I looked at Russell Street School's website to see how their teachers and students are using blogs. I should be ashamed to admit that I was jealous, but that's the first reaction I had. I absolutely love how they are using blogs in their classrooms. It's something that my co-worker and I have tried to get teachers to do in their classrooms with little success. I would like to know what the conditions were/are to get teachers to use blogs and to let their students blog. Our teachers seem to feel that they don't have time to blog with all of the standards that they need to meet. It's as if blogging is a permissible activity if there is the luxury of time...time to have teachers become familiar enough with how to blog themselves as well as teach students and give them classroom time to get it done. My daughter's English teacher had them do some blogging and assigned it as homework, but posting was rather random.
I like the way that the student blogging is structured. Room 14 has students writing weekly goals, and then they reflect on their goals and other things that they have learned in the term. I really like that. Room 9 does a lot of reflection, and I like the way that is set up: What, So What, and Now What. It gives the students a concrete, structured way to know how to reflect, and how to set goals for Now What. I think these types of activities keep students plugged in to what they have learned and what they want to learn. The student blogs in Room 9 are also portfolios of what they have done and accomplished over the year. I think that is a valuable tool for students to have, to be able to go back and review their progress over the year. Powerful!
My biggest delight was watching the Street Talk episodes! I watched the first episode, then Episode 5, and then the latest episode, Episode 14. My, how the students have progressed in their abilities! Episode 14 was much smoother, and the students are learning how to communicate very well. The Street Talk blog had a post that listed the rules and guidelines for the vodcast, which I thought were very specific and easy for the students to follow. The kids are fun to watch and their video is well thought out and put together. I am so impressed!
I wish that we could get a few of our teachers in the district to bite on this concept and implement it in their classrooms. I think that if they were not so afraid of not meeting standards and would be creative in how they could use this to actually meet standards (and have great documentation in the process) it would be a win-win for students and teachers alike. I guess I dare to dream. In the meantime...keep up the good work, Russell Street School!
Tina, it is interesting that you mention the growth you saw in the Street Talk episodes. When I visited the class, the two main hosts showed me these episodes and they started with the first one, and then showed me two others before showing me episode seven or eight (which was their most recent one). They talked to me about their own growth - in terms of the technical side of things, but also in terms of the sophistication about their thinking about what makes a video-based, local news program. It was quite telling all that they had taken away from this project-based activity.
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