EDTECH 537 - Russell Street School Impressions





This website is very engaging. It has a great deal of pictures and information. As I was going through the blogs, I enjoyed looking at all of the interesting things that are going on, but I did notice a few things that I could comment about:





Communication - The avenue for communication in the blogs is wonderful! There were some blogs where parents made comments on their child’s work or things going on in the classroom blog. Additionally, the blogs contained requests posted by the teachers asking for contributions needed for the class. Some of the posts were about classroom activities and assignments completed in class by students, so it was very interesting to look at.





Safety - I noticed some phone numbers and personal information posted. There were front facial pictures of small children. Names were listed on many occasions. There were videos posted with student names of the student speaking. In my school district, we are not allowed to post student information online. We have a digital disclaimer form that parents can sign if they are okay with students being pictured, but I have always been told not to post front, facial photographs of students. And, of course, if parents do not want their children’s photo posted online, we do not.





Timeliness - As I perused the blogs, many of the entries were dated. Some of the blogging areas were not kept current or there was little or no interaction.





Constraints - As a teacher, my concern would be how much time would be appropriate to spend on blogging. Students would need to be trained in digital citizenship and the art of blogging. Depending on the experience of the students using online digital tools and software, there might need to be instruction on downloading videos and pictures to the blog.

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 29, 2018 at 11:29 AM

    Some of your comments were exactly what I was thinking, like posting pictures of young children online. However, in your constraints was an idea I hadn't even considered: these kids will need trained about blogging. Hmm. I questioned a lot about the time it would take to maintain the blogs, but I hadn't even thought about the amount of instruction time necessary to teach the students to blog.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJuly 29, 2018 at 8:57 PM

    I noticed the exact same things! I wonder about the trade-off that would have to be made in a sacrifice of instructional time. Obviously, this would be a great way to teach students about digital citizenship and technical skills related to blogging, but especially for the younger students, it would require a massive investment of time.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Avery SchwendimanJuly 29, 2018 at 10:46 PM

    I thought that the timelines could be a factor as well. My school's secretary is in charge of keeping our website updated and posting information on our Facebook page. One day we checked out the school website and noticed that it had been at least two years since anyone had updated anything. The information about teachers wasn't current, pictures were of students who no longer attend the school... It was a mess. So, I can see how keeping a network of school and classroom blogs current would be quite the feat.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJuly 29, 2018 at 11:58 PM

    I think that the school uses this blog effectively as well. My concerns were for the safety and privacy of the students. There were many photos and I'm not sure if I would be comfortable with my child's information to be public. Overall, I was impressed on the frequency that some students were posting to the blog.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Scaffolding Blogging

When visiting the Russell Street School's site I noticed that as the students passed from grade to grade they became more involved in the daily blogging activities. I started off by looking at the activities from the youngest grade and found that they were all teacher-led or created. I then skipped around some of the other grades and found that as the students matured they were the ones more often publishing content. I can only imagine that the level of involvement at the higher grades was due to the mentoring and scaffolding at the lower grades. Here are my thoughts on some of those activities Little Einsteins- this is the youngest group at the school and they still have a blog! The teachers post photos with captions of the day's activities including mishaps and accomplishments on the playground. Parents then are able to see firsthand as well as comment on the activities in the classroom. Much of this has to do with good citizenship. Room 4- This is a group of 1st and 2
Read more

My impressions

My impressions after viewing the Russell Street School blogs As a parent,  I would have loved to have had access to this living documentation of my child’s educational experience.  What a great way to stay connected to the happening of the school environment!  I could imagine sharing it with family members who are not geographically close.  Working parents who may not have the opportunity to participate in school activities could feel a part of the school community with such blogs.      I wondered about student safety.  Posting photos, names, and the location makes me nervous.  As internet safety is a huge part of my curriculum,  I was surprised by the blogs lack of security.  On one post I saw a child’s name and number.  Anyone can access it.  I was hopeful to see the school was moving towards School Stream possibly a more secure communication system.  I briefly browsed the new system and was able to read notifications however I did not see the vast amount of photos or student wo
Read more

Russell Street School Blog Review

I can tell that the Russell Street School put a lot of effort into their blog. Their dedication is evident. This school is busy doing good things. It was fun to see what they had been learning and doing. There were several things that I liked, but there were things that didn't float my boat either.  I liked that it the school was connected. All of the classes had a blog. Readers could find the link to every class. I liked that the posts incorporated a wide variety of post types. (List, Links, Multimedia, etc). The school was united in connecting the school to home. I liked how I could see the student work through not just pictures, but videos as well.  ' I didn't like several things about the blog. To me, it seemed chaotic, scattered, and too full of information. It's good to be connected to parents, but this seemed a bit much. I was overwhelmed with navigating to the class sites. I think it would be more beneficial if it were a simpler set-up. Most of the inform
Read more