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.

Russell Street School Blogging

I was really impressed with the activity and the content in this site. There is much to learn just by looking and reflecting. What I noticed and what I have taken away most is that content is king. It doesn't have to be perfect, or look amazing. It just has to exist. The children are clearly involved and whenever children are given responsibility, there is a good chance that they rise to it.

I also noticed the use of the word 'self' a lot. Pupils, faculty, parents and families are all obviously involved in this community and blogging and communicating has become an important part of that. I particularly like the use of video and am looking forward to next week to see how I can start to use different media in my blog to engage a little more.

Perhaps my favorite takeaway is that there is not just one way to do it. It seems like lots of styles and poeple all coming together and painting a picture of life inside the school. My little boy trotted into the room when I was watching one of the videos. He is 3. He stood there and watched 2 or 3 videos and then asked if it was my school. "That's cool. Is that your school Daddy, where I am going?" I wish it was.

Russell Street School Impression

I'm impressed by the artistic culture of this school and how they present themselves online. It's impressive to see the activity and use of technology not just by the teachers, but by the students as well. Russell Street School takes a different approach to education by creating a digital platform to give the opportunity to the students to display their work, ideas, and opinions. Russell Street gives the students a voice into their own education by allowing them the opportunity to take part in the exhibit of their school. I noticed the layout is by room and then it breaks it down to each student having their own blog, which brings the classroom to life and then gives it an individual voice through each student's blog.

This style of education is accessing the whole student by giving them a voice, building their confidence, creating an independence within the entirety of the student body, showcasing their talents and the dynamic of the school, which sees importance in the arts and physical education that I feel lacks in our school system. The idea of generating a website to share to the world with the students involvement through their voices, within their blogs, and the individual classrooms displaying their daily activities gives insight into the style of education and the perspective this school stands for. I enjoyed the dances the students presented and the music they preformed within the videos, it gives a great sense of cultural pride within this school setting. It was interesting to read some of the students' blogs and how well written and thought out they were. In some of my research, I've found that blogging enhances reading and writing skills and gives the students ability to be creative and think more critically. You can see this in many of the blogs by the individual students and many of the students had videos, which showcase the things they were proud of.

It's commendable that Russell Street School has set a strong foundation utilizing technology within their school. They are on the right track to building the whole student and enhancing the learning environment. I would love to see our education system to seek out the importance of building the arts within our school and allowing students to employ their own thoughts and ideas through the use of blogs where the students can be the community within the school. It gives the students a sense of ownership in their school and in return, builds confidence and pride in the work they put out for their education. I admire the work of Russell Street School and I congratulate them on a well thought out curriculum that encompasses a strong foundation to build successful students.

Russell Street School: Impressions and Inspirations

After looking through the school's website and checking out several of the classes and student blogs, I would have to say BRAVO Russell Street School, bravo! This is so inspiring. These children are blogging about their education. They are sharing their learning with the world. This is brave, responsible, motivating, and exciting.

The teachers create a class blog that seems to be centered and focused on those particular students. They give their class blog a name and decorate their page accordingly. The pages and links are easily navigable. The students seem to have complete control of their own blogs. While some are updated (posting) more often, others are only every week or so. I feel like this is enough. The blog should keep the students excited. It should give them a sense of ownership and make them confident about sharing their experiences. Some students may want to post every day while others only post recaps or summaries of units. This is blogging - it is personal preference at its best.

I applaud them for knocking down walls and encouraging these students to share their ideas with the world. While I do believe we must be cautious when dealing with children and the web,  this is the world we live in. It seems as if the students at Russell Street have been exposed to netiquette from early on and know and respect the rules of the web. They should be proud of themselves - students, teachers, and administration.

Russell Street School Impressions

The Russell Street School has a lot going on!  I really like this school's use of the website as a total school hub.  There is a lot of communication shared with the parents, both on the main page of the website and each of the classroom pages.  It seems like some classroom pages were updated more frequently than others, and that may be due to the teachers' preferences.

In comparing this website to my own school's homepage, I am frustrated by the conformity that my district wants in school websites, all websites use the same layout, fonts and colors.  Yes, the Russell Street school website looks a little less "professional" than our school's, but it is welcoming and meets the needs of the parents.  Our school's is the same as all the others in the district and is updated rarely.  It makes me wonder if this is a factor of NZ vs US cultures?

