1. Symposium on parent engagement:
Connecting with the
new digital parents
Julie Evans, CEO: Project Tomorrow

2. Connecting with the
new digital parents
Julie Evans, Project Tomorrow CEO
October 22, 2013

3. A big thank you to:
© 2013 Project Tomorrow

4. Today’s Agenda
 Who is this New Digital Parent?
 Digital Parents and School Communications
 Creating a Shared Vision with your Digital Parents
 New Considerations
 Discussion

5. The New Digital Parent Profile
Profile based upon:
 Parents’ highly value the use of technology in
education
 They are mobilists – they use mobile devices
 They have personal experience with online learning
 And parents are strongly interested in digital schoolto-home communications
Source:
Speak Up 2012 National Research Project Data Findings

6. Speak Up National Research Project
Annual national research project
 Online surveys + focus groups
 Open for all K-12 schools and schools of education
 Institutions receive free report with their own data
Collect ideas ↔ Stimulate conversations
 K-12 Students, Teachers, Parents, Administrators
 Pre-Service Teachers in Schools of Education
Inform policies & programs
 Analysis and reporting of findings and trends
 Consulting services to help transform teaching and learning
+ 3 million surveys since 2003

7. National Speak Up 2012 Participation: 466,303

K-12 Students
 Teachers & Librarians
 Parents (in English & Spanish)
 School/District Administrators
 Technology Leaders

364,233
56,346
39,713
5,511
500
About the participating schools & districts
o 8,020 schools and 2,431 districts
o 30% urban / 43% rural / 27% suburban
o All 50 states + DC

Honor Roll of States with highest participation:
TX, CA, OH, IN, AL, NC, WI, AZ, FL, PA

8. Introducing:
New Administrator’s Guide to
Reaching Digital Parents
A special collaboration of
Schoolwires and Project Tomorrow

9. How Important is the Use of Technology to
Student Success?
© Project Tomorrow 2013

10. Parents are mobilists!
Personal Access to Mobile Devices – from 2008 to 2012
Cell phone
without
Internet access
Smartphone
Tablet
computer
Parents in
2008
90%
32%
5%
Parents in
2012
35%
73%
49%
© Project Tomorrow 2013

11. Parents have first hand experience with online learning
I have taken an online class:
For work or job training
For an academic/college program
To learn new skills
To explore a hobby
For traffic school
43%
29%
22%
13%
7%
* Since 2009 – increase of 65 percent!
© Project Tomorrow 2013

12. Benefits of online learning
All
Parents
Students can work at their own pace
Students can review materials as often
as wanted/needed
To take a class not offered at school
To get college or advanced credit
To increase student engagement in
learning
© Project Tomorrow 2013
62%
59%
New
Digital
Parents
73%
72%
51%
43%
30%
67%
64%
37%

13. New Digital Parent Profile




Value proposition for the use of technology in education
Personal usage of mobile devices
Personal experience with online learning
Strong interest in digital school-to-home communications
37% of parents of school-aged
children fit this profile today
© Project Tomorrow 2013

14. What administrators need to know:
other key characteristics or expectations
1. Distribution of digital parents within the
grade bands
 30% of parents with students in K-2
 36% of parents with students in Gr 3-5
 40% of parents with students in Gr 6-8
 38% of parents with students in Gr 9-12
© Project Tomorrow 2013

15. What administrators need to know:
other key characteristics or expectations
1. Distribution of digital parents within the
grade bands




30% of parents with students in K-2
36% of parents with students in Gr 3-5
40% of parents with students in Gr 6-8
38% of parents with students in Gr 9-12
2. Digital parents are social media users!
 51% use Skype
 65% regularly update a social networking site
 19% are tweeting
© Project Tomorrow 2013

