Recipient Organization
UNIV OF MINNESOTA
(N/A)
ST PAUL,MN 55108
Performing Department
Family Social Science
Non Technical Summary
Information and communications technology (ICT, a term generally applied) plays a significant role in helping parents maintain social ties ties (Connell, 2012; Plantin & Danebeck, 2009). Parents use ICT to complement their contacts offline, employ a range of devices and activities to stay connected, and vary use by intimate member (e.g., cell phones to connect with children school age and older and partners; Skype and Facebook to connect with extended and non-residential family). Parents may also have identity communities with other parents, with whom they exchange information and support. When these ties are facilitated by professionals such communities can be meaningful learning communities. ICT certainly offers possibilities for maintaining and extending the effect of these personal communities. And some parents find access to others otherwise unavailable to them in their offline lives - for instance, other parents with a child with a disability or those from another culture (Scharer, 2005). The Internet holds real possibilities for helping parents find new communities and forge connections with those who can provide support.The project described here continues work from the previous AES-funded proposal that laid the necessary theoretical and empirical foundation for the design and implementation of a virtual platform design to enhance parent learning through social connections started in community-based early childhood family education program. Using participatory design research, the Parentopia social learning platform was developed to operate as a complement to the ECFE program in Minnesota, yet with an eye to its use in other settings with parents (e.g., Head Start, child care centers). The purpose of the platform is to facilitate the continuity of parents' active learning and support as a community, while integrating the personal social networks (e.g., partners in parenting, information from networks) and exposing them to opportunities to cultivate larger, more diverse community ties (Walker, 2015). The platform, as delivered through a school district program, holds the potential to foster early patterns and comfort in parent-teacher communication, and in building a sense of trust by parents in school settings.Initial implementation of the platform revealed that while theoretically promising, transition to mobile devices and the need for a more flexible, social-focused platform was needed. The current project will take advantage of a redesigned, tested and operational platform, now employed in four ECFE programs (n= 326 accounts) with planned expansion to at least four more in the coming academic year. By February of 2019, the platform will have been in use for at least one full year. It will also take advantage of rich data collected after launch of the redesigned platform via in-depth interviews with parents, staff and ECFE administrators regarding learning in ECFE and the integration of technology. This 3-year grant cycle will further explore the platform's use and satisfaction by staff and parents, integration into existing program operations (e.g., staff comfort, technology needs, support for parent use), its impact on program engagement, feelings of community connectivity, social support and social capital, and parenting and child outcomes and facets of platform design that complement face-to-face learning.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
10%
Applied
50%
Developmental
40%
Goals / Objectives
Explore staff and parent parentopia (user) behavior related to short term outcomes (use, satisfaction) over time to understand differences by ECFE role (parent, staff, admin), device type (mobile), platform features and content related to the ECFE program. (This will take place in year 1.) To sustain platform use and scale up, document platform program implementation requirements, including staff investments and administrative supports, accountability and effectiveness measurement within ECFE program operations will be observed and recorded. (This will take places in years 1 and 2. )During an active program year of operation, assess changes in social structures (e.g., network membership), social processes (social capital, perceived social support), parenting (parenting confidence, knowledge, maternal mental health) and child outcomes attributed to program participation and platform use. (This will take place across years 2 and 3. )
Project Methods
Objective 1. Explore staff and parent parentopia (user) behavior related to short term outcomes (use, satisfaction) over time to understand differences by ECFE role (parent, staff, admin), device type (mobile), platform features and content related to the ECFE program. Personalized learning is a new wave of interest in education. This encourages the tailoring of designed spaces and tools for individuals to create best learning environments (PLE, or personalized learning environments). Although this concept has been explored with regard to learning by K-16 students, the concept can apply to adults as well. Parentopia offers the chance to explore quite simply, for whom a virtual platform extending social interaction, and access to program content and community resources best suits learning and support needs. Theoretically we might assume that parents who are more socially isolated would benefit from a mechanism to maintain social connections beyond the weekly visits. We might find that those whose cultural norms value family and community appreciate a virtual space to continue sharing information about their children. We might also hold a more technological hypothesis that finds user comfort as a key to platform use.As the parentopia platform expands in the size and number of parents and staff who use it, we will have data for descriptive study to explore these intersections of use and user characteristics and program and learning desires. Full use of the platform during an ECFE school year will require documentation by individual users, by pages, and by features on the platform (e.g., calendar). Use is also to be