218 | Using Technology to Communicate with Families Without Sacrificing Your Time

In this episode of That Music Podcast, Bryson dives into how technology can strengthen communication with families while still protecting your time and energy. He shares why visibility matters in the music classroom—not just for concert reminders, but for advocacy, relationship-building, and helping families truly understand the learning happening behind the fun. When used thoughtfully, simple digital tools can create a powerful window into your classroom and build trust before you ever need to have a hard conversation.

But this conversation isn’t just about what to use—it’s about how to use it well. Bryson unpacks the importance of following district policies, communicating in equitable ways, and most importantly, setting clear boundaries so you’re not available around the clock. If you’ve been looking for ways to improve family communication without feeling overwhelmed, this episode will help you think strategically about what’s worth your time and what’s not.

Episode Chapters:

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:24 Staying Compliant with District Technology Policies
• 2:25 Using Social Media Pages & Private Groups Effectively
• 5:40 Announcements & Schoolwide Communication Tools
• 6:53 Setting Boundaries Around Parent Communication
• 8:22 Why Newsletters Still Work (Digital + Print)
• 9:56 Takeaways
  
  

Links and Resources: 

• The Elementary Music Summit®
• Elementary Newbie Guide
• Disabilities Guide
• Steady Beat Survival Guide
• Join Elementary Music EDGE™

Use coupon code PODCAST at checkout for 50% off your first month of Elementary Music EDGE™ today!

Grab your free ticket to the Elementary Music Summit®: January Refresh -> www.thatmusicteacher.com/summit

Have questions or want to share feedback? Reach out to us at hello@thatmusicteacher.com - we’d love to hear from you!

Transcript

Speaker: 0:50

Technology can be used to increase communication with parents and families. Without sacrificing boundaries. Let's talk about that.

Speaker 2: 0:59

You are listening to that music podcast with Bryson Tart, the curriculum designer and educational consultant behind that music teacher in the elementary music summit. Each week, Bryson and his guest will dive into the reality of being an elementary music teacher and how music can truly be transformative in the lives of the students you serve. Show notes and resources mentioned in this episode. Can be found@thatmusicteacher.com.

