.
Pam Thompson
· 1 year ago
A really interesting approach to reporting Tom. I look forward to reading how it all works out. It has to be bette,r and more informative, for parents to be able to see how their child is doing on a more regular and timely basis. I can see great benefit in adding to a report as you go along, whilst it is still fresh in your mind, rather than a couple of months later.
Good luck with the trial.
David Andrew
· 1 year ago
Great idea - similar uses have been tried for adults as an alternative to e-portfolios and I intend to use google docs for my course for university staff based on a current paper based progress checklist.
Google are working on folder sharing which will make this sort of use much more flexible.
tbarrett
· 1 year ago
@Pam, Glen, Janice, Cheryl - Thanks for your comments @David, the ability to share whole folders of work will allow our kids to drop in examples they have produced in Google Docs throughout the year, rather than linking out from one document.
Rob Butler
· 1 year ago
Personally I like the idea of Google Docs for reporting progress. It provides a 2-way line of communication which traditional reporting does not. It also provides the opportunity for pupils to share work with parents, and for parents to be more involved in the education of their children. (and don't forget it's green!)
My only concern would be the security, especially given the new guidance BECTA has published (which will have big implications for data protection right down to existing VLE's). Check out the guidance at http://schools.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=l...
Keep us informed on your progress :-)
Shaun Wood
· 1 year ago
Great idea as Google Documents are so versatile, they can serve as an e-portfolio and reporting to parents. I like the idea because you can mix, add and link to other relvant examples that are stored right in Docs, providing access and authority is only a check box away.
I think the biggest value here, it that the information is interactive, current and accessible to parents. By allowing them to contribute with comments you create involved community. I would further consider how to scaffold this to parents to ensure they embrace and utilise this great idea.
Doug Belshaw
· 1 year ago
It's a great idea, Tom, but a very time-intensive one. And for that reason, unfortunately - along with the fact that some potentially-sensitive data will be sitting off-site on a companies servers - I can't see many secondary schools taking on board the idea.
Continuous dialogue with parents is something we should all be aiming at as educators. Unfortunately, it's a time issue. The average secondary school teacher probably has around 10-12 different classes of 30 students. That's around 350 students in total. If they spent even just 2 minutes writing something about each student each week, that would be 700 minutes (= over 10 hours). That's obviously too much of a commitment, unless their teaching load was significantly reduced.
I think that we're approaching a tipping point with technology in education. We've heard a lot of rhetoric about how it *can* fundamentally change teaching and learning, but innovative educators are being held back by outdated bureaucratic irrelevancies.
Kudos to your Head for letting you explore the idea. I'm really glad that someone of your talents is in a place where they're not scared to be at the forefront of change. :-)
Frances Manning
· 1 year ago
Wow Tom! This is an idea that addresses the issues of meaningful reporting practices head on! I was only just reading Angela Stockman's blog http://www.angelastockman.com/blog/ & her thoughts about Formative assessment. Your ideas are bold but 'do able'. I'll certainly be interested in how it goes!
It was interesting to read Tanya Brown's points. I like the aspect of your idea where the Teacher , Parents and students have a role in the reporting process...Parents & students no longer 'passive' in the process.
Thanks for sharing your ideas on this...they have certainly inspired me!
Tom, I do like the idea of "real" reporting to parents online. This is a great idea and definitely worth a try. I share some of the same concerns as Doug Belshaw (particularly around the teacher time commitment), but our current reporting methods in California don't give much information beyond a grade and, perhaps, a comment for behavior. I will be interested in hearing how this goes!
matt montagne
· 1 year ago
Hey Tom,
I LOVE the idea of changing the nature of the end of the quarter/end of the semester report card type system that we currently use to one that is more dynamic and meaningful.
However, I don't think a google spreadsheet, at least on a system-wide basis is the answer. What happens if other teachers in the grade level want to enter data on the spreadsheet?? How will this data be archived from year to year?? I know the spreadsheet can be shared out with others and so forth, but I just don't think that in a complicated school scenario where multiple users would need access to the information that this would work.
I think we need an moodle/drupal like open source student information system of some type...the proprietary SIS tools that we all use in our schools are fairly week and often time VERY expensive. They all have their pros and cons.
Again, I think your premise of changing the nature of the reporting process is a good one, but I'm not so certain a shared google spreadsheet can replace (or even compliment) a SIS.
~Matt
maggiev
· 1 year ago
WOW Tom,
Would love to follow your implimentation pathway! Can you maybe create a fictional student for all of us to "play" along with you?
I always find that it is only when you start implementing something realtime that you come to grips with the challenges!
Keep on being brave!
Maggie
Fran Hughes
· 1 year ago
Hi Tom - fabulous ideas. Love the concept. My thoughts... Start small. A test bed ... whether this be a pilot group of parents or perhaps one aspect of the curriculum. This way you can begin to see what the potential demands will be ...and develop contingency plans that can be put in place for when you decide go to a wider audience.
