When I grow up, I want to be the Russell Street School!

So after driving for > 10 hours yesterday, I wasn't particularly in the mood to write a blogpost, so today I sat down with my computer and decided to power through and see what this "Russell Street School" stuff that our Edtech 537 professor had been posting about was all about.

My reaction

I mean, where do I start? What's incredible about what this school of tech-oriented Kiwis is is not only how they're finding ways to incorporate technology and publishing their writing into their schoolwork, but how the entire school community seems to be embracing it. I'm sure there are one or two teachers that aren't sold on blogging, or not challenging their students (or themselves) to really innovate with this platform, but by the looks of this website, I think that the definite standard for the school culture makes those who don't do it into the weirdos (not the other way around). I'm so impressed with what I read, and I want to point out a couple of things that I thought about the site:

• The organization of blogs, sites, links, etc is clear, easy-to-understand, and "packageable", or put into nice little pieces that anyone could quickly go onto and do some research and find out what they need to know. No "mousetrap" here—a user knows how to get where they're going quickly and easily.
• Student voice is CLEARLY on display, and is CLEARLY a priority. Judging from what of the kids say, they seem to appreciate this, and so the good things they want to say not only serve as assessment and evidence for their teachers, but artifacts of PR value to the school. Brilliant marketing tool!
• I obviously can't see lesson plans, so what things are consistently assigned isn't known to me, but I think that there are students who are doing writing that's not assigned, but because they like to write. As an English teacher, that is GOLD.
• To me, text is less, and pictures/videos are more. Someone is explaining this to many of these kids and helping them find ways to make their material pop.

I'm just amazed by what I'm seeing from this Russell Street School, and I think the big takeaway is just that NOTHING is holding me back from implementing bits of this into my own teaching... Except myself!

Russell Street School Impressions

For our assignment this week, Dr. Barbour had us “visit” Russell Street School’s website and their Google Site to take a look at how their elementary students and teachers were using blogging as an educational tool, and to then share about our impressions on a class blog. I viewed several blogs, from what appeared to be kindergarteners all the way up to maybe 5th grade age, to get an overall impression of how blogging is used.

I completely understand why we were given this task. The students at Russell Street School use blogging as an integral part of their learning curriculum, and as a result, we get to view authentic examples of what we are learning about in school.

The Little Einsteins blog (Kindergarten, I believe) was filled with an assortment of learning experiences and information for the families and students. I was really impressed at how well laid out the blog was, and how many resources were made available including academics and the arts. I read one post that encouraged parents and family members from around the world to leave comments because the students enjoyed receiving feedback. I could easily imagine the teacher reading all of the comments as a daily “read aloud”. Modeling is a huge part of teaching, and this class blog gives plenty of opportunities to model effective communication strategies, even as early as kindergarten.

Another blog that caught my eye was one from older students called Poutama. This blog was used by 3 different classes and included 90 participants. It was rich in text and images, as you would hope an upper elementary blog would be, but it had a community feel to it because the teacher interacted with the students on the blog. One thing that caught my eye was a discussion entry post called “What a Win” that was written to elicit critical thinking skills about an athlete’s mindset in a recent athletic game. I could see the connection to real world experiences, and not just something out of a textbook. Students were expected to share their opinions on the discussion questions, just as we did for one of our blog assignments.

In my 504 class (theories of educational technology), I researched and wrote about “Communities of Practice”, an emerging theory based upon the philosophy that learning occurs when groups of people are brought together by a common purpose, and in doing so, learn more effectively  as they interact with each other. This seemed to radiate through the blogging I viewed at Russell Street School, and is at the heart of how I hope my "blogging with students" experience to be.

Impressions of the Russell Street School

I am very impressed with the Russell Street School blog. I am amazed at how involved the students, teachers, administrators, and parents are when it comes to Russell Street. I like how there are many authors to the main blog allowing staff to keep everyone informed. My district has a school website and uses Twitter to inform parents of events going on but I like the idea of a school wide or even district wide blog. I plan on showing my principal how Russell Street School runs their blog and hopefully convince her into using a blog in addition to the Twitter account currently being used.

I visited Room 9 and liked how it was set up. There were different tabs for different subject areas. This blog has given me some ideas of how I would like to set up my class blog. As an Intervention Specialist, many times I teach many levels of Language Art and many levels of Math. I can set my classroom blog up like Room 9 with each of my class periods having a separate tab.

When looking at the student blogs, it was like a lightbulb went off inside my head. When I was thinking of doing a classroom blog, I was dead set on using students' first and last names. What was I thinking? I can just have students use their first names. Duh! 

Overall, I think that the Russell Street School blog is a great example of a school blog. It gave me great ideas for when I have my own classroom blog and potentially school wide blog. 

Russell Street School Impressions

After taking some time to look over the Russell Street School's Blog I think that their usage of blogging, as a school and with their students, is great. I took a look at student blogs from both Room 9 and Room 12-14, and I was quite impressed with what I saw. While I think individual student blogs is a great idea I think it definitely works better with older students. I will be teaching Kindergarten this school year, so I don't see my students being able to do that. If I use a class blog I will be the one posting things, but it's a goal to work towards, and if I had slightly older students I would definitely consider individual blogs for them. I feel like school and class blogs are a great and easy way for students and families to get information. With the population I work with this wouldn't be the most effective way though, as many families do not have internet access in their homes so parents would have to go to a public place that has internet service to check the site, but for those who do have access it's definitely a helpful resource.