Speaker: 1:33

Welcome back to that music podcast. Today we're gonna be talking about how you can use technology and in all the different ways, you know, from simple to a little bit more complex, to communicate with families and the community around us, to not only advocate for our program, but also to help un you know, people understand what we do and create those relationships so that. You know, if for whatever reason there were, were gonna be a problem or a behavior issue, we already have a little bit of rapport, but also just to kind of figure out of, hey, if we have a performance, we make sure that everyone knows all the things. So let's talk a little bit about how we use simple low effort digital tools to show people around us what is going on in our classroom. Um, get out information that we might need to have and also make our lives a little bit easier. Now before we get too far deep, I wanna be really clear that you should be checking with your district on what their acceptable use policies, um, and make sure you're following all of those. Every district is a little bit different, um, so make sure you're doing that. Um. But, you know, some general tips is making sure that if, you know, if you're posting student photos or student work, you're doing it in a way that follow regulations. You know, if someone has a no photo, no video list, they're not gonna be on there. Or at least, you know, blur out their face or, you know, whatever your district policy is. Um, some districts won't even let you do anything. They'll just like, Nope, we're not, we're not gonna have a public facing thing. And that's okay because there's some private facing things as well. Um. Think about ways that we can share what's going on in our classroom, um, within the, the realms of those policies. I do not want you to get in trouble for by, by violating these policies when all you were trying to do is advocate for your program and show what's going on in your classroom. So when in doubt, ask for help. Get it clarified and whenever possible, get it clarified in writing. Those little tip there. So I think there's a couple of different ways you can do this. Um, and some of these are, are ones that I, I, I've actually done both of these. So when I first started teaching, I actually had a Facebook page for my classroom. This is a, um, a strategy that I took from my cooperating teacher. Um, and it worked great for her. Um, you know, she was able to share pictures of what's going on in the classroom. You know, people seemed to really enjoy it. You know, for when I started student teaching, I got to, you know, I, I had a picture that said Mr. Target's here. And I was like, yay, that's super exciting. Um, but what I liked about that is it really created this just constant flow of, alright, I'm gonna take a few pictures here and then I'm gonna post them a couple times a week. It wasn't, you know, every single day we're posting all these different things. Um, but it will, it allowed me to show what was going on. You know, if the fourth grade class was, got the recorders today, I could, you know. Send a picture that says that that happened. Um, and also give some more information about, Hey, you're not getting, you know, they're not coming, the recorders aren't coming home yet. Don't worry. You know, we're gonna make sure that they know a few songs and like do have that communication. Now, I'll be honest, I shut down this Facebook page, um, during COVID, um, obviously a lot was going on in COVID. Um, and being out in a rural school district, I didn't want any more eyes on what I was doing than I was already receiving at the time. Um, quite frankly, at that point, there was just a lot of. Anger in a lot of different ways. Um, and there was just a lot of tension that I didn't want to create a target, so I shut down that Facebook group or that Facebook page because I didn't want, you know, it was literally to the point where no matter what we did, if we had them six feet apart, we're getting yelled at for doing that. If we don't have 'em six feet apart, we're getting yelled at because we shouldn't. It was, it was just, it was chaos. So I shut it down because it wasn't worth it. It wasn't going to help what I wanted. But what I ended up doing is at that time my, um, my teachers were using ClassDojo. So I would use ClassDojo to essentially. Push this information out. So if we did a, a game in the game, I would send it out in the Class Dojo group. Um, so again, what I like about that is it actually, I think, you know, now knowing now and knowing how things have evolved, I like that a lot better because it's not public facing. It's not something that anybody could see. It's only those people that are, have joined, um, as family members, as you know, parents, uh, or you know, guardians of those people can see it. That, for me, feels a lot better. Um, and what I liked about that is it also cre it made it a little bit more communication based. You know, it, because essentially it would send it out as a message. So I'd get pe parents that would, um, message back and was like, oh, so cool. Or, Hey, I have this question. And it created a little bit more of a feedback loop so that they felt like a little bit more open communicating to me.'cause I was essentially initiating that communication. Um, again, same thing with this. I wanted to make sure that I was following all of the rules. So, you know, if there were students that were on the no photo list, um, they might be in there, but I might edit them out, or I might be strategic in where I'm placing myself in the camera so that they're not actually in the screen or so, you know, maybe it's just, you know, shoulders down or whatever. Um, that way that they, um, we're following all the rules. We're still doing it, but we're showing what's going on in our classroom. And what I, and when I, when I was doing this, and even when I was doing this on Facebook, I wouldn't just say we played a game, but why? Why are we playing the game? We were practicing TA and Titi. We were working on these standards. We were working on these skills. We're practicing for this performance. Don't just show the fun because I know there's a lot of fun. Show the why behind the fund, and that's where the advocacy part. Another thing that I loved using, again, class Doge, is what we use the majority of, uh, of my, when I was teaching, we eventually moved into a more district-wide thing, I think it was called Who, what was it called? Talking points. I don't know, some basically an app function the same way. Um, but what I loved about that is it allowed me to have one stop shop to send communication out. Um, so if we have a performance coming out, I can send all of my, save the dates there, I can, um, you know, send the, Hey, it's happening to in a week. Hey, it's happening tomorrow. Hey, it's happening today. Um, but also sending out things, um, in a physical format because I think that's really important regardless of how great your digital footprint is. Always send things out in multiple ways, because let's be honest, nobody's ever going to read all of them. And you're still gonna get people that have said, why didn't you tell me we had a concert? And you're like, well, I did these diff six different things that you replied to. Those are, those are concerts. Um, so cover your base is in other ways. But also think that some parents, it just might not be for them. They, they might just, it's one more app, it's one more thing to check. They're not, they're not gonna do it. Um, so whenever possible, one, send it in multiple ways, two. Kind of piggyback on what the rest of your teachers are doing. Um, and three, if at all possible, if you have any sort of like district-wide thing, use that instead because that's gonna make it a lot simpler. I wanna briefly talk about, um, managing that on-call expectation. Um, whether it was ClassDojo or talking Points or, you know, blooms or whatever we ended up using. I never actually sent a message outside of my contract time. That was a boundary that I set. I might have sent it, but I scheduled it to send the next morning during contract time. Um, and I also am not, I don't put it on my phone. I highly recommend you not put it on your phone because I don't want to deal with it. When I'm not working, when I'm at school, you know, it would send me an email so I knew when to go check it. Um, so, you know, I would set a boundary that works for you. Uh, depending on your situation, it, you might need it on your phone. You know, if you're doing an honors choir or a choir and you're, you're you're moving around or you're going to the nursing home or whatever, you might need that on your phone. Um, but for me, that was a boundary I set because I didn't want to be on call. 24 7. I didn't want a parent to feel like we, we, you know, they, we, we needed to have this conversation at 9:00 PM If they sent me a

