Russell Street School Blogs

Browsing the Russell Street School website I was very impressed by what I saw. There is a significant amount of information about their school for parents, students, and even us looky-loos. I really like the four key components that they list for their students; empowering, agency, innovation, and leadership. I have a few friends from New Zealand and I was delighted to watch the video of their Kapa Hala performance along with other cultural music.

Where I really dug in was the Google Site and the blog postings for the various classrooms. In the earlier years, it appears that the blog posts for the classrooms came primarily from the teacher or teacher directed prompts. The posts are still valuable, especially from the standpoint of a parent, as it gives insight into the daily activities and a glimpse of what's going on at school. Most of the student activity appears to be in the form of comments on the items posted by the instructor.

As I continued looking at the blogs of classrooms featuring older children, I see a slight increase in the number of comments. There were also a few videos of students working or performing - not sure if they were instructor videos or if the students created the media. The purpose of the blogs again appears to be instructor shared content.

As I consider blogging in my classroom, something I want to try is to allow my students the opportunity to create their own blog posts. In the past, my students have created daily journal entries in composition or spiral notebooks which they turn in at the end of each quarter. Looking at the Russell Street School site gave me some insight for posting and sharing information. Having a hub that allows the student blogs to have a central site will create some ease of use and allow everything to be in the same spot. I also saw the opportunity to use a classroom blog to introduce ideas, post reminders, or model what I want my students to do. Using this shared blog seems to be another great way to have students responding and posting in a central location.

Comments

  1. UnknownJuly 28, 2018 at 1:57 PM

    Would this blog be available to the public? Would you want "looky-loos" (very cute term by the way) to be able to see what your students posted? I'm wondering if you could offer some privacy settings to certain students.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ben MarkhamJuly 29, 2018 at 10:34 AM

      I mentioned it in a reply elsewhere, but it would be great if there was a way to privatize blogs by requiring invitations or codes, which would help eliminate some issues of privacy. The other option is a teach-to with my students about what they can post and what they should avoid posting (no names, no specific information, etc.). The second is probably a lot easier to manage than the first option. I know with Google Sites you can limit the sharing to users within your organization, so it may be possible to go that route and keep things confidential.

      Delete
    2. UnknownJuly 29, 2018 at 8:44 PM

      That's a great idea, Ben! I know for my classroom, though, it would be an issue if parents couldn't access the blogs. There are certain elements of my communications, for example, that are only accessible to students, such as the Google assignment calendar connected to Classroom, and students and parents both complain that they cannot access those things.

      Delete
    3. Ben MarkhamJuly 30, 2018 at 6:00 PM

      I know that there is a way to grant access to other users on a Google Sites page, but not sure about other blog resources as I haven't really investigated that yet. It means a little more work adding authorized users, but it opens up the page to everyone who wants to be involved.

      Delete
  2. UnknownJuly 28, 2018 at 5:44 PM

    I noticed that commenting was a little scarce on the kids blogs, which I found interesting. I think part of posting blogs is to create interaction among students. I also don't think I saw any parent comments either.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ben MarkhamJuly 29, 2018 at 10:35 AM

      I agree, not a lot of peer to peer interaction from what I saw. I think I saw one or two parent posts (one was about a kid who couldn't make it to school and was bummed he missed out on something), but it's difficult to tell without knowing who is who.

      Delete

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