I believe that there will be greater expectation upon you to interact with an extra audience online - namely the parents.
Being a parent i know that given the opportunity to 'look in' on my child's progress would be wonderful. I am cognizant of monopolizing the teacher's time...but this is not always the case for some parents. How could you deal with the possibility of being overwhelmed by parent questions about student work? How will you address expectations about timely feedback to students/ parents.What rules/guidelines might you need to put in place?
Some guidance might be needed for parents on how to give feedback.
My experience with working online is that it can be more demanding due to the added opportunities to interact with students.
Other issues... How can one ensure that it is the child's work when you need to know that it is? Do you only accept assessment pieces that are completed during school time?
Will you be able to establish differences for parents regarding ... assessment AS learning (role of student), assessment FOR learning (role of teacher), assessment OF learning (summative - evaluating what the student has learned).
Look forward to hearing about your journey with this. Best wishes, Fran Cairns, Australia @franlhughes
mrstucke
· 1 year ago
Tom,
I think its a great idea, and in principle transferable to Secondary education. However there is an incredibly long way to go with this.
As an example, I arrived in school today to find that Google Docs is blocked for staff. I asked for it to be unblocked for staff and pupils (pushing my luck I know!) to be told that it was not possible as it is a 'security risk'. When pushed it was explained that as private pupil data could be copied onto GDocs and shared it was a risk. I was offered the opportunity to have the specific url of my spreadsheet unblocked after it had been vetted. This logic seems to wipe out the use of the entire read/write web in my school :( For anyone interested here is the sheet I am trying to share with my class, I think it's use is fairly self explanatory: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pi_Ik07y...
A small example of what we're up against!
Back to your idea, as others have said I think you need to start small. And above all I think that expectations on the volume of reporting by staff should be made as clear as is possible. Parent's will expect a lot otherwise and if limits are not set at the start you may run into trouble.
Best of luck and keep us updated! Dan
Wendy Randall
· 1 year ago
Wow tom what a fantastic trial you are taking on. We have just started working with google docs amongst the teachers in Year 4 and 5 to share our planning. We are looking at using it with our children in class. I'll be interested to hear the what the response will be from all involved.
Helen Barrett
· 1 year ago
I really like this idea as essentially in the long run I think it will save teachers time and effort. The end of the year seems to be a real pressure point for teachers and often we are reporting on topics that finished eight or nine months previously.
Also, the idea that children can have input or even add to a document makes the report writing process a more holistic enterprise.
teachernz
· 1 year ago
Here in NZ at our school (primary) we send home a "journal" of children's work at the end of every term (we have 4 10 week terms). The journal includes work samples and specific assessment items from maths, english and other curriculum areas we have covered during the term. I can see that this would translate very well into a combined digital portfolio/report. I'll keep watching to see how this works out for you.
Barrie Roberts
· 1 year ago
Great news: someone else using it too. We are using a pilot this year for e-portfolio as with all google products you can easily share this with anyone you want - i.e future employers etc. One question I am regularly asked is: what about Security and the hosting being on Google servers? What would you say to that, I am interested what you think
Cheers Barrie
tbarrett
· 1 year ago
@Barrie - the security of the document shared between the children, adults and the teacher would need to be paramount. It is the major hurdle that I need to satisfactorily overcome if this proposal is going to be anything more.
One solution that occurs to me is that the document could be retained amongst the Google accounts on the domain. In other words not shared to a parent's 3rd party email address and so raising a doubt about protecting that access. The parents could access the document using the child's domain login - that way only logged in users could access it. The parents' changes to that document would not be tagged with separate users but that would be a trade off for better security.
All Comments
Can Google Docs be configured in such a way that a parent can only see documents relating to their child, and will this be easy to achieve, or a major admin task to keep up?
How is progress going to be reported on in National Curriculum terms?
How often will teachers be required to update reports, and what would the update entail?
Have you looked at the online assessment, tracking and reporting system called Incerts? http://incerts.org At present this system records assessments, tracks pupil progress and generates target reports and curriculum reports with bank level security. The only step left to take is to organise secure parental access. The only downside is the cost. But the potential saving in teacher time more than outweighs this.
Here's a rare example when I envy my English colleagues - in this part of Scotland, google docs is banned by Local Authority web filtering policy.
Good luck!
@John - thanks for the comment. GDocs can be configured to share just one document. The statutory requirements for reporting to parents would of course be met as a starting point. The timing of updating the report is something I want to explore - but the premise is that regular, smaller chunks of reporting will spread the burden and workload that I have felt.
I believe that having each child's "portfolio" on a separate google doc solves the problem of who can access a specific student's information. I like the online portfolio option you are pursuing. Good luck in your efforts.
Good luck with the trial.
Google are working on folder sharing which will make this sort of use much more flexible.
My only concern would be the security, especially given the new guidance BECTA has published (which will have big implications for data protection right down to existing VLE's). Check out the guidance at http://schools.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=l...