message at 9: 8:44

00 PM that's awesome. That's great. That might be when they had time. Maybe they just did bedtime and they have a moment. Great. I'm gonna send a response during my contract hours because that was a battery that I set. To make sure that I could juggle all the other things that were going on in my life. So whatever that boundary looks like to you, whatever, whether you're using a Facebook page, whether you're using a class, dojo, whatever, if you're using technology in a way to connect with with the community around you, set a boundary because otherwise it will absorb your life if you're not careful. Beyond that, don't feel bad about using like, quote unquote old school communication, like a monthly newsletter about, you know, what's happening in the music classroom I think is great, especially if you're able to send it out digitally and in print. Um, that can be great where you can send out some QR codes. Maybe if you have some videos throughout from, throughout the week of, you know, people getting ready for the performance. You can have those QR codes in, in there, or, or links in, in the digital version. Um. Again, showing what's going on, telling them why it's going on, sharing out important information such as concert schedules or this, that, and the other thing. Using that as another opportunity to show that we're not just having fun in the music room or we're not just a planning period. Like there's actual cool stuff going on here that's helping your students grow with people. And here's why that's important. Show them sometimes, sometimes people really need to spooned to them and not because they're being annoying or not because they, they think you're awful or not because they don't believe in music education is they quite literally do not understand what is going on in our classroom. So it's our job to show them. What I love about this is whenever we do this type of communication to our community, our, our families, our parents, our grownups, our administrators, and our, the other teachers in the building also likely see it because, let's be honest, when was the last time you had a second grade teacher in your classroom while you were teaching? Probably not often because they're not there. They're doing other things. They're at an IEP meeting, that's their planning period, so they might not know what goes on either. So that's the opportunity for us to show and to educate the, the cool stuff that's going on in our classroom and why we, so, while this episode is kind of about technology, it's really not, it's really about how we can use things to communicate with the people in our community. How can we show them what's going on in our classroom? How can we share the information that we need to share in a way that's equitable? So not just sharing it out one way and saying, well, you, you didn't get the mass text. Sorry. That's, that's unfortunate. No. Send it out lots of different ways just in case so that we can make sure we're covering all our bases. We're making sure that we're doing it in an equitable and accessible way. Um, but also show the fun and show the reasoning behind the fun. Because that's my favorite ways that we use technology is to create a window into our classroom. You know, I think it would be great to have parents be able to, to peek into our classroom, not actually figuratively, and see what's going on in our classroom. Because again, it's likely been a while since they were in music class, and depending on their teacher, it might not have been a great experience. So thinking about how we can change the perspective, offer information and help use technology, use these different tools, even use an old school printed out newsletter to offer a window into what is going on in our classroom. That's where we we're gonna start seeing some of these attitudes change about music by having people understand what we do and the fact that it isn't easy, it isn't fluff. It is really fricking cool. So with that being said, thank you so much for joining me for this week's episode of That Music Podcast. If you liked it, please leave us a review. Wherever you are watching or listening, be sure to hit subscribe. And if you're on YouTube, be sure to hit that bell icon so that you don't miss any new episodes that we release every Wednesday here on the podcast. With that being said, we appreciate you being here and thank you so much. For making a difference in the lives of the students that.