Russell Street School

After reviewing the Russell Street School's website, I found the use of blogging very intriguing. I enjoyed seeing all of the blogs being used as a form of communication for the parents. I was very impressed with just how organized everything was. It was also amazing to see that as students get older they are allowed to post their own guest blog from time to time.
I could tell that these students really have a community within their own school. Each classroom has their own online presence and one can really feel that just by reading their blogs.
I believe this is a great way for students to be involved and a better way for teachers to communicate with parents.
I will be bringing this idea up to my administration as a way for us to communicate better with parents and I hope that they will be receptive to the idea.

Comments

  1. Maria GreenwoodJuly 31, 2018 at 4:19 PM

    I think you make a great point about the blogs creating a sense of community for each classroom. Especially when the kids get older and begin to contribute to the blog themselves and it gives them a sense of ownership over the material. It's something that the whole class has worked together to create and maintain. It can easily translate to other life skills that young children need to develop like creating and maintaining friendships.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownAugust 3, 2018 at 1:14 PM

    They seemed to embrace blogging as a school. Usually the teacher provide links to content and rarely do we see students sharing content. I do feel that they need to think about security and privacy for the students.

    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