| | Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:01 pm | | | | Comments: 0 Views: 127 |
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This is a letter I sent out to educators who were interested in creating online classroom collaborations.
Hey Everyone,
Let's talk about project standards. In order for this project to work we need to establish some standards. If you've talked to me at all you know that I am all about setting up very practical solutions that fit many needs simultaneously, so that's how the standards are going to be developed. It's important that the collaborative projects you create online support the classroom as well as parents, the local community, and other teachers; think of yourself as a mentor as much as a collaborator and educator. You will be setting the example for this kind of practice and you'll be the first in this community of teachers.
The first standard is that you maintain your web presence. This is actually really easy to do. All it consists of is creating site content and responding to your mail and comments. The system we're going to use makes this very easy.
The next standard is that you structure your site the way you structure your classes. If you teach multiple subjects emphasize that with your site structure. If you have a unique perspective on the structure of you class emphasize that. Content will actually flow a lot more easily if you structure your site properly. Providing structure to your site is one of the things that sets it apart from a typical blog or wiki. The structure is what is going to define your classroom to other teachers and collaborators. It will also make content more available throughout the term and or school year
The third standard is to make your content useful to your own classroom by posting information and that is up to date and helpful to parents as well as students, it may even be helpful to other teachers in your district. A parent should be able to come to your site and know what happened in class that day and what the assignments for the day are. This will also be very important when you begin a genuine collaborative process with other teachers (this project is going to be decentralized, I'll only be here for support).
The forth standard is to make your community aware of the project. The project needs to be a place where parents, students and teachers can meet and see that there are no barriers in your classroom. Your essentially creating an open standard where parents, colleagues, and administrators can get a hard wire into the events in your classroom.
The fifth and final standard is to use security settings to control who has access to information on your site. You shouldn't be posting the names and photos of your students on the web openly. be careful who you let access to these private areas. Site content should be like your grade book. It's open for everyone to see, but not for everyone to see everything. Security standards will work there way into the collaborative process as well.
Jared
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