After viewing the site for Russell Street School I had a few reactions. At first, I was blown away by the amount of content that the site (and each sub site) had and consistently it was updated. I explored more looking at the school's "About" section and was quite impressed by the student-centered culture that they have established. It seems as though they have admin, staff, and students highly involved in the production of the digital format, which is great! Checking into the classroom side, it was awesome to see that all grade levels were represented in a unique, grade-appropriate way. I especially enjoyed the Jump Start groups' pictures with them writing their names.
My other impression of the site is that it is quite overwhelming. With multiple social media platforms, email, class website, newsletters, etc. I felt as though it was just another place to check for information. If I were a parent of a student at this school, it would be awesome to see what they were doing on a daily basis, looking at their specific class. As a teacher, I first thought, "Hey! this is awesome, I could totally do this!" Then selfishly, (just being honest!) I struggled, thinking about the extra time that it would take to not only post, but add in multi media such as photos, video clips, etc. which I can imagine takes time. I would love to see a high school version of this, as I would be interested in seeing the student accountability for posting. I also wondered how do you decide whose work is represented? Having 100+ high school students a year, it would be unrealistic to post each student's work in every post. I do similar posts like this for my classroom Twitter, randomly choosing students and their work and wonder how many parents actually see/appreciate these posts. I wonder the same for the traffic of this site.
Don't get me wrong, I think it is a great site that definitely didn't happen over night. It is encouraging to see all staff involved and they seem to hold one another accountable. Getting the students involved is another positive. If parents are frequently visiting and using the site as a means of receiving updates and communication, then it would definitely be worth implementing. I personally would prefer a short and sweet tweet that gives class updates because it is the quickest and most effective way that I can get information out about what is going on in my classroom. It may be different for you depending on the subject, grade, and school in which you teach. What do you think? Do you prefer blogging or Twitter? Or do you like a combination of both?
Hi Ally,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I love all of the info. that is there for the parents, but it does seem that it can be a bit overwhelming. I wonder if parents receive a weekly email with a link to the site (even better, the newest post), then that would make it less daunting to follow?
I know that we use Moodle - one place to see all class information - and work put on a calendar. Although I feel like it is pretty intuitive - there are many parents who either don't understand it, or do not bother to check it. Maybe a quick twitter - or message through something like Remind would be good?
I also wonder how things change with the age you teach. My kids are in second and preschool - I love seeing what they are doing in class and love photos/videos, etc. Am I still going to need that when they are in middle/high? Or will I rely on them to talk to me about their day? I haven't a clue.
I wonder what their traffic numbers are on the sites.
Megan, I apologize for the late reply. I must not have checked the box to receive notifications when people commented! I agree with tweeting and using Remind, I do both! It is interesting to see the difference between what parents look at depending on the grade level of their child!
DeleteI love that you mentioned the time aspect. I'm a fourth grade teacher and I was a little sketchy on doing a blog for parents because of that reason. However, I took the plunge and did it. Granted my blogs aren't anything to this level, but the blogger app makes it super easy. One of my students job is the classroom photographer. At the end of the day/week I will look at the pictures and select a few that I think really reflect something that was happened. I upload and quickly jaunt something and then post. It works for me and isn't too bad on time. After taking this class I think I will up my game a little, but overall it doesn't have to be too time consuming.
ReplyDeleteI apologize for the late reply. I must not have checked the box to receive notifications when people commented! That's a great idea to have a classroom photographer! Nice to see it can be done efficiently and is easier than I thought!
DeleteI love the idea of blogging for the students and parents. But I also agree that the time commitment can feel overwhelming. I know some teachers that have a Twitter account has a kindergarten team for example and take turns controlling of it for a week at a time and sign Tweets with classroom number. Then sometimes they have students draft tweets and those are signed with room number and student initials. Perhaps with some classes, using students as guest bloggers, would be a great way to get a classroom blog up and running. One teacher I work with has the class blog as one of her writing center stations and students are assigned time to work on a blog post either writing a book review or another writing topic.
ReplyDeleteCassandra, interesting you mention the Kindergarten Twitter example. I recall a few years back that a grade two or three class created a story using Twitter. Essentially, each day the teacher allowed one student to add 140 characters (i.e., one tweet) to the story. So for a period of three or four months, the students in the class built this on-going narrative - one tweet at a time.
DeleteI apologize for the late reply. I must not have checked the box to receive notifications when people commented! Nice idea getting the students involved, I bet they love seeing their tweets and having their parents see them as well!
DeleteThe story idea sounds fun too! I bet the students get really into it.