Creative and valuable ways to use the Storypark conversations feature
Looking for creative and valuable ways to use the conversations feature on Storypark? We have some simple ideas to help you get the most out of this fantastic tool that will support you to communicate, connect and share with others in your learning community.
A quick and easy way to share information with parents
If you want to share information with parents in a more direct and private manner than community posts, then conversations are the tool to use. Conversations are only visible to the people you select and you can easily add images, documents, links to online articles, YouTube clips and video. Sharing these links is a great way to support parents with information that will nurture their child’s learning and development. It can also be a great way to offer families links and articles to help them support their child’s learning.
Firstly check that your centre has enabled teacher to parent conversations in the community settings. Once this is enabled you can start a conversation by clicking the ‘conversation’ button in the blue bar at the top of Storypark. You can select all parents of a centre or room or just the specific people you’d like to contact.
Forgot to invite a teacher to the conversation who is also involved in the child’s learning? Don’t worry, you can edit the conversation to add or remove participants at any time. Find out how to do this here.
Connect families with each other
You may have groups of families at your centre that are currently experiencing a similar developmental stage for their child. You can create a group for them through conversations, a great way to foster discussion and for the entire community to connect. Share information about milestones like teething, transitioning, sleeping, introducing new foods or toilet training to support them in a group conversation.
Do you have a parent committee or group of parents working on a fundraising project or event together? Starting a group conversation with these parents is a great way to keep track of group discussions, coordinate events and tasks, and build a sense of community. Getting all parents in one place at one time for these discussions can be tricky, but having these important conversations on Storypark means everybody has a chance to contribute their ideas at a time that suits them best, and you can progress with any plans you need to collectively work on.
Find out how to share files, images and videos here.
A time savvy way to communicate amongst your teaching team
With busy workloads, increasing demands for administrative tasks, and time spent working with children being your top priority, it is to be expected that your time is stretched! With educators working different shifts and different days, it is not uncommon for days to fly by before you realise you haven’t had a chance to have that important conversation with one of your teaching colleagues! The Storypark conversations feature is a fantastic way for these important conversations to take place, without taking you away from time spent working with children. There are endless ways in which educators can use this feature to communicate with each other, we have compiled a few to get you started.
If you’d like to keep educators in the loop prior to staff meetings you can use conversations. Add the agenda into a conversation so that educators can prepare and add their voice to the agenda before the meeting starts. This is a great way for educators who work part-time, or who may be on leave at the time of the meeting, to still be able to contribute to the important discussions that will take place. An inclusive way to involve all staff in centre wide communications.
Educators receive notifications of a new conversation they’ve been added to from the notification duck as well as being able to find them under their name in the left-hand menu, so they can easily read them at any time that suits them. Conversations also stay connected to an educator’s account, even if they leave a centre so they will always have a record of the discussions they took part in.
You can also utilise conversations for mentoring and coaching amongst educators at your centre. It’s a great tool for sharing ideas, feedback and resources.
Are a group of educators in your centre involved in a group project together? Finding the time to have group discussions can be tricky, and it can be easy for weeks to go by with no action taking place. Using the conversations feature allows the group to discuss, make decisions, and plan for action more effectively. This means that when they do organise to meet face to face, everybody is prepared and ready to progress with the project. This is especially valuable when part-time teachers are working different hours or days to each other!
If you’ve recently attended a workshop and want to share your learnings and resources with other educators, you can paste the URL links into the conversation or attach the PDFs or readings to the conversation. You can even share videos of them in action for their self-reflection.
These are just a few ideas on how you can use conversations to support teachers current interests, goals and growth. As you can see, the possibilities are endless!
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