We heard how being connected sits closely with visibility, which we learnt about last week. Dorothy explain the the ideas of Learn, Create, Share is what helps us to connect as a network of schools. The connections that we have also allow students to have connections with other students through the use of their blogs. By sharing their learning and being able to see what students at other schools have being learning allows them to connect with the wider world. As a city girl who has worked in a couple of country schools in the past I loved Dorothy's example of the student blogging about possum shooting, something that is a regular for them but students in city schools are being exposed to a new experiences or ideas.It was good to hear about the twitter page to be able to see the blog posts from around the cluster. This makes it feel so much more manageable to view the blogs from around the cluster, I have finally given in and signed up to twitter.
Next we moved onto the main focus which was enabling access to learning. We had a look at different learning sites, including our own. The main points I took away from this were:
- Keeping it simple and uncluttered
- Photos of students made people feel engaged with the site
- the use of sites in consistent for a student from year 1 to 13
- Questions to ask:
- Is the site visually appealing? Does it hook in the user?
- Is the site functional for users?
- Is there connection to the blogs?
- 3 click rule - only three clicks to the learning.
We got feedback on our sites from others which was really useful and gave me ideas I had't thought of. We were then given time to make changes to our sites. It was so great to have this time because often the focus is on getting the content on the site and functionality/appeal get a little lost.
I hope my site is more user friendly for my students and visitors, it will be something I continue focusing on as the site changes and develops. If you want to check it out click here for the link.
Until next time,
Sarah
Kia ora Sarah,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your first part of this post about connection. It is so important to show our students different ways of life and blog posts are a great way to do this!
Did you know that you don't have to sign up to twitter to get the feed? You can just go to https://twitter.com/studentslcs and the posts will show up. Maybe you are converted now though? I find tweets hard to get my head around unless I am at a conference haha!
Your Site is looking awesome.
- Kelsey