What inspired me the most about the RSS website is the collaborative nature of teachers, parents and students.  Everything on the website encouraged parents to be a part of the process.  Even the principal's letter about bullying turned it back to parent involvement by providing a link that parents could visit to help their child (http://www.netsafe.org.nz/).  The blogroll on the right included links to each classroom's blog, which was used similarly to a classroom newsletter.  When I clicked on those, I had access to the student blogs as well.  I think that the student blogs were a great example of using a blog as a portfolio of learning.  I loved reading the reflections and the academic language in the student writings.  I also loved the photographs of student work.  I can see this being used similarly by teachers in my school.

My impressions of blog use at Russell Street School

Russell Street School in Palmerton New Zealand has embraced blogging whole heartedly.  When I look at this school, I see the power of using a web log in a school and I see how powerful an initiative such as this can be when an entire school community "buys in".  It is obvious that blogging is an integral part of the school culture at Russell Street School.

Overall, this looks like an effective method of communication between home and school. The school can inform parents what is going on, what's coming up,etc but it goes beyond the role of a "digital" news letter.  It seems almost like an organic entity that is part of the learning process as well.

From a teacher's perspective, it looks like blogging is widely used to have students reflect on their learning and as tool to help students learn.  I really liked one activity where the class was filmed practising a traditional dance and they were asked to watch the video and  see how well they each kept step with their class mates.  That is great example of  assessment for learning or as I like to say, teaching like a coach.

From a student's perspective, having their own student blog makes a lot of sense.  Their thoughts and work are all in one place that is nice and organized.  They can show off to their parents what they did in school quite easily.  Also, it looks like their teachers use blogging in an engaging fashion by posting videos, asking engaging discussion questions and using variety.  This gives the students a voice and I'm sure the students find value in the use of blogs.

Parents must be supportive of blog use as well.  There are tips for parents on how to help their children and they can see the daily activities their kids take part in.  As a parent, I know how empowering this can be.

I think Russell Street School should be congratulated on it's effective use of this technology.  They have gone beyond the simple transfer of information, by embracing blogging technology, they have made blogging apart of their culture and everyone in the school community benefits from it.  I now have a pretty clear picture  on the power of  web logs  and how they can be effectively used in schools.

Russell Street School Impressions

The way the Russell Street School communicates within their community is pretty impressive and inspiring. They clearly put a lot of thought into how to best use blogs to fit their needs as a school. The concept of a whole school site, with teacher blogs listed, is great for communication with parents. I was really interested to see how individual teachers and classrooms used blogs to communicate what their students were doing and learning in school. A few great items that really caught my attention from the class blogs were the following:
Room 14

• Students posted pictures of the planning they completed in their notebooks, as well as final projects created with technology. This would be great to showcase their design journals when creating solutions to problems in class.
• Home learning guide.
• Students posted the big idea for projects, feedback, and self-evaluations.

Room 9

• Google slides for math problems practice.
• Additional pages on the blogsite for resources on other skills and subjects.

Room 10

• Twitter feeds for the class also posted on the class blog.

Looking through the class blogs at the Russell Street School has given me great ideas on how I want my class blog/website to look and what it's purpose will be. I love the idea of listing the students blogs on the site as an easy way for parents to see the work their kids are creating. The logistical problem of how to organize and manage 6 classes of students (~120 kiddos) is still a concern for me. 

Russell Street School

Wow! I checked out the students blogs in Room 9.  It is so amazing how much the students are blogging, and at such a young age! I teach second grade, so seeing this really showed me what I can do with my students.
I absolutely love how the students are blogging about their goals and success strategies to reach their goals.  They are keeping track of their own progress for those goals.  This is also showing parents what they are doing in class and how they are being successful.
I also love how all of the rooms have their own names.  Dream Team! How cool is that?  It makes me want to come up for a name for my classroom.
Looking at this authentic setting for blogging has truly inspired me.  I know that I want my students blogging, but this showed me how much more I can do with my students.  Students can also use the blog to catch up on lessons that they missed.  They can watch videos and demonstrations posted by other students.  I can't wait to get my class blog set up!

Russell Street School - A Parent's Perspective

I recently had the honor of serving for two years as the President for the CHCCS PTA Council - the organizing and advocacy body for all of the PTAs in our district. I also had the chance to serve on the board and several committees for our state PTA as well.

In my capacity as a parent leader I have had countless conversations with parents about their schools - about what they love and about what they would change.

There are two themes that have consistently emerged from all of those conversations. The first is that parents deeply care about their schools and the professionals that work with their children. Parents love to know what is happening so they can celebrate the small victories and carry shared burdens with the school community. The second theme is that parents crave practical and actionable information about how they can better support their schools, teachers and the learning of their children.

