Paperless Open House

My team and I have been discussing having a Paperless Open House this year in Elementary school.  It seems that there are so many copies of documents we want to send home the first time we meet our students with their parents because we won't see them again until Conferences.  It might get a little overwhelming for parents.

Think about the parents that have to make it through the building with 3 different kids and see 3 different teachers.  The amount of documents we have them signing up for in the beginning of the year is kind of ridiculous (class parties, volunteers, e-mail addresses, class directory, conference times, information on their child, etc.) Then we as teachers have to keep track of that information and I feel that I am running around making sure every parent has filled out all of these papers that are around the room, while they are getting their child situated and keeping an eye on other siblings.  So my team and I thought, how can we make it better? Going Paperless!

Ou first step in going Paperless for Open House was creating a Google Form. You can view the Google Form to get an idea by clicking here. (This Google Form has BOTH of our forms we normally e-mail home) I am going to separate these forms and only use the Classroom Information Form during Open House.

In our Google Form we ask for information about the parents (best way to reach them, cell phone number, e-mail address, how often they check their e-mail, etc.)  We also include if their child is a bus, car rider, or walker.  And how to get information or homework home to their child if they are sick.  These are all paper forms that they normally have to fill out.  We have now condensed them all into one, hopefully making it easier and faster on the parents.

I am debating e-mailing this out to parents or having some laptops and computers set up in the classroom for parents to complete this when they arrive.  I have also read about teachers having a QR code in the room and parents can just scan the QR code and complete the form at home on their own time.

My next idea I got from a colleague I work with (Thank you Laura!) was to have parents scan a QR code that would take them directly to a site that they could digitally complete their Conference Times sign up.  The site that I learned about from Laura is called Sign up Genius. Click here to go to Sign up Genius and get started. This site will allow parents to enter their names into the available sign up slots.  When a parent takes a slot, that slot automatically is unavailable to the other parents.  If for some reason that slot doesn't work for that parent later on down the road and they have to make a change on their own, they are able to do so.  If they change their times the other slot becomes available in real time for other parents. Below you will find a picture of what last year's conference times looked like.

Going Paperless will improve my Open House this year and I am excited to travel down this road.  We have come so far with our 1:1 teaching and going paperless during the day in the classroom. I think it is time to go paperless with our open houses, tablet nights, and conferences as well.