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I truly think computerized school communication is worse than notes in backpacks and the occasional mailed letter. They send way too much useless shit, way too

I truly think computerized school communication is worse than notes in backpacks and the occasional mailed letter. They send way too much useless shit, way too often, so you end up ignoring a lot of it; use way too many channels to do it; design sites poorly—how about the year's calendar on the first page for a given school, above "the fold", with a link to subscribe your preferred calendaring software to it, right there, office contact info off to the side, also above "the fold"? And no horrible excessively-complex half-broken themes making it difficult to navigate? Nah, that'd be too helpful; and everything's in several different systems, all bad, and all in various states of up-to-date or neglected, so it can be hard to guess where you need to look for something and hard to know whether it's accurate when you do find it (especially if the apparent signal is "empty" or "nothing there" or "no information"—is that true, or has it just not been updated lately?)

YeBanKo 4y ago
I fully agree, it is most expensive, less clear and sort of makes it less personal. And a nightmare for privacy. A whatsapp group chat for public announcement and phone calls/texts/meeting with the teacher proves to be more efficient.
brewdad 4y ago
The online gradebook was the "new thing" that I found to be a nightmare as a parent. The idea was that parents could log in to verify students are turning in their homework or get a heads up before the parent-teacher conferences if their child's grades are suffering. The reality is that some teachers are good about getting assignments and test results input in a timely manner. Some wait and do weeks worth of assignments in one batch. Others input all of the term's assignments at the beginning and add results as they get turned in/graded, meaning student grades gradually move from failing to the final earned grade once the last exam result is added. The grades shown on the online portal had nearly nothing to do with the reality in the classroom and ended up being counterproductive. I'm glad I no longer have to deal with that system. Worse yet, many parents of college age students expect their university to offer this same portal, despite the fact that it would be illegal for schools to do so without written permission from the student. It's been eye-opening to see parents on one message board I follow furious that they can't know their student's grades up to the minute. I can't imagine how awful those parent-child relationships must be.

YeBanKo 4y ago

I fully agree, it is most expensive, less clear and sort of makes it less personal. And a nightmare for privacy. A whatsapp group chat for public announcement and phone calls/texts/meeting with the teacher proves to be more efficient.

brewdad 4y ago

The online gradebook was the "new thing" that I found to be a nightmare as a parent. The idea was that parents could log in to verify students are turning in their homework or get a heads up before the parent-teacher conferences if their child's grades are suffering. The reality is that some teachers are good about getting assignments and test results input in a timely manner. Some wait and do weeks worth of assignments in one batch. Others input all of the term's assignments at the beginning and add results as they get turned in/graded, meaning student grades gradually move from failing to the final earned grade once the last exam result is added. The grades shown on the online portal had nearly nothing to do with the reality in the classroom and ended up being counterproductive. I'm glad I no longer have to deal with that system. Worse yet, many parents of college age students expect their university to offer this same portal, despite the fact that it would be illegal for schools to do so without written permission from the student. It's been eye-opening to see parents on one message board I follow furious that they can't know their student's grades up to the minute. I can't imagine how awful those parent-child relationships must be.