Moodle for parents

I think I had a great idea while walking to work this morning.

I am frustrated with the logistics around parent involvement in the learning team. I want to be able to better involve parents with the education of their child (mainly middle and senior secondary for me) but the logistics for this is very burdensome. Notes home are a huge effort - compose, duplicate, distribute, check receipt. Phone calls are a huge effort - ring ring, wait wait, talk talk talk talk (hmm I have a few more calls to make can we bring this a to a close a bit quicker?) talk talk talk.

Wouldn't it be good if parents could easily talk to other parents in the class as well?

My classes are all run with the aid of Moodle. The students all have to create their user accounts and enrol in the courses. What if I had a separate class in Moodle for the parents? I could say to the students that their homework for tonight was to help their parents get connected to the parent course.

News items could be used to very easily let parents know that we were starting a new unit, or we were finding a particular unit tough going, or that a new assignment will be starting tomorrow, or ..........

Parents could discuss or question via the forum. It would be easier for me to contact individual parents.

I think I might trial this with one of my classes.