Part of my responsibility as an IT Director is to engage our parent community in a dialogue and information sharing on many of the IT- Media programs we facilitate here at school.  The workshops which I do a few times a year, in different formats: half day weekend sessions, evening sessions, and this year starting to do 2 hours morning sessions. This semester the focus has been Privacy and you, and Information Overload. These sessions provide a bridge to our own Digital Citizenship program. I feel strongly that if our parents are given the venue to share, discuss and become web 2.0 tool aware including online privacy one creates a shift in the relationship they start having with their own children’s online lifestyle at home. It becomes a leveling of the playing field where they can actually engage with their kids not as experts or novices but more equal partners.

Why? I think many parents come into these sessions with often limited information, misconceptions or fragmented understanding on how much you can control your online life, the positive power of these tools, and creative potential for ones digital life style. The combination of dialogue, group work and hands on components provide a platform for them to feel more engaged, self-confident and have a better understanding how things work.

For the school, it suddenly provides us with collaborators who can revisit the conversations we have in our own Digital Citizenship classes with the kids. This weaving a collaborative loop in the learning experience of all involved.

is it not about learning unlearning and relearning?