The Power of Parents in M-Education

Leveraging the Most Overlooked Educational Partners

Toni Maraviglia: toni@mprep.it@MPrepKenya @tisfortoni

http://textmprep.com

Session Objectives

1. Analyze the barriers of parent-school partnerships in M-Education

2. Design an appropriate M-Education tool to defy a specific barrier

A Teacher’s Perspective

DO NOWDaniel often skips school to play football (soccer) with his friends. His parents receive a paper report card at the end of the school term that he is failing. He tells his parents he’s failing school because his teachers are always absent. He tells his teachers that he can’t come to school because his parents need him to stay at home and help with housework.

What are the communication problems in this scenario that a mobile solution can fix?

Communication Gaps

1. Academic

4. General communication

3. Attendance

2. Behavioral/ Observational

A Parent’s Perspective

Why do parents disengage from education?1. Time2. Money3. Misunderstanding of “Their Role”4. Knowledge Gap

A Case Study: MPrep

Students take quizzes

Parents view data

How We Involve Parents

• Parent accounts• Parent demonstrations• Continuous feedback• Folllow-up at parent meetings

Creating Our Solution

1. Determined pain point (Academic data)

2. Created nuanced content3. Analyzed and found best

technology for the content4. Trained parents on the

device

Creating Our Solution Type of Pain Point

AcademicWhy? Parents do not receive detailed information about student performance.Technology

Mobile Web and SMS Why? Parents are best enabled to access data through simple mobiles – esp SMS.Content

Parents receive graphs of aggregate student performance results for topic specific quizzes, nuanced lists of student quizzes, and printable reports for students.Training

Parents are trained during a parent representative meeting, asked for continual feedback on product, and given follow-up during further meetings.Problems

Lack of web-enabled technology, confusion of accounts, difficult to reach everyone

Creating Your Solution

Via http://pollev.com/mprep

Type of Pain Point

Technology

Content

Training

Problems

Potential of Parents

What ideas have we thought about that make sense to improve a parent-school partnership?– Content examples from session– Examples of potential problems

What’s next?

Toni Maravigliatoni@mprep.it@MPrepKenya @tisfortoni http://textmprep.com