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"THE federal government's scheme providing high school students with laptop computers is on the brink of collapse, leaving parents with hefty bills and educators with a chaotic start to the school year. Schools are already telling parents they must lease approved laptops for pupils this year, at a cost of hundreds of dollars. Some are telling students to bring their own computers, raising a raft of problems around internet capacity, security and provision of software, as well as placing pressure on low-income families."

Post by US teacher (@tedrosececi) "Here are 10 ideas I have gathered this summer to kick parent communication up to the next level so that never again will they have to ask, "What'd you do at school today?" and hear the annoying, "nothing." Instead, parents will have already experienced the wonderful things that have been happening in their child's world and dinner table discussions will turn into celebrations and extensions of the learning happening at school."

"Here are 10 ideas I have gathered this summer to kick parent communication up to the next level so that never again will they have to ask, "What'd you do at school today?" and hear the annoying, "nothing." Instead, parents will have already experienced the wonderful things that have been happening in their child's world and dinner table discussions will turn into celebrations and extensions of the learning happening at school."

SNApps4Kids is a volunteer community of parents, therapists, doctors, and teachers who share information on how we are using the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices with children who have special needs. We have found these mobile devices to provide accessibility for children who may have been previously disengaged from the world because of challenging language, motor, or other developmental delays. Given the rising number of apps on the market and the diverse skills of children with special needs, parents have found each other to be one of the best resources for choosing apps to enhance everyday life for our children. While our group is primarily parent-driven, our efforts are naturally collaborative with the people who help our children develop particular skills - therapists and educators.

"Parents across the globe today - from Lagos to Los Angeles and from Myanmar to Moscow - need to have a new conversation with their kids. No, it's not about how their kids are behaving in class, why they should never talk to strangers, or when they need to be home at night. It's not even the talk that parents usually brace themselves for, about sex. It's something new, something parents never considered as a critical issue 20 or 10 or even 5 years ago - but something that is just as pervasive as any of the other issues in their children's lives and, in so many ways, just as important. It's data permanence. How we can preserve our reputations in the digital era?"

Infographic based on the findings of Living and Learning with Mobile Devices, a report by Grunwald Associates and the Learning First Alliance, with generous support from AT, highlights the perceptions of parents of a mobile generation, from preschoolers through high school-age students. With schools' increasingly interested in using mobile devices to engage students, parents should be encouraged (and supported) to work with the schools as we move into this new style of education.

A safe way for teachers to text message students and stay in touch with parents. Free.

Serious issue - just starting

Being a parent has always been challenging but it has become more tough today than the previous generation. Parenting today has become a difficult, complex and often exhausting task. Hazards of "too much TV" compounded by the proliferation of mobile devices and gaming consoles are the major contributors and influences.

"Parents often fear technology. They worry that their children might be exposed to inappropriate pornographic or violent content online, or be negatively influenced or explicitly hurt by a stranger through social media. After hearing news coverage of horrific events, parents also fret that their kids might be bullied or bully someone else using digital tools."

"This paper aims to provide a framework for the digital literacy of parents based on four sets of skills: (1) privacy, content and technology management; (2) communication and socio-emotional skills: (3) creative and problemsolving skills; (4) life-long learning to keep abreast of digital literacy skills."

Some very interesting data from the US about what parents want in terms of communication (blogs, email etc).

There are now tens of thousands of educational apps in the marketplace and standing out from the crowd is no simple task. Here are ten of the best marketing strategies to get parents to download your educational app for their … Continue reading →

Our pace of life should not be a race against the clock Very often, the cause is to be found on the side of the excessive occupation of the young and their lack of rest. Parents, wanting to give them the best and see them succeed, sometimes do too much. As soon as the school is finished, the children go on with their extracurricular activities (sports, music, language lessons), their homework, bathing, dinner ... They follow the rhythm of life, often hectic, of their parents forever do more and better. A race against the clock difficult to hold in the long term for children as adults.

"Schoolchildren are at risk of having their online activity tracked and monitored for targeted advertising by internet firms through free cloud based education services. A survey has found that many parents do not know about data mining - the process of tracking email and web browsing habits in order to target advertising - but once they do they have grave concerns for their kids' online privacy, and believe schools need to do more to protect it. The survey commissioned by American IT industry group SafeGov asked 1000 Australian parents about their knowledge of data mining."

"Not that long ago, there was only the television, which theoretically could be kept in the parents' bedroom or locked behind a cabinet. Now there are smartphones and iPads, which wash up in the domestic clutter alongside keys and gum and stray hair ties. "Mom, everyone has technology but me!" my 4-year-old son sometimes wails. And why shouldn't he feel entitled? In the same span of time it took him to learn how to say that sentence, thousands of kids' apps have been developed-the majority aimed at preschoolers like him. To us (his parents, I mean), American childhood has undergone a somewhat alarming transformation in a very short time. But to him, it has always been possible to do so many things with the swipe of a finger, to have hundreds of games packed into a gadget the same size as Goodnight Moon."

When it comes to using technology in school, the tension between what students and parents want and what schools allow is becoming more apparent - and more divisive. Students want more control over how they use technology in school, but many classrooms are still making it difficult. That's according to the most recent Speak Up 2011 report, "Mapping a Personalized Learning Journey," which reflects the views of more than 416,000 K-12 students, parents, and educators nationwide surveyed on how technology can enhance the learning environment.

Quote: "Parents who push their children to work hard at school have a bigger impact on their child's academic success than their teachers, research suggests."