The beginning of a new school year is just around the corner, and teachers are starting to plan for the coming year. It is exciting to see the conversations as I scroll down my Twitter Feed. Many teachers are looking for new ways to integrate technology. Today I saw this question from Emily Spooner Smith @ESpoonerSmith about Parent Teacher Conference Day Signup. Ms. Spooner-Smith is always looking for new innovative ways to integrate technology into her classroom.
I quickly answered back use a spreadsheet shared to edit by public with a link. This makes it possible to share the spreadsheet for parents to add their name to a time slot.
CLICK HERE TO TEST OUT THE CONFERENCE DAY SIGNUP SPREADSHEET
Don’t be shy and please add a fictitious name for signup!
CLICK HERE TO COPY THE TEMPLATE
WHY USE A GOOGLE SPREADSHEET FOR PARENT SIGNUP
- Offers parents an optional way to signup for parent teacher conference
- Example: Teacher shares signup sheet on Open School Night ~ Parent doesn’t attend due to scheduling conflict
- Signup sheet is available 24 hours for use ~ After all not everyone works the “Day Shift”
- Provides the opportunity for creating a stronger home-school connection
- No need to send home multiple copies of signup sheet with student
- Saves paper
- Reduces stress
- No need to spend a lot of time on a repetitive task
- Parent’s will love the convenience
Thank you Ms. Spooner-Smith for being an Innovative Teacher!
Ms. Drasby's Tech Babble 
I would worry that using a shared spreadsheet might violate student data privacy rules. Isn’t it a concern if you’re publishing names or students and parents publicly on a shared doc?
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Warren you make a very valid point. In my humble opinion I believe teacher’s websites and blogs should be set to private with separate logons and passwords for parents. My thought is this would help avoid any privacy issues from arising if the spreadsheet is shared in a semi-private manner such as described above.
I ask this, “What is the differences with having a paper copy signup sheet open to all the classroom parent’s to view on open school night?” Same parents viewing the information whether paper or digital. If you really want to be compliant then use a Google Form for signup however this would make more work for the teacher because potentially you would have parents signing up in the same time slot.
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