Dana's Russell Street Impressions

I think, like any teacher who is struggling to figure out where blogs fit into her/his classroom, what Russell Street School is doing is pretty dang impressive. I teach high school, so I would never have considered blogs could be used so effectively with elementary students. As I looked through the blogs from the classrooms and groups in the Russell Street building, there were a couple of thoughts in my mind.

  1. Time. How much time does it take these teachers to maintain their blogs? I know these teachers' curriculum is full of required material and the amount of grading they have already feels insurmountable. How much extra time does it take them to maintain their blog for their classroom? What is the time cost?
  2. Publishing permission. There are a lot of pictures of kids on Russell Street's blogs, which is so fun to view. However, my foster son, by the laws of my state, is not allowed to have his picture posted online. What happens in this situation at Russell Street? Wouldn't a kid whose picture is not allowed to be posted feel left out of this online experience for the class?
  3. Parents. Schools in our area struggle with parent involvement. Too much involvement. They want to know everything that is happening to their child throughout the day. Does the blog exacerbate that problem? Do parents complain if they don't feel teachers are posting enough? Does the school administration have standards about how often teachers are expected to post?
  4. Impact. The blogs are cool. Really cool. Do the blogs improve student learning? That might not be the goal of their blogging program, but if it is one of their goals, does it actually help students learn?

Comments

  1. Rachael WalkerJuly 29, 2018 at 7:47 PM

    You make some great points and have excellent questions that I too wonder about when it comes to blogging. I feel if it is a school wide implementation that they need to have specific standards and expectations set.

    I definitely agree with your point about time. That is something I am concerned about as well. I am hopeful (especially since I teach older middle school students) that once I begin implementing it at the beginning of the year, there will be more of a shift from teacher to student driven.

    When it comes to your comment about the picture, I feel there are other ways for them to feel involved and included. They can have their work displayed and/or posted in some way, they could post a video that they created that does not include their face, and they could post a comment and/or reflection on the blog itself.

    Last, when it comes to blogging and learning I feel just with anything else technology related, you need to reflect on how the technology will help improve the classroom environment, connect to the content, and help them grow as learners. If you are doing it just for "fun" that can lead to some more issues when it comes to parents as well as administration if you are putting it in place on your own.

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  2. UnknownJuly 29, 2018 at 9:10 PM

    You brought up some points that I hadn't thought about! I agree that some students might feel left out if their picture were not included in the blog, but that hadn't occurred to me. Children don't like to feel different! I also hadn't thought about parental over-involvement, but I can see that as an issue. When my district purchased an online gradebook program and required teachers to post their grades online, parents began sending emails nearly daily asking when grades would be updated or specific grades would be entered.

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  3. Avery SchwendimanJuly 29, 2018 at 10:41 PM

    Those are all great points to consider with blogging in the classroom. Your first two points stood out to me. First with time, I noticed that many of the teachers' posts were just brief snippets of the day or things coming up. I think that smaller posts would take less time and be more manageable. Second was the publishing permissions. I know that in my school district, parents are required to sign a media release form for their child. They can opt out for any reason and the school has to honor that. Any time a photo is taken that may be released to the public (published online, newspaper, etc.), Those students are not allowed to be in the shot. For example, my class was presented a grant from a local business and they wanted a picture for their website and for the local newspaper. Before scheduled the photo, the secretary checked my students' files for their permission form. All of the students had the required forms so we were able to all be in the picture. I think the main thing with publishing permissions is for teachers and schools to be aware of laws and which students can't be photographed .

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  4. Maria GreenwoodJuly 31, 2018 at 4:11 PM

    I love your points about time to maintain the blog and over-involved parents. I had a class website that I maintained before switching to Google Classroom and it took a lot of time to maintain. Finding time to upload notes, changes dates, etc is difficult sometimes. You also bring up good point about too much parent involvement. I would be interested to know if the teachers with only 9 blog posts got complaints because some teachers had well over 50 posts.

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  5. UnknownAugust 1, 2018 at 5:40 PM

    You bring up some great questions about the site! I actually wasn't aware that foster kids can't have their picture online. It's good to know that. One of your questions that stood out to be was whether blogging improves their learning. I would think it would. When students publish their work, it increases their attention to detail and they want to do a better job. The time issues was a big question for me too. I send home weekly newsletters, so transferring that to a blog wouldn't be bad, but keeping up with student blogs would take more time. Managing not only their posts but comments as well.

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