Community Engagement Project

Avoiding "I'm Bored!" This Summer

1. Goals

-To provide parents with an outlet to connect with other parents and teachers in the district to discuss possible summer adventures. 

-To provide parents with a resource filled with useful books, websites, and tips on how to keep their middle-schooler busy during summer vacations. 

-To encourage the collaborative relationship between parents and teachers. 

-To increase parent involvement through tweets, blog comments, and photo sharing.

2. Audience: The targeted audience for this website would be district-wide families. 

3. Measurable Outcomes: 

-Data derived from WW Parent Survey: Assess the need by district parents and update resources based on parent feedback. 

-Tweets: Assess the number of tweets by parents, students, teachers, and administrators. Offer incentives for teachers to participate in the usage of hashtags and re-tweets in order to spread the word. #TeacherSummerBucketList #MomSummerBucketList #AvoidImBored #WhatIDidToday

-Comments on the blog and Photos/Videos shared by families: Evaluate participation by district families and asses the need for sharing outlets. 

-Website counter: To keep track of how many parents are utilizing the site. 

4. Logistics for implementing plan: 

-Teachers will be encouraged to share the website link "Avoiding 'I'm Bored!' This Summer" on their teacher-pages. 

-District Technology staff will have content prepared for roll-out by the beginning of May in order to build up interest and buy-in from district families. 

-Teachers will be surveyed in order to ask for volunteers to tweet and blog alongside celebrity blogger, Miss Malone in order to raise awareness.  

5. Assessment Criteria

-Parent feedback from survey results

-Parent comments, photo sharing, and tweets

-Teacher blog posts to reflect need of resources (based on surveys, tweets, and comments) 

Digital Tools:

1. Teacher Blog: The "Celebrity Teacher Blog" will be used to keep parents up-to-date and engaged over the summer months. Ideally, a teacher will volunteer to blog about summer adventures to share with the district families. Teacher involvement will inspire students to participate in order to be featured on the district website, Celebrity teacher blog, and twitter. A weekly teacher blog will provide parents with fresh and new ideas to try out with their kids. For students who have had this teacher in the past, it is a great way to stay in touch. It will also target a group of students entering the building as they get to know this blogging teacher before the school year begins. It is my hope that the district and teacher will collaborate in order to feature administrators, board members, and other teachers on the blog and Twitter in order to gain more interest and attention. 

2. Twitter: Social media is a magical thing and Twitter provides the district with the opportunity to be 'shared' with people everywhere! With everyone's busy schedules, Twitter is very appealing. In 140 characters or less, parents, students, and teachers are able to tweet #WhatIDidToday and share their summer adventures! #TeacherSummerBucketList #MomSummerBucketList #AvoidingImBored 

3. YouTube Videos: Convincing middle-school students can be tough work! Reading, tweeting, and engaging in conversations may not always work, that's where videos come in! Parents can view 'Places to Visit' and sample GoNoodle videos that they are able to easily share with their child. Tweet it to them, text it, or even shoot them an email. In the technology-age, a quick video-clip will help spark interest and provide visual depictions of what can be expected of an outdoor location or website resource. 

4. Google Forms- Parent Survey: By utilizing a brief parent-survey, district administrators, teachers, and the technology department will be able to assess the needs of district families. Rather than continuing to find resources that the district finds appealing, surveying the target audience will provide the best direction for website administrators to consider when updating. This will also be useful for the 'Celebrity Teacher Blogger' in order to highlight areas of need. For example, if the survey produces a large request of 'Places to Travel,' Miss Malone can conduct research on affordable places to visit throughout her summer adventures. 

5. Paired Website- GoNoodle: The best made plans always need a back-up, especially for those rainy days! Pairing GoNoodle will help parents find an interactive website that they can show to their students, rather than having them lay on the couch and playing apps on their iPhone. 

6. Paired Website- Middle-School Must-Reads: The hardest part of getting a child to read is finding something that they enjoy. By providing the top 10 books a middle-schooler should read, and a list of suggestions by their beloved teachers, it is my hope that users will be inspired to pick up a book and read over the summer! I would pair the summer reading list with the Blog and Twitter by having the celebrity teacher highlight one of the books that she is currently reading, and also happens to be on the Must-Reads for Middle-Schoolers!