What is the SWIS Webwise Parent Ambassador Group? I was very fortunate to attend an excellent workshop by Matt Harris, ED.Dat 21stCentury Learning Hong Kong (21CLHK) in March 2018. At the time Matt was Deputy Head (Whole School) for Learning Technology, British School Jakarta, Indonesia. He is now an International EdTech consultant working with international schools throughout the world. Matt Harris had spent several years implementing an extensive Digital Citizenship program at BS Jakarta prior to the HK workshop. This involved many different aspects including working with the teachers, parents, students and leadership to develop a program that could be considered the benchmark for international schools throughout the world. You can download his presentation and read more about the program.
At BS Jakarta they formed a ‘Parent Ambassador Program’, which included:
Training for a select group of active parents;
Certificates;
Common language for digital citizenship across the school;
First line of resources for the parent body.
After attending this outstanding workshop at 21CLHK, I shared Matt’s ideas with Ms.Rene Ren and together we decided to form the ‘SWIS Webwise Parent Ambassador’ in September 2018 to mirror the approach advocated by Matt at BS Jakarta.
This year we decided to form the group by inviting all 31 class parent representatives each month to offer help, support and training.
For more information on specific roles and responsibilities of the group as well as a mountain of excellent resources we created this Padlet to share with all parents
SWIS Webwise Parent Presentation
Joyce Ma, Qin Qin, Feifei Cai and Santy Patel were the presenters at the 1st SWIS Webwise Parent Presentation in the SWIS Theatre. The presentation started with an excellent Ted Talk by Sara DeWitt entitled ‘3 fears about screen time for kids – and why they’re not true’. Our parent presenters shared lots of advice and tips to the audience as well as personal experiences and how they dealt with them. The main point that was stressed during the presentation was the importance of communication between parents and their children about these issues.
Another important point stressed was the need to focus onthe quality of the Screen Time not the quantity and also on the ‘4C’s of Innovation and Learning’:
•Creativity and Innovation •Critical Thinking •Communication •Collaboration
Where can I find out more?
The full presentation is available to download here. All the Digital Citizenship resources are available to parents on the Padlet. It is our intention to set up a Digital Citizenship WeChat Subscription in the coming months for easier and faster access to resources.
Following the presentation we recorded two podcasts on SWIS ROC Radio (in English and Chinese) in which you will hear all about the roles and responsibilities of this group, why we meet, what we do and how you can join along to our monthly meetings. The podcasts are available as mp3 files on the Official SWIS Wechat Subscription.
You can also find out more about technology at SWIS including STEM activities such as Coding and Robotics on our Innovation Website
Come and Join the SWIS Webwise Parent Ambassador Group; for more information contact your class parent representative.
Ms. Rene Ren and I would personally like to thank all the parents who attended the monthly sessions of the SWIS Webwise Parent Ambassador Group since October and especially the parents who took on the responsibility of presenting on Friday.