Use WordPress to communicate with students and parents!
What Is WordPress
WordPress is a web-based publishing software. Site admin (teachers and students) are able to create pages that contain text, links to other WordPress/internet pages or files, pictures, and videos. If the site admin chooses, then a page can allow for viewers to ‘reply’, creating an interactive ‘blog’ or digital chat.
Why has SD79 chosen to create it’s own WordPress Network?
Privacy and interactivity are two key reasons for SD79 to develop and host on district servers our own WordPress Network.
Privacy: FOIPPA regulations advised that student data be hosted within Canada. By hosting our own WordPress Network, SD79 users have timely access by tech and school administrators without having to go through additional layers of another organization.
Interactivity: All teachers and students have their own WordPress site within the SD79 Learn Network. Parents have access to view/write where the admin gives permission – either a teacher OR a child(ten) that is linked to a parent. This site is ‘private’ by nature, although users can choose to make specific pages public. This means you have to have an account on the SD79 Learn Network in order to be able to view the sites. This permits:
- teachers to communicate with students and parents about what is happening in the classroom
- teachers to collaborate with teachers, students to collaborate with students independent of the physical site they are attending in SD79
- students to collaborate with their teacher on the teacher WordPress OR within their own WordPress.
- students learn to work within the virtual environment in a safe, responsible manner
What are the advantages of using a WordPress site?
There are many advantages in time saving to have students and parents add to their daily routines a visit to a classroom WordPress site. Just a few advantages that supports independence on the student’s part in the organization of their learning include:
- post the information once – and students and parents can review the day using the information as a guide
- include links to additional information to support learning
- provides information to absent students as to what is happening in the class during their absence
- provide digital copies of newsletters, forms, and other communications so that lost items can be ‘self-located’ on the classroom site
- create a page for a unit that is being ‘studied’ this year, and then retain the pages as ‘private’ so that they can be simply updated next year, rather than recreated
Ready to begin? Start by learning how to customize a basic WordPress site to communicate to students (and parents). Click Here!