A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Introduction

"In today's fast-paced, information-based world, in which we seem to have ever less free time, it is important to develop innovative, practical, and productive ways to help parents find the time to connect with their children and communities to strengthen the bonds with their schools. Technology can be this kind of tool, by supplementing traditional learning, providing creative methods of teaching, and building and enhancing links between businesses, families, and schools. Businesses have an important role in integrating these kinds of technology into the workplace both to increase productivity and to facilitate employee communications with their children's schools and improve learning. This report is an important guide to what we can and should do to further these kinds of connections."

—Richard W. Riley
U.S. Secretary of Education

The future success of the United States depends on the ability of today's students to meet national demands for high-tech workers, educated consumers, and responsible citizens. Students with technology skills can create new products, solve problems, and deliver quality work instrumental to the prosperity of the United States. If all of today's students do not have access to technology opportunities, their future and, indeed, the future of the nation itself are in jeopardy.

Preparing students for a high-tech future is a monumental challenge that no one stakeholder group can overcome alone. Family involvement is a key ingredient in efforts aimed at helping young Americans meet high educational expectations, standards, and achievement. However, such involvement will only partially succeed if it stands in isolation. When combined with dedicated participation from corporate America, the potential for great progress can be harnessed to break the barriers of time and place to achieve bottom-line objectives for a wide range of stakeholders: employers and employees, families, schools, teachers, students, and the community-at-large.

How can business help meet these challenges as a community stakeholder? What roles can it play in this effort? And how can technology tools be used to support, facilitate, and guide this process of strengthening employee and family involvement in education? Using Technology to Strengthen Employee and Family Involvement in Education provides some answers to these questions through a variety of research, survey data, and case studies about corporate experiences.

This report demonstrates how businesses can use technology to foster, guide, and strengthen employee and family involvement in education within both their companies and their communities through efforts that:

• support professional/skills development for teachers, families, and students;

• strengthen community-based learning;

• better prepare the workforce;

• support educational improvement for special populations; and

• make technology integral to schooling and learning.

Business believes that investments in technology can help increase a school's capacity to accomplish its goals, efficiency, and effectiveness. With technology comes many new and complex management issues for schools (as it has for business). Technology can be used to:

• communicate between families/homes and schools on student progress and school activities;

• automate a range of administrative tasks (budgets, purchasing, hiring, scheduling, maintenance);

• help schools make better decisions about the management and delivery of instruction;

• provide access to and improve professional development;

• improve learning and students' attitudes about learning;

• assess, analyze, and report student performance, and use data to improve student learning; and

• develop and implement a school's technology infrastructure, including investments in hardware and software, maintenance, upgrading, networks, software research and development, and ongoing coordination and support.

Business also knows that the understanding, use, and application of interactive digital technologies foster exploratory environments. Children who talk and listen while working on school projects can be stimulated, engaged, and sustained in verbalization, discussion, and collaborative learning. Interaction, collaboration, and problem-solving (as well as self-confidence) are also furthered through computer simulations, telecommunications, long-distance learning, and telecommunications connections to real-world resources.
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[Executive Summary]

[Challenges and Solutions]