Digital Ethnography Reflection with Lesson Plan Link

As I thought about my video ethnography and lesson plan I was overwhelmed.  Where was I going to start?  What was something that I can do to show who I am?  For those of you that know me this caused many sleepless nights and then it came to me.

My principal had told me that my school district is looking at increasing parent involvement at my school and across the district this upcoming school year.  I have a good relationship with a lot of families at my school and she asked that prior to school starting I meet with her to discuss ways to increase parent/family involvement. 

My school is the only neighbor school in the entire district, this means that all of my students are within walking distance to the school.  Even though we are close to student’s homes there is a lack of parent involvement.  We no longer have a PTO or School Governance Council (basically a PTO that we tried a few years ago) even after moving the meeting to drop off time in the morning.  This past school year we tried “Circle of Care”, a support and educational group for parents and caregivers.  The most parents we had a meeting was FIVE.  We are a school with three hundred children and only five parents came to these meetings. This begs the question, “How can we get parents involved and stay involved’?  Which leads me to my ethnography.

My ethnography shows how with family and friends involvement students can receive support to help them be successful.  My ethnography is going to be used during Kindergarten Open House.  I want to show parents that with their support at home and my support at school this will help their children and their education.  I also want to use my ethnography to show my Kindergartners how family doesn’t have to be a direct relative but instead a group of people that care about them and their success.  Our School Motto is “Together We’re Better”; I think my ethnography shows that.

One of our Social Studies units is Individual Development/Identity and my ethnography lesson fits perfectly into that.  My students will get to learn a little bit more about me in a fun way.  It will be a little tough for my students to complete their own ethnography online so instead I will have them work on their family tree and important people in their lives. Students will then get to share it with their classmates and then post it to the classroom blog.

I am looking forward to sharing my ethnography with my students and their families.  It is a fun way for them to learn about me.  I was anxious about sharing my ethnography with family and friends but I wanted to hear their thoughts before I put it out for the world to see.  Everyone said that it was totally me with the pictures (don’t mind the crazy hair styles) and the music.  What I wanted them to understand is that I am where I am because of them and their support and encouragement that I have achieved many successes.  So even though this ethnography was an overwhelming task it was worth it and I look forward to using it in the future.