Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Christa Brediger - Impression of Russell Street School

Wow! I am amazed at what I see when reading and navigating through this blog. It is clear that RSS have figured out technology integration and have put it into high gear. When I think about my vision for the blog I had last year, I see something similar to this. Although, my blog was nowhere near the excellence of this one.

I love how they organized the blog so that initially (the home page) it caters to the public community showing what the students and staff are involved in both academic and extra curricular activities. There was also a whole section for parents that explained how to use certain devices or the expectation of the students, etc. And finally each class has an individual blog where they posted their work, updates, activities, etc. I love that the class blogs are student centered. It's obvious that the students have strong ownership of them.

One big question that kept popping into my mind was about the student privacy. My district is incredibly strict when it comes to posting pictures or videos of students on blogs. I'm wondering if they had to get parent consent first or perhaps they are more relaxed over there? That was the only part that scared me a bit. BUT other than that, wow!! I'm so impressed with how they are using blogs. Doing something like this could make a school website much more effective, in my opinion.

6 comments:

  1. I was also amazed with the layout and vast amount of information! One thing that really surprised me was that each student's blog was accessible to the public. My district mandates that parents sign consent forms indicating whether or not students can use the internet, have their name (first name only) posted, have their work posted, or have their picture posted. Parents can choose what level of privacy they want for their kids. It gets very difficult to keep track of, and I think that scares a lot of teachers from posting anything at all. As a parent, I would love to see something like this for my daughter's school/classroom.

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    1. I did like that the parents are able to choose the level of privacy for their student(s). I know that the privacy issue is really big in my district, and with me. But, with proper training and instruction on appropriate netiquette I think that students can be responsible and, like RSS has modeled, it can be a huge asset to the district. I'd love to incorporate something like this next year.

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  2. Christa, yes the parents consented to the images. When I visited the school I got a copy of the parental consent form, which was a part of the whole acceptable use policy, and it was quite extensive, with consent for each activity individualized. For example, a parent could consent to the voice of their child being use in audio files, but not a picture of their child in image files if they so chose. There were sections about how the names would appear, images, audio, video, etc.. It was quite detailed, and you could tell it was well thought out.

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    1. That is comforting to know. I wonder how long it took them to come up with the consent form. I would really love to see something like this evolve in the district I work for. It's definitely something I will be talking to our IT guy about.

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  3. My school also requires consent forms for video or pictures. Unfortunately, we have students whose parents haven't returned the forms, and they automatically fall into the "no consent" group, so it's rare that we can get video or pictures of an entire class to use on our website or our newsletters. I think it's great that the RSS parents have so many options and choose to allow participation. The great blog is likely encouragement for parents to sign the consent forms.

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    1. Darla,
      I agree. The blog in itself is an excellent marketing tool. I've noticed that more and more parents are opening up to the idea as well. It is exciting to see the progress that some schools are making. It is also encouraging to me that one day I could work for a district that uses blogging so effectively.

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