16. What social media do you
regularly use in your personal
life?
Communicating via text
messages
Maintaining a social
networking site
Watching online videos
Elementary
School
Parents
86%
Middle
School
Parents
86%
High School
Parents
62%
55%
52%
40%
36%
34%
Streaming online TV shows
37%
34%
32%
Playing online or mobile app
games
Using Twitter
30%
28%
25%
14%
13%
13%
© Project Tomorrow 2013
86%

17. University of Chicago study:
“Strong parent-community-school ties”
is one of the essential five supports for
school improvement.
© Project Tomorrow 2013

18. University of Chicago study:
“Strong parent-community-school ties” is
one of the essential five supports for school
improvement.
Yet, only 21% of parents say that communications
with their child’s school
is very effective.
© Project Tomorrow 2013

19. Communications with parents matters!

37% of administrators see engaging parents as coteachers as key to student achievement

71% of principals want new teachers to have
training during their preparation programs in how
to use tech to communicate with parents

26% of administrators call “effective parent
communications” a significant challenge, however!
© Project Tomorrow 2013

20. Communications with parents matters!

Some schools and districts are already
tapping into tech tools to
engage/connect/communicate with
parents:
Digital/phone notification systems 54%
Social media
41%
Twitter
17%
© Project Tomorrow 2013

21. Personal emails
Portal with grade info
Text messaging
Mobile app
Class blogs
Facebook
Skype
Twitter
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Tech Leaders: currently supporting these tools
Principals: say these tools are beneficial
New Digital Parents: want to use these tools
© Project Tomorrow 2013
80%
90%
100%

22. Imagine you are designing the ultimate
school for today’s students,
what technologies would have the
greatest impact on learning?
Do we have a shared vision
for digital learning?
© Project Tomorrow 2013

23. What tech tools and resources are worthy of greater
school investments?
All Parents
Digital Parents
Online textbooks
56%
65%
Educational mobile apps
53%
63%
Digital content
50%
59%
Tablets
43%
56%
School wide Internet
45%
54%
BYOD
40%
54%
School portal
51%
57%
Online classes
36%
45%
Social media
12%
18%
Games
12%
16%
© Project Tomorrow 2013

24. The ultimate elementary school for today’s learners must
include:
Tablets
Online textbooks
Games
School wide Internet
0%
Teachers
© Project Tomorrow 2013
10%
20%
30%
Principals
40%
50%
60%
Digital Parents
70%
80%

25. The ultimate middle school for today’s learners must include:
Mobile apps
Online textbooks
Digital content
School wide Internet
0%
Teachers
© Project Tomorrow 2013
10%
20%
30%
Principals
40%
50%
60%
Digital Parents
70%
80%

26. The ultimate high school for today’s learners must include:
Social media
Online classes
BYOD
School wide Internet
0%
Teachers
© Project Tomorrow 2013
10%
20%
30%
Principals
40%
50%
60%
Digital Parents
70%
80%

27. Ways to engage the “New Digital Parents” in your
school or district planning processes:
 Use social media to explore ideas
 Host an online discussion forum
 Start an online parent school with informational classes
and workshops
 Demonstrate value of current and future technology
initiatives
 Think “digital inclusion” not exclusion
 Align your communications tools to parent needs
 Ask parents their ideas!
© Project Tomorrow 2013

28. More Speak Up? www.tomorrow.org
National Speak Up Findings and reports
Targeted and thematic reports
Online learning trends
Mobile learning & social media
Print to digital migration
Social learning
Intelligent adaptive software
New digital parent series
Presentations, podcasts and webinars
Services: consulting, workshops, evaluation and efficacy studies
© 2013 Project Tomorrow

29. Your thoughts, comments, questions
(c) Project Tomorrow 2013

30. Let’s continue this discussion!
Julie Evans
Project Tomorrow
jevans@tomorrow.org
949-609-4660 x15
Twitter: JulieEvans_PT
and SpeakUpEd
Copyright Project Tomorrow 2013
This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted
for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes,
provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced
materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the
author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written
permission from the author.
© 2013 Project Tomorrow

31. This presentation has been
brought to you by Schoolwires®