One of the things that I really liked about the Russell Street blog was that it provided the information parents are looking for. The "community newsletter" was full of helpful information and several entries gave insight into the specific things happening at the school. The article on how to support math education at home was the kind of specific, actionable information that parents crave.

Blogging can serve as a community building practice that helps brings everyone together - parents, students and staff. Russell Street seems to be doing a great job of this. I think it is a challenge more schools should take on.

Russell Street School Impressions

After looking around the various students and classroom blogs I was struck with a couple of big impressions.
First, I was so impressed with the student blogs and how the students collaborate with their peers and teacher to set goals. It is visible to parents if their children think they are off target, near target, or on target. Parents can see examples of student work and personalized comments from the teacher. This really blew me away! Students also use their blogs to track their own data and progress as they work towards specific goals.
Second, I was impressed with how the teacher posts objectives and suggestions for each area of study. There are websites to further support student learning and problems that would guide students through the learning objectives.
I think that the Russell Street School blogs have a great set up. I would love to see how something like this would work in my school. My biggest takeaway from this was the way that students had control of their learning and were tracking their learning and growth. I also would like to have a platform to communicate more with students and give feedback.

Inspriation from Russell Street School

After spending some time checking out the Russell Street School's blog, I am inspired!  Overall, I was impressed with how fully the entire school has embraced the culture of blogging and made it an integral part of the school structure. I enjoyed checking out various room's pages and was excited to see how they are set up differently and take different formats.  Being able to compare the way the primary grades use blogs vs. the way the upper grades uses blogs gave me so many great ideas to share with my colleagues!  I often find myself overly focused on how I can use various tools (blogs included) with my middle-school aged students that I forget to stop and think about how I can adapt the same tools to meet the needs of older and younger students.  I loved having this real-life model for inspiration!
I tried using blogs in my classroom last year and it didn't work out according to plan.  I've been trying to formulate a plan for blogging with my students that will be more successful this year and I think, after seeing these examples (especially the Room 12-14 site), I have a much more clear plan.  I love the idea of having one main class blog that either I can post to or students can post to, but having a blogroll of independent student blogs or portfolios linked on it.  I really like the idea of students having their own individual blogs; I think it's important for them to display their work to the real world; it encourages them to put their best face forward, so to speak, knowing that people other than just teachers and parents will not only see it, but may comment as well.  Thanks, Russell Street School, for the inspiration!

Impressions of the Russel Street School

I was so excited after I looked at this blog.  I was amazed at how in depth the blog was.  It was so well organized and developed.  I loved how easily accessible it was to each class blog as well as students blogs through their classroom blog.  This school blog gave me so many ideas that I would love to incorporate into my blogging as well as engaging my students into bloggers as well.  I would love it if my school district had something like this.  I like that it is all centralized in one location.  I think it would be amazing if my whole district had one and then each school had blog links that lead to teachers blogs and then student blogs if they had them.  

Blogging allows students to take pride and ownership of their work.  It also allows parents to see what is going on in the classroom as well as what the student is learning and how they are doing.  For teachers it is a way to let the students be creative.  

One thing I noticed on the student blogs was labeling.  I had not thought about this before, but what a great idea to organize work into specific categories.  This would be great for studying material, etc.  

I love that the room 9 blog focused on so many different things.  Student of the week, awards, recognition's, what is going on in the classroom, daily quotes and so much more.  This teacher did a great job setting up her blog to appeal to the students as well as parents.  I also like that she has the different subject areas as tabs on the top of the blog for links.  

Overall, I was very pleased with how this was all set up.  After viewing many different classroom and student blogs, I am excited to get my students blogging.  I have not decided completely how I want to tackle this task, but I am very excited to do so.  

I think this would be a great thing to do as a school.  My school does edcamps for PD every other week.  I would love to bring up the idea of blogging for a topic to discuss with my staff during this time.

Making Student Work Public

I think the Russell Street School is doing a great thing with the public student blogs.  I think, overall, students value knowing that they've created something out in the world, not just a paper test you recycle as soon as you get your grade.  And, they get to show their work in a blog, which is a format they see elsewhere in their life.  Their parents might read food blogs or political blogs; their siblings might read fashion blogs...and now they've created a blog themselves!  (chances are, their parents and siblings don't ready essays at 12-point font on 8.5x11 paper very often).

