Do you contact parents via email?

With a ratio of two to one, teachers report that they contact parents via email. This is fairly significant but will probably continue to grow in the future as more people gain access to home computers and as the teaching workforce becomes populated with younger members more at home with electronic messaging systems. Most teachers are tech savvy enough to have figured out email even if they didn't grow up with it. For the upcoming generation of teachers who have had access to email since birth, however, their familiarity and comfort with this form of communication is that much greater.

Contacting parents via email is very beneficial for a number of reasons. Elementary age students are likely to pass on notes or messages coming from their teacher than are their older counterparts. What teenager wouldn't be tempted to lose the teacher's note on the way home if they know it talks about their bad behaviour or lack of motivation? Presenting that communiqu� at the dinner table would certainly put a dent in the lively dinner conversation.

Email is also a convenient way to communicate with parents when a short time frame for response is required. By the time teachers prepare a notice to go home, then the office staff duplicates it, then it goes back to the classroom teacher to hand out, then students need to remember to take it home and give it to their parents the event or activity that the notice was about could very well be over. Email allows for the instantaneous dissemination of information and a response time that is almost as quick. With the advent of Blackberrys and similar devices that allow people to receive email where ever they may be, response times are even quicker.

Perhaps in the future teachers will communicate by text message to their students' parents. Forget having to get to a computer, teachers can send and receive messages from anywhere. We'll receive things like: J did well on test btw. Txt if ur still concerned. K? On second thought, let's stick to email where the English language still makes sense.