documented by how classes use the platform, how it is used by the whole program, and by parents' social network members. Data will be collected over the course of two program years to detect trends. In addition, surveys will be conducted with parents and staff on their motivations, challenges and perceptions about platform use.Because parentopia is unique from other social engagement platforms (e.g., Facebook), early childhood or family engagement software (e.g., SeeSaw, Schoology) through its emphasis on parents' social groups and staff inclusion, it also permits observation of the role and investment of professionals in technology integration. Which are the staff for whom a platform like parentopia whose teaching and support to parents for their learning is enhanced? To what degree might the reciprocal interaction between parents and staff be a powerful motivator for staff use of technology for some, whereas for others, using other features or no technology at all is desired? These observations lend themselves to lessons that can empower future directions for technology use in non-formal settings.Objective 2. To sustain platform use and scale up, document platform program implementation requirements, including staff investments and administrative supports, accountability and effectiveness measurement within ECFE program operations will be observed and recorded. ECFE operates in a public school system as a weekly two-hour program for parents and young children. The program employs licensed early childhood teachers and licensed parent educators and teaching assistants. ECFE has been in operation for 40 years in the state. As an ongoing program, integration of a web-based platform for social engagement and enhanced learning must align with program policies, and must be adopted as part of the traditional program delivery and participation culture. To make the platform sustainable it is important to understand which policies and procedures are needed to integrate a web presence into operations. This will include enrollment of new accounts with parents registered for the program, new additions and changes in enrollment, how teachers integrate the platform in teaching (e.g., discussion posts, announcements), existing policies (e.g., photo sharing; non-participant accounts), staff time for platform maintenance and use, needs for staff training and technical support. Records from staff and parent meetings, observations of site and parent classes, and interviews with staff, parents and administrators over the course of a school year will provide the necessary documentation.Objective 3. During an active program year of operation, assess changes in social structures (networks), social processes (social capital, perceived social support), parenting (parenting confidence, knowledge, maternal mental health) and child outcomes attributed to program participation and platform use. Process impacts from use of the platform include the social structures of parents' lives (e.g., increase strength of social ties between class members, increase the number of connections across class membership and with inclusion of personal social network members) social processes (enhance perceived social capital, increased perception of types of social support) that indicate feelings of connectedness and perception of resources from others. Receipt of social connectedness and social support and processes of social learning facilitated by licensed professionals that complement the offline (face-to-face classroom) experience is expected to affect child development and parenting knowledge, parent confidence, parent mental health, and parenting practices. It is essential to understand if use of the parentopia platform contributes to these outcomes, and how it contributes relative to participation in ECFE and similar benefit from face-to-face participation. Measures of these variables will be taken at the beginning of the school year, and will be taken at 9-month (school year) time points. Parent variables as controls may include age, child age, length of participation, and socioeconomic status, depending on what is learned in Objective 1. It is possible that other factors will indicate variation in use that would need to be factored in to test platform x program benefits. Within group analysis will look at the degree to which and which aspects of platform engagement contributed to identified outcomes. This work builds on existing data from our 6 years of design and implementation of the parentopia platform. We have extensive notes from our meetings with ECFE staff and parents, and ongoing observations from roll out of the platform to new sites. We have heard the voices of parents and staff and administrators as to their 'joys and concerns' with the adoption of an innovation, particularly when program operations face instability due to budget constraints and staff and building changes. In the spring of 2017 in-depth interviews with 25 parents and 15 ECFE staff allowed us to explore thoughts about the use of technology in ECFE, and specifically on the adoption and use of parentopia. We are in the process of analyzing these interviews to explore these questions.Additional documentation on implementation occurs as the platform rolls out to additional sites. Implementation resources (written materials, videos, training protocols, staff supports) have been put in place.The results of objectives 1-3 will provide information on the feasibility, use and possible effectiveness of a social engagement application for parents of young children. Results will be used to prepare grant proposals for funding for continued research, a report on implementation guidelines, a user manual, and research measure documentations (data collection strategies, analytic methods). Results will also be the subject of professionals papers shared at meetings representing the social science, educational science, developmental science and social computing associations and in professional journals. Results will also be shared through graduate level coursework in parenting and family education (e.g, FSoS 5945 Teaching Methods in Parenting Education) at the University of Minnesota.