What a great way to showcase your school! The Russell Street School's blog and Google Site is a great way to keep parents and community members informed of what is happening at the school. It is easy to see what is going on school wide, but even more amazing, you can see the learning that is happening in each individual classroom. I imagine students would feel empowered and proud that their work is being put on display for others to see. As a parent, I would love to be able to add these blogs to an RSS reader and stay informed of what is going on at my child's school and in his or her classroom so easily.
I would love to do something like this at my own school, but I do have a couple questions. First of all, I am curious as to why the school chooses to use both a blog and a Google site. It seems that they both have most of the same information, so I am not sure I see the need for both. Second, I would be a little concerned about student's privacy and safety. There are many pictures of students throughout the different blogs, which would make me a little nervous as a teacher. It is so sad that we live in a world where such things have to be concerning, but the reality is we do. So my question is how do we make sure our students are protected when creating something like this?
I am not trying to discredit what this school has done in anyway because I really do think it is amazing and a great way to encourage learning and keep parents informed. I am just truly curious about some of the logistics to make it work.
I was also wondering why they have a blog and a Google site. After looking at the contents on both, it does seem like there is a lot of overlap in information. I think if I was a parent of a child at that school I would be checking both the blog and the Google Site to make sure information is not different. I personally would want everything in one central location.
ReplyDeleteI also wondered about the duplicitous info with the blog and Google, but I figured one came firsts edit takes time to transition folks over. I'm just guessing. Either way, the amount of information available to parents and teachers and students is commendable.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE that student work is displayed too! I think there are so many benefits, mainly for the students and parents as you mentioned. I can imagine students are more motivated to produce quality work when they know they will have the opportunity to share it.
ReplyDeleteSo, what's the consensus about safety issues. I haven't posted student photos or work because I'm worried about it. Are we allowed to? Is it safe? What process should we go through to ensure we don't upset parents or put students in a harmful situation? Questions I posed in my post and still have...