Back in October I wrote a proposal for the use of Google Docs (as part of Edu Apps) to deliver online reporting to parents at our school. The original blog post proved incredibly useful in sparking some debate about the use of such cloud based tools for reporting to parents. It also brought about some challenges and raised questions in the blog comments, again very useful to help me better understand the whole idea.

I have been exploring the resulting responses on and off for the last 9 months or so and this blog post is an update about the project and some information I have discovered along the way that may prove useful.

Just to cover some background once again, here in the UK the government is planning for real-time online reporting by the target year of 2010 for secondary schools and 2012 for all primary schools. According to the previous Schools Minister Jim Knight back in January ‘08:

Real time reporting will deepen the school-parent relations and is not a substitute for regular personal contact with teachers. Effective technology systems can actually significantly cut the staff workloads – but it has to be to be manageable for individual schools and meaningful for parents.

The aim is to develop a real-time reporting system that means parents will be able to access frequently updated information on children’s achievement, progress, attendance, behaviour and special needs wherever, whenever they want.

One of the very first things that people said would be a problem was the location of data centres and where the data is held according to EU law. The second issue that recently arose was the idea of two factor authentication for online reporting.

I have carefully explored and researched these two things and have summarised what I have found out below.
Where the data would be held. In the BECTA document “Keeping data secure safe and legal” it stipulates that organisations must:

Ensure that personal data is not exported outside the European Economic Area (EEA) unless EU Model Contracts or (BCRs) are in place.

However I discovered something called the Safe Harbour agreement which is intended to regulate the way personal data from the 15 EU states is exported and dealt with by US organisations. Safe Harbour ensures US companies can compete within these regulations and that they meet or exceed the stringent guidelines for data storage. This is not referred to in the BECTA document but in my opinion should be as it is a crucial. Google have signed this agreement and so it provides the opportunity to work with Google Docs within the guidelines of EU law and what BECTA have suggested.

Two Factor Authentication. Again from the same BECTA document it states that organisations must protect confidential information with two-factor authentication and some people have said to me that this is needed for online reporting, and as Google Docs does not have this it cannot be used. However I have found that:

The type and amount of data that will be made available online to parents is such that they should not need two-factor authentication for online reporting.

Taken from “Good practice in information handling: Secure remote access” BECTA. Although two-factor authentication may not be needed it is important to consider the types of data that will be included in the online report, this will need to be outlined with my headteacher as we work out the finer details.

Each of my pupils will have a personal login to Google Docs as part of our work in Year 5 which could be utilised for parents to access the report as well. In this way it will foster the sense of sharing the report between parent and child throughout the year. Generating logins for all of the parents may cause some issues with management and exceed the maximum number of users for the Google Ed Apps domain – but it is not out of the question. I am not certain which is the best option yet.

I am pretty confident from my research into these initial barriers that using Google Docs for online reporting is safe and within the guidelines set out by BECTA. Also contributing to this is further conversations I have had with representatives from Google and BECTA. I am yet to get a firm decision from my headteacher based upon the information, but I am hopeful of a full year long pilot beginning in the next academic year.

Alongside presenting my research to my headteacher I also offered three basic options for the layout and formatting of an online report using Google Docs. The structure of the three reports is similar in that they each have a space for the teacher, pupil and the parent to leave a remark or make a comment. I think this is important as it has the potential to build up a great dialogue about the pupil’s learning throughout the course of the year.

We have to make a decision about how the rest of the document will be organised and how the comments will be structured. Three possible ways include: based upon individual primary curriculum subjects, in much the same way the current end of year reports are organised. I have my doubts about just taking this old way of working because the way we are currently working is at odds to pigeon-holing learning neatly into subject labelled boxes. (Google Doc link)

The second possibility is using curriculum topics. We are moving to shorter curriculum topics for each half term next year in Year 5 and so there will be 6 different spaces for comments. As there would be no immediate distinction about subjects we may need to consider how clear the information is. I think this structure would provide parents with good signposts along the year as to what is going on in the classroom and also from a teacher’s point of view a simple structure to follow. (Google Doc link)

The last option was suggested by my headteacher, who said why not use the 6 areas of learning from the Rose Review. (Google Doc link)

• Understanding English, communication and languages;
• Mathematical understanding;
• Scientific and technological understanding;
• Human, social and environmental understanding;
• Understanding physical health and well-being;
• Understanding the arts and design.

This would be a bold move and would be a great opportunity to link up the assessment and reporting with what is going on in the curriculum. As a teacher it would make me look at what I am teaching in light of the 6 areas and engage with the concept on a much deeper level.

(Please be aware that these three Google Doc layouts are very much version 1.0 – I have yet to refine them, so go easy on me! But your comments and suggestions for improvements will be really useful to help shape what we might achieve with the docs.)

I have also added into the Google Docs above a simple mocked up comment to illustrate the idea about our healthy eating unit and some images that could be used as well. Nothing spectacular about that, but it would provide a simple way for such evidence to be linked with and sit directly alongside reporting to parents.

The last thing that I want to explore is the whole idea of the “report”. In my original post I said that perhaps we need to unlearn some things that have been in place for a long time. Certainly the whole concept of an end of year report is in danger of becoming defunct. The online version will allow parents access whenever they want to check on updates and progress throughout the year.

With this in mind my headteacher said to me on Friday that perhaps it may become a “conversation” rather than a “report”. I suppose he is right and that we all want to build stronger, more meaningful relationships with the families of the children in our care. Simply put, we know that more easily accessible information about what is going on in school will catalyse this. Does it need to always be very formalised? I no longer want it to be a case of me sitting down and writing some remarks at the end of a year and “reporting” to parents with a few days to go. The ongoing and timely nature of access will help improve communication and along with face to face meetings will keep the children’s learning at the centre of what we do.

The name “report” is contestable and you will see in the basic versions I have submitted in Google Doc form that I have used “portfolio” – which is the closest I can get to what I mean. It has the potential to be many things including that of showing off work to parents, but then maybe there are better platforms for that such as a pupil blog. Although not hugely important the name will set the tone for what is being attempted – a “report” is one way, whereas a “conversation” is a shared experience. Maybe a “Learning Conversation” is what is needed that allows pupil, parents and the teacher to share what is going on in the classroom, both the challenges and successes.

I believe that the research and exploration I have done (so far) does open the door to use Google Docs for online reporting, I feel confident that whatever decision we make as a school will be based upon the best information to hand. Importantly the use of Google Docs does allow us as a school to tailor the report to our exact needs, the needs of pur pupils and parents. Additionally it is free to use and online reporting with Google Ed Apps could be an important part of an open source virtual learning environment alternative.