This is very impressive how an elementary school is so technology immersed. What Russel Street School is doing is so good for public relations, for parent involvement, and for student engagement. The students must be so proud of what they are doing and to see themselves online.
A few things I wondered when I first came across the site was How involved are the students in this? and Is it just the staff making digital content of what students are doing?
Very quickly it became apparent that the students really are learning to use technology in hugely relevant ways. Apparently they all have Google accounts and probably regularly use them. Here is the first line that suggested this to me from the post Term 2 Student Review: “You need to remember to log into your gmail account, complete the survey and then log out so nobody else completes the survey under your login.”
But that is just the beginning of these kids’ technology use. They even all have blogs, like Abby’s blogspot here. The use of students’ pictures online and first names does raise questions for me about permission and liability. Do parents need to sign off that their kids can post online? Have they had any issues with this? When I think about my own administration, I have a hard time seeing this getting cleared.
As a side note, it was also fun to see the New Zealand dialect in lines like these: “Take your time and have a think about your answers” and this pair of lines that I actually thought was a typo at first “share some of your favourite stories with you family” (“you” for “your”) until I later read this line that got me thinking maybe they just talk like this: “we want to collect you ideas about your learning
I thought the same thing as I read, then I realized that the school was in New Zealand and perhaps their English dialects are different. Interesting how we read, we correct, and then realize that it is a different culture.
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