Communication Plan 2021

Communicating in the Department of Defense Dependent School system can be a daunting task, but using Google Suite we have access to web-based software that enables creativity, clarity, and accessibility to our stakeholders. The Department of Defense Dependents Schools (DODDS) are unique in that every parent is employed with the military. Many parents use military emails which is ran through firewalls and filters. This makes it difficult when attaching documents, sending private information, and asking parents to sign in to something to access something or fill out questionnaires or surveys. We are also limited to what web publishing software we can use for our official communication to our community. To add to the confusion and security DODDS restricts the access of software and web-based software to a limit of 40 applications, luckily Google Apps for Education was adopted. Next year, I plan on using a combination of Google Slides, and Google Forms to communicate with our stakeholders.

Google Slides has a lot of publishing features that are key for presenting information to parents in a creative, clear, and accessible manner. Google Slides is normally used as a collaborative slideshow presentation. However, if you are creative you can incorporate dynamic hyperlinks, images, and publishing to create a hyperdoc. This interactive document gives the flexibility that is ideal for parent newsletters and virtual classrooms. Parents sometimes have trouble opening .pdfs, word documents, or powerpoints can open a link on any platform or browser. Parent Newsletters normally have 5-10 pages of posters, advertisements, and information that is hard to find. Using a hyperdoc, parents only have one page of information where they need to look. The main topics can be sorted by subject and turned into icons or pictures. Large amounts of text can be linked-to websites or social media sites. Having one place for all of the updates is essential in moving forward for our school. If we keep it updated, I don’t see a need for a parent newsletter at all. The numerous emails, FB messages, newsletters, and website posts will be simplified to a Google Slide hyperdoc posted on our webpage.

Google Forms is a great way to receive feedback in our highly secure community. Using Google Forms to do surveys, and questionnaires will help drive our school to make well-informed decisions that are based on real data from the stakeholders. The accessibility to share and create the form will be ideal in creating meaningful questions and then getting readable charts will help in the decision-making process.

Parents can take surveys anonymously and they will not have to sign into anything. This anonymity makes it ideal for the military community where personally identifiable information is kept close.

The Google Suite has some great tools for communication. Our school is limited in their use due to some district wide requirements. We must have a Facebook page, a public website using a specific contracted web platform, Outlook E-mail, and virtual classrooms through Schoology. Many times we have 4-5 different places to post information to get the message to our parents. My goal is to utilize Google Slides and Google Forms to create a simple place for parents to receive information.