It was very nice to see what students said about themselves and their work on their individual blogs. I can see how parents and family members would enjoy having access to work samples and commentary from the children themselves. With the technology push going on in my district I will not be surprised if a schoolwide blog shows up sometime in the near future, and I think that the Russell Street School is a good example to learn from.

My Impressions of the Russell Street School

Looking over the Russell Street School I kept thinking about their impressive school culture. On their website, it was clear after viewing just a few entries that students, parents, teachers, and administrators all have a stake in the education of the community. Their excitement for learning is evident and I believe their website / blog has helped create an outlet for people to share their experiences in a meaningful way.

Student entries were some of the most exciting to see. It was great to read about students of all ages getting involved in their school and showing off their work. From middle school students talking about their sporting events to a year 5 student's wining entry in a writing contest to year 1 students talking about the fun they had racing with the  help of a teacher, the student posts made me smile the most. 

In addition, staff entries give a lot of information about the school. Teachers and administrators have posted content about a variety of school-based activities ranging from service learning projects to graduation celebrations to information for parents. These posts prove that the staff at Russell Street School are dedicated to their school and to the students. Sharing exciting news and updating the community on the status of the school probably helps the students and parents buy into their education. Furthermore, sharing important information for parents on this page makes this a useful and important place for parents. It is clear that this website would not work as well without the commitment of the staff.

In all, I think that the website for Russell Street School shows that the students, parents, teachers, and administrators are all working towards providing a solid education. It is great to see that a school created a safe online community like this where the stakeholders can share their thoughts and get input from everyone. I definitely wish that my school had an online community like this.

Impressions of The Russell Street School

The use of blogs at the Russell Street School is indeed impressive!  At its best, education is a community-wide endeavor in which all stakeholders are highly invested and engaged: students, teachers, parents and administrators alike.  The Russell Street School masterfully uses blogs to accomplish the nearly impossible feat of linking these four groups together into one interconnected web of learning.  The benefits of this accomplishment are myriad:

·      Teachers are able to communicate easily with parents regarding class goals, projects and announcements.

·      Parents are always “in the know” about what their children are studying and creating, facilitating conversations at home that keep students engaged with schoolwork.

·      Teachers easily share resources for reading, math, science, etc. with parents and students (via links on the class blog), making it easy for parents to help struggling students at home, as well as encouraging curious students to build additional knowledge and skills in their free time.

·      Students use their personal blogs to showcase their work and to reflect on their learning.  It builds confidence, boosts engagement levels and creates a permanent archive of significant learning artifacts.  Such an archive facilitates the students’ ability to make connections among the knowledge they’re accumulating in seemingly disparate subjects, as well as monitor their growth over the course of the year.

·      Administrators can easily follow what is happening in their teachers’ classrooms, providing valuable insight into student achievement and school wide trends in learning.  While it is no substitute for classroom visits or in-person conversations with teachers, it provides administrators easy access to more data when they are attempting to identify strengths, weaknesses and curricular overlap/holes. 

·      The public nature of the blogs raises the level of accountability for all community members: teachers are motivated to craft creative, engaging and meaningful lessons; students are inspired to always put forth their personal best effort; administrators are provided an easy means to knowing exactly what is happening in each of his students’ classrooms; and parents are encouraged to keep close tabs on their students’ progress.

Is this degree of interconnectedness achievable in all schools?  As home Internet access continues to grow, I do believe that most schools can start to approach Russell Street’s level of school-family connection.  One likely barrier in some communities is language: many schools serve students who do not speak English at home.  Posting blogs in multiple languages would facilitate communication with these families.  Second, I believe a significant aspect of Russell Street School’s blogging success is that every teacher, student and administrator has a blog.  The “all-in” nature of this approach is largely what makes it highly effective.

Impressions of the Russell Street School

Hi all
First off, I am writing this post without having looked at any of the other responses so far, so as not to influence what I might say :-)

The http://russellst.school.nz/ site is indeed the school's homepage and they are using a blog site as the template. Usually you would see a much more 'professional' approach with a content management system like Joomla or the like. However it is an increasing trend to use blog sites in this way. Indeed, Wordpress has evolved to become much more than a blog site, in the traditional sense, and it can be used for static sites as Russell School is doing here. Powerful widgets help drive this site. Static pages can be combined along with blog posts on the front page to keep stakeholders up to date with the news.

The school obviously has policies in the way that they use blogging in their curriculum, and this is something I am looking to implement next year too. Indeed our entire Primary school already uses Weebly and each class has a blog. Using blogs in the classroom has a multitude of uses. Our Primary students mainly use them as portfolios and for their important PYP exhibitions in Year 6. I am hoping to roll out student blogs for secondary this coming year too. The class blogs at Russell Street are the perfect example of what a good blog should be. They are a centralisation of the class and all that it does. They have links lists for easy access to class favourites. They have video of class activities for reflection and for parents to see. They have homework assignments integrated into them. They have links to the students individual blogs which in turn give students a voice, and teachers a number of alternatives when designing their units.

Overall, Russell Street School is one which has obviously adopted the blogging philosophy, done its research and given its staff training on how to properly utilise this resource. And the results are there for all to see.