Curriculum Night:
A Great
Way to "Sell" the
Your School System's Technology
By Anne Browning,
South Metro representative
My middle school did something special recently - they assigned
the different grade levels to have curriculum nights separately.
I liked the idea immensely - it was a great way to have crowd
control (we have 1500 + students), more one on one attention
with parents, and most of all, a great way to sell the technologies
available in our school! The only downside to the entire idea
was the fact the curriculum nights were to be held in the Commons
and access to the library media center would be unavailable.
My co-media specialist, Mrs. Mary Kay Harris, and I brainstormed
what would be the best presentation for the media center. One
great highlight of our school - and the media center program
- is the many different online sources available to our students
to access for research. Although our media center would be inaccessible
physically, we have two sets of mobile laptops we circulate to
faculty for instruction. With these three things in mind, we
were prepared to have a successful curriculum night outside our
library media center!
We decided to tell parents about the many different online
sources of information our students in Henry County Schools have
access to, including the online card catalog in Follett Destiny, netTrekker (a
search engine our county subscribes to), Galileo, and Wilson
Biography. We decided to set up the mobile laptops on one table
for parents to gain experience in using the different types of
online sources, as well as created flyers on the different online
sources on Microsoft Publisher. Most of the flyers consisted
of downloads from the different websites and were easy 1-2-3
steps to follow in using the technology. We also provided any
necessary passwords on the flyers to remind students and parents
about the passwords. Our entire list of internet sources would
be accessible via our Destiny homepage ( www.mediacollection.henry.k12.ga.us,
follow the link to Luella Middle School ), as well as on our
school website.
We had many parents visit our tables that night. Many parents
were surprised about the different online sources their children
could access for free. Most parents knew about Galileo, but were
totally surprised to find out about netTrekker and
Wilson Biography. The students know what to use in research,
but many parents do NOT know what is out there and accessible
for their children to use. Many of the websites were for Henry
County students to access free of charge - paid for by our Henry
County taxpayers, the parents!
"This is all free - and if you have an Internet connection,
your child is all set for research at home using the same Internet
sources we use at school!" I told a group of parents. The
real great experience of the curriculum nights was seeing the
parents and students get on the mobile laptops together, as well
as the students showing the parents how to use the Internet websites.
I challenge all media specialists, in all grade levels, to host a technology
night or have a presentation for curriculum night or PTO. Remember, parents
do not know what technologies are available, so the more they hear about
it and see it, the better prepared their children are! Taxpayers paid for
the technology; let us show them what the technology can do for their children!