Browsing by Author "Yildirim, Lara"

Communication between people is becoming more and more electronic. This also reflects in school, where communication between home and school is often carried out by electronic tools such as Wilma and the phone. However, the quality and experiences of the electronic communication varies, and research has also shown problems concerning the electronic communications between home and school. The purpose of this thesis is to find information on the electronic communication tools currently used between primary school and home, and to explore the experiences of classroom teachers and parents about electronic communications. I also aim to look at the electronic communication from the educational partnership’s point of view, because the partnership is nowadays considered as the goal of the home- school collaboration. The aim is to give valuable information about the challenges, but also the opportunities of the electronic communications to a future class teacher. The thesis was carried out as a descriptive literature review in the spring of 2019. The literature consists of both foreign and Finnish sources, where most of them is either Master’s Thesis’, scientific articles or dissertations. The literature review showed that different communication tools have their own purposes, and for example, the telephone is often used for urgent communication. However, based on literature, Wilma is the most popular communication tool between primary school and home. Other communication tools mentioned in the literature were text messaging, e-mail, and schools’ own websites. Experiences seem to vary a lot. Both teachers and parents seem to have different expectations and preferences regarding electronic communication. On the basis of literature, it can also be stated that electronic communication does not prevent the educational partnership. However, literature shows that electronic communication brings its own challenges to the educational partnership, and especially listening, respect, trust and dialogue should be taken into consideration.