Wow! What a busy week here at Intand!  The past two weeks have seen us attend two different trade shows.  The first show we attended was the National Rural Education Association conference in Branson, MO.  This was a great way for us to spread the word about how rural schools can benefit from using an online school calendar.  Special thanks to John Hill and everyone at NREA for making this great show come together!

The second show we attended was the Tech & Learning conference in Phoenix, AZ. This was the second year in a row that we attended this conference and are sad to find out that it will be the last.  In the future, the NSBA conference and T & L will be combined into one major conference.

Thank you to the current customers that stopped by our booth!  It was great to meet you and we hope you enjoy your Starbucks gift cards!

It is apparent to many that a strong involvement in a student’s education by a parent is integral to a successful education; what is not as apparent is how to do that. Below I have collected a couple different articles that go in depth about how to best facilitate communication between parents and schools.

Assessing Technology’s Role in Communication between Parents and Middle Schools – This article is more academic than the others but is still a great read. It goes in detail about the six different types of parental involvement as defined by the Epstein framework. For example, Type 3 requires schools to be proactive by inviting parents to participate in school activities. Wouldn’t that be a great use of Tandem for Schools?

Parent-Teacher Communication Advice from Veteran Teachers – This is a list of about ten tips from veteran teachers. Be sure to skim it and get some ideas!

When we are not busy building the best online school calendar available, we like to take a look at what others in education technology are working on. Below are a couple of those highlights from last week. To find more articles like these, follow us on Twitter!

One Laptop per Child: This is a great read regarding how far the one laptop per child initiative has come. Can’t wait to see where this goes in the future! http://tiny.cc/ikjhx

Facebook for Teachers: A super-intendent in California has revealed a program aimed at letting Teachers collaborate in an environment similar to Facebook. It allows teachers to create profiles and access a database of teaching resources. http://tiny.cc/g2gji

Many schools still use paper calendars and may be satisfied with that process. So, why should a school switch?  Here are just a few reasons:

-Constantly out of date:  Often times a paper school calendar is out of date the moment it is printed.  If any changes occur to the calendar, you have no way to instantly notify all staff, students, or parents.

-Go green: The number of paper calendars and newsletters can easily be reduced by implementing an electronic calendar. Thus, reducing the environmental impact that a school has.

-Reduce costs:  The cost of printing multiple calendars can be in the thousands.

-Accessibility:  An online school calendar can viewed from anywhere with an internet connection.

-All events in one place:  Store all school events in one place online.

Have you noticed any other benefits than an electronic calendar has over an online calendar?  Let us know!