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Very well thought out guide to parent engagement and building the school-home connection. Recommend to all CL consultants taht you distribute this to your parent coordinators and principals.

Teens hide online information "in plain sight" using coded language to convey their feelings to their friends while preserving the illusion of transparency with their parents.

Danah Boyd is a great thinker about internet issues. Great post about teens engaged in steganography, hiding online info in plain sight.

Nice list of free web 2.0 tools designed for educators. Useful for connecting school to home and involving parents.

I'd like to share several different perspectives on homework that may inform the work we do with our schools. "Meaningful homework should be purposeful, efficient, personalized, doable, and inviting. Most important, students must be able to freely communicate with teachers when they struggle with homework, knowing they can admit that they don't understand a task-and can do so without penalty." As recently as last year, I found myself comforting special ed students who simply could not handle the volume of homework, some crying out of fear of disappointing their ELA teacher (who would immediately send a "missing homework" email to the parent). I worked hard on homework accommodations for these students, but their feelings of inadequacy were fueled by a lack of teacher understanding of their needs -- a focus on deficits as opposed to strengths, and an unwillingness to offer differentiated assignments.

What if...a teacher "flipped" students' learning experience so the lecture/mini-lesson happened at home or outside of school time, and homework --applied learning -- happened in the classroom? How could a parent participate in this process? We may not be there yet (especially due to internet access issues), but we're on our way!