Graduate Project Portfolios

Graduate student in the Educational Communications and Technology Program at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.

• First Name: Cindy
• Last Name: Seibel
• Official Website Address: http://tech4learning.ca
• Blog Address: http://blog.tech4learning.ca
• City/Region: Alberta
• Country: Canada

The approach taken to collect and document portal requirements honoured the voices of parents and teachers and represented best practice in technology solutions. The storied voices were woven to best represent the needs of parents, teachers, principals, district staff and trustees. The methodology is anchored in ISO standards and best practice presented in the literature.

For purposes of this project, only some approaches (focused conversation, storyboarding) were used to collect preliminary requirements for use in the Implementation Guide. The full range of approaches are available and recommended in a live implementation. Click here to download the background paper describing the requirements model used.

There is a significant body of research demonstrating the contribution of parent engagement to student learning. Based on this research, school districts are implementing technology solutions to support and improve relationships with parents with the hope of producing improved student outcomes. This project created an Implementation Guide for one technology solution, a K-12 Parent Portal. The proposal is available here or can be downloaded from the Files to Download section on this page.

The online version of the Implementation Guide [click to launch] provides a rich set of tools including templates and resource links.

Individual pages may be printed or produced as a pdf file from the web site or download the full pdf version from the "Files to Download" section on this page.

Annotated Bibliography - Parent 2.0 wiki.
Focused conversation - Parent 2.0 Interactive
Building a Parent Portal - Parent 2.0 wiki

This is my opportunity to publicly thank and acknowledge those folks who have figured prominently in my being able to bring this work to a public forum, and to whom I am grateful for the learning context that allowed me to personalize my own learning.

My husband and daughter have sacrificed my attention over the last nineteen months and I am very grateful for their support.

My graduate advisor, Dr. Richard A. Schwier at the University of Saskatchewan has been my mentor and cheerleader (I use that term in the most respectful way), pushing me to a level of critical thinking and knowledge that I would not have found on my own.

Dr. Alec Couros of the University of Regina guided me to the online world of educational technology professionals where reflective learning happens and gave me purpose in refreshing my hands-on technical skills.

And to those many dedicated teachers and learners in my personal learning network, I only hope I have supported your meaning-making in some small way after you have contributed so much to mine.

Cindy Seibel

My background in technical systems development prepared me in knowing that I needed to understand the topic area before I embarked on building a solution. So my journey began with a detailed literature review of the topic of parent engagement. At the same time I also searched for a methodology for collecting and documenting the requirements for an online Parent Portal.

I wrote, tweeted, blogged and webcast my work, seeking feedback and comments which were readily included in the Guide under development. Below you will find descriptions of the various facets of my journey, that culminated in the production of the Guide now available at http://portalguide.tech4learning.ca. Click on the title to be directed to the page.

• Literature Review
• Ethics
• Building My Network
• Parent 2.0 Wiki website
• Blogs
• Parent Meetings
• Parent 2.0 Interactive website
• Parents as Partners Webcast