Inspiration for today's post: http://www.sptimes.com/2005/08/09/Tampabay/Blogging_classroom_co.shtml
In August of 2005, the St. Petersburg Times Online featured an article written about a fifth grade classroom in Florida that had created their own blog. The teacher, Mr. Roemer, had developed a website (http://pb5th.com/) that included various tabs like class news, homework policy, behavior, reports due, pictures, and more. He also included a class log link where students could report about their daily adventures in the classroom.
The article addressed many of the concerns, questions, and information that we have already discussed. Instead of focusing my attention on someone's interpretation of the site, I wanted to get down to the nitty-gritty, which is why I clicked on the link and checked it out for myself! Here's what I found:
Wow
The site is well-developed and student friendly. I was impressed with the detail provided and the regular updates. I was also impressed with the Mr. Roemer himself, as he is incredibly open and encouraging with his students. He even lets them call him at home! I would be very proud to create a website half as informational as his.
Things to Consider
The blog portion of the site seems more like a continuation of the site itself. Students use the blog as a location to post a commentary of the day's events. As far as I could tell, the blog does not encourage commentary or discussion, which is one of the greatest ways for students to learn from the blog. On the other hand, I'm sure parents with computers at home are extremely appreciative of the logger's work each day, as they have immediate access to what's going on in their child's class. The logs are incredibly detailed, which makes me wonder how the loggers get anything done in class- they are always writing!
Be sure to check out the site. It's worth a few minutes of your day. Mr. Roemer also writes about a classroom behavior management routine called Whole Class Self Monitoring- very interesting. Has anyone heard of this before?
4 comments:
Laine-
This teacher does have an impressive site. I'm wondering if other teachers at the school are as inclined to put this much effort towards a website...it's funny I couldn't find any links to a "whole school" site? My only concern is that there is soooo much to look at that parents would get lost in it and give up for lack of time (and perhaps students too.) I wonder why he doesn't use the blog function as part of his instruction as well?
I have not heard of the whole class self-monitoring, but it seems like an interesting concept. When I went to search to see what I else I might come up with on the idea, interestingly enough, the first handful of choices seemed all related to this teacher somehow...he must do a lot of work in that arena as well!
Ann
Laine, this was actually a link on a site Dr. Dawson gave us last semester in our Internet K12 course. It was an example of an effective class web site.
While it is a nice site, I must admit that I don't find the "log" to be a "blog" at all. It looks to me more like a discussion forum, quite like the pbPhat area, only it discusses the day's events. It is a daily "log" of classroom activities. Of course, I don't know, but with all the edited posts, it would seem that different students edit during the day. Maybe they post when they have completed assignments. That would be a creative way to occupy fast finishers.
But....I do love this site. It is a "good" site. Maybe we should include it on our list?
Hi! I'm Fred Roemer, the teacher responsible for the discussed here. Thanks for the kind words.
To address a few of the comments, the log is not strictly a blog, as was noted. Several different students are responsible for the log each day, all signed in under the generic user name, "kid." My class has been writing the online log in some form for about ten years now. Parents say that they really like having an overview of the school day from a student's perspective. All responses and discussion are carried on in private areas of the forum, which also has a shout box for student use. We have book talk and writing response discussions in private, too. This year, each student has a computer nearly all day to make it easier to communicate on the site.
I post a "daily flow" menu post each day with pictures, instruction, links, discussion starters, and other activities, but that's in private. I make assessments using the Hot Potatoes software, which e-mails individual score results to me. Most assessments aren't available in public.
I don't allow public discussion due to privacy concerns. I don't link to my school site because I don't want to make it easy to find out which school we're at (I realize that an intrepid searcher can do so). Besides, the school site was wiped out by a system crash a few weeks ago.
Thanks for noticing the site.
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