Improving the Home-to-School Connection

I received this email today:

Has Technology Improved Your Home-to-School Connection?

ISTE’s magazine, Learning & Leading with Technology, wants your opinion.

If you would like to share your thoughts on this topic, reply to this e-mail with a 25–50 word response by March 31.

We’re going to select 6–8 of the best comments we receive (attributing them with name, affiliation, city, and state) and publish them in the May issue of L&L.

Not sure? Read the opinion of two other education professionals in the February edition of Point/Counterpoint in L&L on the Web: http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Publications/LL/LLIssues/Volume_35_2007_2008_/FebruaryNo5/35508g.pdf

Comments (25–50 words):
Name:
Affiliation:
City:
State:

We really appreciate your participation!
Kind regards,

Paul Wurster
Assistant Editor
Learning & Leading with Technology magazine
International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE)
Eugene, Oregon (USA)
541.434.8941 www.iste.org

Here's my opinion. And no, I'm not going to respond via email. This is 2008. And no, I'm not really motivated by having my words included in your magazine. Again, this is 2008. I can publish my ideas really easily. And by avoiding print publications, we conserve paper resources.

Here is the email I would like to receive:

As part of ISTE's Open Access Journals, we want to hear your opinion. We're currrently talking about if and how technology has improved your Home-to-School connection. Follow this link to join the conversation!

Is it actually possible to be "Learning and Leading with Technology" when you're harvesting information via text-based email surveys? Why not model some of what is possible? This doesn't feel like leadership; rather, this feels like a mechanism to simulate community in the service of a dated content publishing model.

I probably exceeded the 50 word limit. My bad.