Keep us informed on your progress :-)
I think the biggest value here, it that the information is interactive, current and accessible to parents. By allowing them to contribute with comments you create involved community. I would further consider how to scaffold this to parents to ensure they embrace and utilise this great idea.
Continuous dialogue with parents is something we should all be aiming at as educators. Unfortunately, it's a time issue. The average secondary school teacher probably has around 10-12 different classes of 30 students. That's around 350 students in total. If they spent even just 2 minutes writing something about each student each week, that would be 700 minutes (= over 10 hours). That's obviously too much of a commitment, unless their teaching load was significantly reduced.
I think that we're approaching a tipping point with technology in education. We've heard a lot of rhetoric about how it *can* fundamentally change teaching and learning, but innovative educators are being held back by outdated bureaucratic irrelevancies.
Kudos to your Head for letting you explore the idea. I'm really glad that someone of your talents is in a place where they're not scared to be at the forefront of change. :-)
It was interesting to read Tanya Brown's points. I like the aspect of your idea where the Teacher , Parents and students have a role in the reporting process...Parents & students no longer 'passive' in the process.
Thanks for sharing your ideas on this...they have certainly inspired me!
http://mguhlin.net/2008/10/first-flight.html
Thanks,
Miguel Guhlin
Around the Corner-MGuhlin.net
http://mguhlin.net
I LOVE the idea of changing the nature of the end of the quarter/end of the semester report card type system that we currently use to one that is more dynamic and meaningful.
However, I don't think a google spreadsheet, at least on a system-wide basis is the answer. What happens if other teachers in the grade level want to enter data on the spreadsheet?? How will this data be archived from year to year?? I know the spreadsheet can be shared out with others and so forth, but I just don't think that in a complicated school scenario where multiple users would need access to the information that this would work.
I think we need an moodle/drupal like open source student information system of some type...the proprietary SIS tools that we all use in our schools are fairly week and often time VERY expensive. They all have their pros and cons.
Again, I think your premise of changing the nature of the reporting process is a good one, but I'm not so certain a shared google spreadsheet can replace (or even compliment) a SIS.
~Matt
Would love to follow your implimentation pathway! Can you maybe create a fictional student for all of us to "play" along with you?
I always find that it is only when you start implementing something realtime that you come to grips with the challenges!
Keep on being brave!
Maggie
My thoughts...
Start small. A test bed ... whether this be a pilot group of parents or perhaps one aspect of the curriculum. This way you can begin to see what the potential demands will be ...and develop contingency plans that can be put in place for when you decide go to a wider audience.
I believe that there will be greater expectation upon you to interact with an extra audience online - namely the parents.
Being a parent i know that given the opportunity to 'look in' on my child's progress would be wonderful. I am cognizant of monopolizing the teacher's time...but this is not always the case for some parents. How could you deal with the possibility of being overwhelmed by parent questions about student work? How will you address expectations about timely feedback to students/ parents.What rules/guidelines might you need to put in place?
Some guidance might be needed for parents on how to give feedback.
My experience with working online is that it can be more demanding due to the added opportunities to interact with students.
Other issues...
How can one ensure that it is the child's work when you need to know that it is? Do you only accept assessment pieces that are completed during school time?
Will you be able to establish differences for parents regarding ... assessment AS learning (role of student), assessment FOR learning (role of teacher), assessment OF learning (summative - evaluating what the student has learned).
Look forward to hearing about your journey with this.
Best wishes,
Fran
Cairns, Australia
@franlhughes
I think its a great idea, and in principle transferable to Secondary education. However there is an incredibly long way to go with this.
As an example, I arrived in school today to find that Google Docs is blocked for staff. I asked for it to be unblocked for staff and pupils (pushing my luck I know!) to be told that it was not possible as it is a 'security risk'. When pushed it was explained that as private pupil data could be copied onto GDocs and shared it was a risk. I was offered the opportunity to have the specific url of my spreadsheet unblocked after it had been vetted. This logic seems to wipe out the use of the entire read/write web in my school :( For anyone interested here is the sheet I am trying to share with my class, I think it's use is fairly self explanatory: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pi_Ik07y...
A small example of what we're up against!
Back to your idea, as others have said I think you need to start small. And above all I think that expectations on the volume of reporting by staff should be made as clear as is possible. Parent's will expect a lot otherwise and if limits are not set at the start you may run into trouble.
Best of luck and keep us updated!
Dan
Also, the idea that children can have input or even add to a document makes the report writing process a more holistic enterprise.
Cheers
Barrie
I have found this site http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?a... a useful source of info on Google security arrangements etc.
One solution that occurs to me is that the document could be retained amongst the Google accounts on the domain. In other words not shared to a parent's 3rd party email address and so raising a doubt about protecting that access. The parents could access the document using the child's domain login - that way only logged in users could access it. The parents' changes to that document would not be tagged with separate users but that would be a trade off for better security.