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.
Jennie - one of the things that I wondered as I read the site is if this is something that could only happen in another place. This works in New Zealand, but could it work in the US, where concerns about student privacy and the litigious nature of folks works against this kind of openness? I don't know the answer, but it is worth pondering.
ReplyDeleteJeff - I was thinking the same thing. Would it be possible here in the US? I know that my school would require me to get parent approval first. That's not necessary a bad thing, but a hoop we American teachers must always jump through. There is risk associated with much of what we do as teachers -- science teachers use chemicals with students; English and social studies teachers discuss unsettling topics. I suspect that, just as we've learned to accept these risks, administrators will soon view student blogging and public display of work in much the same way they do laboratory experiments, etc.
DeleteIn my province, this is a concern. We have legislation that (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act) that requires us to gain permission from parents before we publish any image of a child. We have every family fill out a form at the start of the year so teachers know if they are any students who fall into this category and we make sure images are never posted. Quite often permission is denied because of custody issues where it would be unsafe for the child if an abusive parent found out where the child was living. It really is serious stuff but it with the proper precautions I think we could all emulate Russell Street School.
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ReplyDeleteJennie,
ReplyDeleteYour thoughts on the regularity of posting got me thinking on how the administration regulates this. Do you think that teachers are required to post? If so, is there an amount they are supposed to post each week?
Or does mandating posts take away from the organic feel of the site?
I would love to start something like this at my school so your post got me thinking...