Parent Concerns About School Edtech Use

September 13, 2019

Lightspeed Filter™ can assuage parents’ concerns about EdTech

More than ever, parents have concerns about the technology their students are using at school – and bringing home. And chances are, their questions will come up at back to school night and throughout the school year.

Since implementing Lightspeed Filter this summer, Joe Phillips, Director of Technology for Kansas City Public Schools, is looking forward to talking to parents about keeping students safe with their device management program. “I am very excited for our District Advisory Meeting (Parents group) on the 18th when I get to show all the great data that we will be sharing with our parents. Parents have a lot of concerns about privacy, screen time, and value of technology for instruction. Lightspeed Filter is able to help us alleviate these with actual quantitative data rather than qualitative stories or concepts,” Joe shares.

So, how can Lightspeed help you when it comes to parental concerns about school technology use?

See the six tips below to discover how Lightspeed’s Parent Portal empowers you to stay informed about your child’s online activity. We address data privacy concerns, block inappropriate content effectively, ensure valuable tech use for learning, and keep students safe from cyberbullying. Get the answers to your questions about your child’s online world with Lightspeed.

1. Deliver Parent Reports
Parent Portal™ (like the one shown here) is a feature of the Lightspeed Filter. They let you automate a weekly email to parents that shows them how much time their student spends online, what they’re searching for, what time of the day they’re online most, what sites they visit most often, and more. This feature is easy to set up and easy to control — and it doesn’t require logins so it doesn’t lead to support tickets.

2. Address Student Data Privacy
More than ever parents are concerned about what’s happening with their student’s data. First of all, Lightspeed Systems is committed to protecting student data privacy with our solutions. Second, our Lightspeed Analytics™ platform delivers reports on rogue apps in use across your district as well as known apps that have data privacy and security risks.

3. Block Inappropriate Content
Lightspeed Filter is #1 at CIPA compliance and blocking inappropriate content and pornography, even on the toughest sites like YouTube and Google image search. Your parents will be relieved to learn their child’s school device is filtered everywhere, all the time, so their child is protected from inappropriate content everywhere, all the time.

4. Make Tech Use Valuable for Learning
Screen time concerns also play into parent concerns. Is the use of devices in schools actually helping with education? With Lightspeed’s reports, it’s easy to see how technology use breaks down by category. And with Lightspeed Classroom Management™ teachers can keep students engaged and on task more easily than ever.

5. Keep Students Safe
Parents are concerned about the things that can come along with online activity: things like cyberbullying and other inappropriate communication. So they’ll be glad to know that Lightspeed provides a safety monitoring platform that gives you real-time alerts on things like self-harm, violence, and inappropriate activity — whether it’s typed in a Google doc or in search or social media.

6. Get You The Data You Need to Answer Parent Questions
What sites do students visit? What are they blocked from? How much web activity is on YouTube? What grades use the internet the most? How much of the day are they online? Your parents will have questions — and Lightspeed’s powerful reports can give you all the answers!

Communicating with parents about the goals, usage, results, and safety controls of your online learning program creates community buy-in that can be essential to success!