Russel St. School

As a parent of high school students, I found the Russel St. School to be a great resource. The school stream online page keeps the parents informed of school and individual classroom updates with their blogs. The school stream, as well as the seesaw app, can also be downloaded to keep the parents and students connected and informed. I think blogging in the classroom is a great way to communicate with parents and it gives the students ownership of their class communication. I plan on using a class blog this year with my students and allowing the students to keep it updated with our class activities as a communication tool for their parents.

The school is very forthcoming with their finances as they post their annual report for all to see. That certainly is refreshing to see! Also, it's nice to see the school's annual plan with the mission statement, goal, growth and annual achievement, education plan, and property plan. I did notice a spelling error with the word enrolment as it should be spelled enrollment. One other thing I noticed is that there is not a section for forms. I can't imagine that the parents don't have forms that need to be filled out. My children's school website has a section for forms that can be printed and returned.

The Russell Street School website is very inviting showing a variety of activities that take place at the school. The activities connect well with their vision and values page. I think adding the Google slide show to the values page helps to explain what their values. The school stream online is nice, but seems to be a bit hard to navigate in a traditional drop-down list.

My favorite parts of the website include the pictures of the students participating in different activities, the staff page which gives some personal information as to who they are and why they are excited to be working with the kids, and the blog, What Makes you Happy. I like hearing and seeing the kids answer that question.

Lastly, reading about the symbols they use to represent their values ties the website to their home page to empowering agency, innovation, and leadership.

Russell Street School

Upon first look of the blogs, my first impression is that I’m very impressed at the variety of content that is being posted. Both on the school and individual class blogs. However, I’m not as impressed with the school stream app. The layout doesn’t look as engaging and isn’t that user-friendly as an embedded tool on their website. Their previous Blogspot and SeeSaw blogs had a much better visual appearance.

One thing that stood out to me very quickly was that their students were visible in photos and videos that were posted on the blog. Having worked with the Yearbook and PR, this was a big flag for me. I would imagine that all the parents of these students have signed a media release form to allow the school to publicly post these images and videos on the internet.

Aside from this, it’s exciting to see how much these teachers and students posted to their blog. From pictures of their classroom to audio files of the students reading. It was also neat to see how some of the classes tagged their posts. Room 1 Little Einstein’s blog had their post tagged by competency. For example, these include Managing Self, Relating to others, and the various subjects being taught. I also liked they tagged the students’ name with each post. While I personally feel this information shouldn’t be public, it makes it easier for their parent to view posts of their child. Overall, this is a fun type of class blogging as it allows the students to share what they've learned with the world.

Russell Street School

When looking over the Russell Street School’s website I am really impressed by the amount of detail. Not only do they have a very professional looking homepage, but they also have multiple ways teachers and students can contribute online. They have a school stream where teachers can post updates and announcements about their classroom. This is an excellent idea because it’s one place where parents and students can go to find this information, rather than having to search through their emails. It’s also nice that there is an app that goes along with this so you could get announcements on your phone or tablet.

Each class also has a blog. On these blogs there are posts from the teachers, many with photos, showing what students have been working on in class. One class called the Little Einstein’s has pictures of when students helped each other or when students showed resilience during a challenge. Parents obviously loved seeing posts about their kids. Too often as teachers, we only talk to parents when their student has done something bad. I think it was great that the teacher was sharing positive things about the students online. In some of the classrooms with older kids, the students got to post on the blog as well. In the class 78or’s Got Talent, students shared videos of themselves playing songs on instruments, explaining what they learned from an activity, or how they did during a sporting event. I love that students can comment on each other’s work and parents can also leave positive feedback.

It is interesting to me that all of these photos on their blogs are visible to the general public. I know the district I work in has pretty strict rules about posting photos on our websites. We have to get permission from all parents. Every year, I have at least one student whose parents do not give me permission. I wonder if the Russell Street School has this problem. I think it could lead to that student feeling left out if there were no pictures of them on the blog and if they weren’t allowed to make their own posts on the blog.

Russell Street School

I appreciate the opportunity to check out the Russell Street School blogs and see how other schools are incorporating blogging as a learning activity.

As I look at this website, I see that the school maintained an active blog until early 2018, when the blog moved to the School Stream app. For individuals without a smartphone or who prefer to use a computer, there is a web-based version of the app too. I enjoyed looking through this web-based app because it was a little neater and easier to follow than the old Google Site.

One thing that caught my eye was in the Room 7 blog, the teacher posted pictures of her wedding after noting that a few had asked to see pictures via SeeSaw. I love seeing the human and personal side of classroom teaching too!

On the app version of the classroom blogs, I had a hard time determining who was the author. From the writing style, it seemed like they were all posted by adults. Was anyone able to see attributions on the posts, aside from if/when someone signed their name?

For the older blogs linked on the Google Site, many of the teachers were using SeeSaw to share out their learning with parents. I loved seeing the comments from parents on different posts, especially when they were so encouraging of all students. I don’t know a lot about SeeSaw, except that many elementary teachers I know love it! I am hoping to help one of our special education classes get this set-up for their classroom and parents this year. If anyone has experience, leave me a comment with your best tips!

After exploring the Russell Street School blogs, I’d love to explore blogging with my students. I’ve tried it a couple of times, as both a reflection tool and as part of larger projects. I wonder if I could achieve similar reflective results using Instagram, and allowing students to post to our classroom account.

Russell Street School

Looking over the Russell Street School, I like how they have a RSS feed section for blogs of different classrooms and school departments on their google sites page. It is interesting that they have both a website and a sites page. There seems to be a lot going on while navigating the Google sites page and some of it is a bit distracting visually while trying to navigate the pages. Maybe it’s just me.

I think my favorite thing I noticed is on their webpage they have a news link that shows all the RSS blog feeds for the school and has the option of using the School stream mobile app to access them. I think that could be helpful for parents, students, and faculty to stay informed at all times on their assignments and school information. I have no experience with the app but I am sure it has a better notification system for new post/comments and it seems to be more organized.

Looking through different blogs of the school, they do a great job of explaining what is going on so an outsider like myself or parents could easily follow along and understand what their kids are doing that week. I think that could be helpful for parents to know how they can assist at home. I also like the heavy use of images and videos in their posts. In the Team 6s (room6) blog I am really impressed with the layout. They have different pages for different subjects and includes a Twitter feed. Clicking on different subjects, it shares a variety of resources that include links such as information for parents, videos, interactive games, etc. The “us” page has every students picture and if you click on them, it will open up their personal class blogs (some don’t work). It is cool to see such young students are using blogs to document their participation in different school activities with video, images, and text, and also commenting on each other’s blogs. What is even more impressive is some of the student’s blogs have integrated different Google apps like a Google Slide show to demonstrate the class material.

Russell Street School

Russell Street School

I think it's a good idea that the Russell Street School has a blog section that includes the news and events. However, my favorite blog is "What Makes YOU Happy?" In my opinion, the answer to this question might determine how a teacher can help the student improve. Also, it shows that the school cares about how the student feels.

Furthermore, I liked that the website provided a School Stream Online and a Google Site because it lets others know what's going on at the school. However, the last Google Site post shows that the school prefers School Stream Online. In my opinion, the Google Site is better for those who want to post comments. Still, it might be easier for everyone if they're able to keep all the school-related information in one place.

Also, I don't see an issue with using a blog for school unless a blog or comment violates any school rules. In other words, the school should make it clear what is an acceptable post or comment and what isn't. Most of all, it's faster to share the information online and guarantees that the right people get the information.