In addition to student pride, it just helps bring transparency.  It's great for a parent to be able to check out a kid's blog, and importantly, see it in the context of other student blogs.  (if all the other student blogs are super well-designed, you could talk to your kid about layout....or if they're all crazy colors with comic sans, you can say oh yeah, they're 3rd graders, I guess that's ok)

Now I know that if you get an F on a math test, you have the right to keep that a secret, and that's fair.  But I think that model is too far of stretch to apply the same standards to a blog, and say that it somehow violates a student's right to privacy.  Some students may have reservations, but I think the public displays of student work are 98% a good thing.  I think a blog is a good "in progress" type of documentation, while a more static website may be better suited to show off a finished body of work, like a portfolio.

-Nick Boyce

Russell Street School Impressions

I had a really great time looking through the different student blogs on the Russell Street School blog. I think that it is such a great idea to have all classes and all students connected through one central blog, and then they can still each have their own page. I think that it is a great way to keep students organized (it works as almost a notebook) and also let them express themselves and their own individuality within their blog. It was interesting to see both the similarities and the differences between the different students' blogs.
I think that having blogs organized like this is a great idea for a school. You can see that most students are proud of their work and their posts within their own blog and that is a really awesome thing to see. It allows them to be both part of a group, and individuals, simultaneously.
I am not a parent, but I can imagine that if I was a parent I would love to have access to my child's blog like this. It is a way to keep up with what they are working on most days and it would be fun to be able to see their thoughts and some of the actual work that they have created.
Overall, I think keeping the blogs organized like this is a great idea. I have been brainstorming how I want to run my blog during the school year next year and I was worrying about having it just be daily posts and if it would make enough sense to students. Now that I looked through this blog, I think that posting daily activities is a good idea and it is easy enough to scroll through them. I may even consider having students blog and link it to my blog like this school has done.

Russell Street Response

I am totally blown away and extremely excited after looking through the children's blogs. They have so much pride in their pages and it shows. I really enjoyed learning about their school activities, and what they enjoy doing. This was one of my favorites: http://serenaa2013.blogspot.co.nz/2015/06/kapa-haka.html
It's really inspirational that these young students use blogs appropriately, creatively and seem to take pride in their digital footprint. As a parent I would really enjoy seeing my child's writing and projects they create online. It's accessible and fun to look at.

As I start to brainstorm what I would like my blog to look like next year, these students begin to spark new ideas. I'm not sure I can manage every student having their own account and blog right away, but having the "Star Student" of the week post on our class blog could be a manageable option. That way every student would have an option to participate in the blog, but I wouldn't have to manage 20+ accounts each week. Slow and steady!

I can foresee districts having a school-wide blog, much like Russell Street and then requiring teachers to have their own. Our school district has changed their tune on websites, blogs, Wikisites to have access to parents but it changes far too often. Teachers aren't able to get the training they need, and parents have given up on a district wide communication tool. I'm looking forward to taking this idea to my administration and possibly starting a school-wide blog.

Russell Street School (NZ) Gets Blogging!

The use of blogging at the Russell Street School is individualized, yet systematic. and inspiring. Here are some examples which highlight these elements:

Individualized:

• Each teacher adapts the name of the class and themes to his or her class Maori names, such as “Poutama”, sometimes are used to highlight cultural focus, and others use their own names, such as the “Dream Team”.
• Students design their own blogs and add personal elements. Some do the minimum, whereas  others do more digital work.
• Students have a wide variety of assignments for which proficiency is modelled uniquely.

Systematic:

• Academic language like: Big Idea, Feedback (from another student/peer review), Evaluation (student self-reflection) appears on most assignments
• Posts are made on all subjects, but seem to  have similar structures and requirements.
• Peer and self-reflection are an ongoing part of the learning process.
• While there are consistent posts (about every two weeks), this does not seem to be a daily activity. The blogs appear to serve as a partial portfolio, demonstrating progress toward Maths, writing, or artistic goals.

Inspiring:

• Students are blogging! There is no angst about privacy, control, or protection behind digital walls.
• Administrators and teachers model blogging for students, so are active participants.
• The topic of bullying is addressed on a newsletter posted on the front page of the school website. It appears this is not the first time the topic has been addressed
• Blogs start as young as preschool with the developmentally appropriate “Jump Start” blog.
• Parents are also involved in blogging as well!

Impressions of the Russell Street School

If you haven't taken the opportunity already, visit the website for the Russell Street School (also look at their Google Site page) in Palmerson North, New Zealand. Spend some time looking at the blogging activities of the students. Go to the sites for Room 9 or Room 14, scroll down and click on some of the Student Blogs and see what the students have been up to.

In looking through how this school - from teachers to students - use blogging as a part of their educational experience, what are your impressions of what you have seen?

You should post your response to this prompt as a unique entry on this blog. Please accept the invitation that you received to join this blog and then post your response.