May 28, 2009 at 1:52 pmBook about school sites. About the goals of the school site
I continue to publish the book "Creating a school site: from concept to implementation and development." Today we’re talking about the goals of the school site. Better than any theoretical calculations, real school stories work.
Based on the comments on the first post , I want to once again draw attention to such a moment. The audience of this manual is school managers, people not experienced in the web. Something may look quite simplistic, some things are obvious. This is not in terms of an apology, but to prevent comments about “who needs it”, “it is obvious”, “what to write about it” and so on. Believe me, for many this is not at all obvious.
Any activity should begin with the definition of goals. The school site has its own goals. But we will not from the very beginning try to formally state these goals. Just give a few stories from real educational practice.
Imagine that a parent comes to you - the school manager - at the beginning of the school year to send his child to school. It doesn’t matter if the child enters the 1st, 10th or any other class. Naturally, a parent is interested in a lot: who, what and how to teach, what is the mode of work, what are the opportunities for additional education, how are meals organized, what are the results of exams, how do graduates do, how is safety ensured - and a thousand other important and not so things . If the parent is not your first today, you will repeat to him the nth time everything that has already been said several times in different variations. This is tiring, time-consuming and not always constructive: for information from the ear is often perceived with distortion. The conversation will be much more constructive,
Another variation on the same topic. In your office there is a parent who has come to arrange a child for school. Naturally, you are interested in why he preferred your school, what specifically led him to you. And, imagine, you hear: "I learned about school from your site . " Tell me, what information about the person standing in front of you do you already have?
Firstly, most likely (not exactly!) Before you is a person of a certain socio-cultural level. He owns user computer skills and is “connected” to the Internet. Perhaps he has a computer at home. Or at work, therefore, it is a person associated with office activities.
Secondly, he preoccupied himself with the search for an educational institution for his child, and did not come to the school that is geographically closest, therefore, this parent is quite serious about the issues of educating and raising a child, and you can rely on him, since education for this families are value and they are really engaged in a child here, his life excites his parents. Do you want to have such parents, and not those who bring the child to school, as if they are surrendering to the storage room - so that you don’t hang out on the streets?
Thirdly, evaluating the information from your site, this parent made his choice and came to you. Already therefore, we can assume that, on the one hand, this is a person who clearly saw more than one school site and chose it quite consciously, on the other, which is very important, he assumes that your school will be adequate for his child. This is potentially your parent.
In education, quite often you can hear the expression "the struggle of the school for the student." Although our reality, for financial and legal reasons, often refutes this opinion, the struggle for any student of any school is a myth. It will probably be more correct to say that the school is fighting (or wants to fight) for its student. And in this case, when you see a prepared parent in front of you, the likelihood that he will bring “your” student to you greatly increases. It will be superfluous to say that a further face-to-face dialogue with such a parent will be much more constructive and concrete.
How real is this situation, how many parents today already get the primary impression of the school through its official website? Probably not yet, but the dynamics are interesting. In 2004, one St. Petersburg school had its own website. There were no parental responses for a year. In 2005, with the words: “I learned about your school from the site and I want my child to study here,” came three parents, in 2006 - 11 people. As it turned out, not a single really “problematic” child was among them, these were socially successful families, seriously interested in quality education, ready for a constructive dialogue with the school. How many such parents will be in the future - time will tell. We can say that so far there are few such situations, but in the future, the school site may well become one of the priority forms for parents to receive information about OS.
A forum for communication between the administration, students, graduates, teachers, and parents was created on the website of a St. Petersburg school. Among others, the section “Consultation of a psychologist” was instituted, in which school students were given the opportunity to anonymously address personal issues. This section was led by a recent graduate of the Faculty of Psychology of St. Petersburg State University, who worked as a psychologist at the school and was interested in mastering the Internet as a professional environment. For a long time, the contents of this section were questions like “How do you like a boy from a parallel class?” Or “How to explain to my mother that I am already adult and can come home not at 9 in the evening, but later?” But once in the psychological section on the forum the topic “ I don’t want to live anymore! ”. Without any signature (we recall, the section is anonymous), someone described the situation that led him to thoughts of suicide: troubles and conflicts at school, low self-esteem, turmoil in relations with parents, failure to see future prospects and meanings of life. The child wrote: "In fact, I’ve already decided everything, but maybe they will say something else here." A long cycle of correspondence, questions and answers began to correct the situation very slowly and gradually (does it need to say how anxious the administration was watching the work of the young psychologist: after all, there was no information other than statements on the forum about the person who wrote). The problem was solved. Only by chance after six months did it become clear what really happened. It turned out that the threat was quite serious, that this forum correspondence was encouraging and keeping the student from the last step.
Again, a section for graduates was created on the forum of one of the school sites. Despite the fact that today Odnoklassniki.ru , My Circle , VKontakte and other popular social networking services are very popular and popular, graduates of this school chose to keep in touch with each other on the school site forum. “Dividends” for the school were not long in coming: two young specialists came to the vacant places from among the graduates, they managed to find funds to repair two rooms through the graduates, the practice of the school included meetings with graduates who became one of the forms of career guidance and adaptation activities.
The school had a rather weak method for uniting math teachers. As a result, the level of teaching was directly proportional to the performance and dedication of students in this discipline. But at the same time there was a convenient site created on the initiative of an informatics teacher with the support of the administration. They started the interactive section "Entertaining mathematics", which agreed to lead a strong mathematician from a nearby school. After a while, this became the most visited section of the site, while students of this and other schools came here and brought their friends. The interest of students in the subject gradually increased, knowledge of mathematics at school slowly, but went up.
This is not even a story, rather, just a reflection. The school site can be used to organize distance learning. This is a serious issue that requires deep study, but its relevance today is undeniable, especially in a situation where, on the one hand, school profiling poses rather serious problems for educational institutions, which not every school can solve alone, on the other, it is necessary to look for new forms work with children who for one reason or another are not ready for regular attendance of classes. And we have many such students today. These are sick children who are at home schooling, and children who are seriously involved in sports or receive additional education outside the school (they often have to skip classes). Today there is the problem of attending school for 11th graders, especially in the second half of the year, when final exams in preparatory courses and university olympiads begin, participation in which provides benefits for admission. The distance learning system will remove a lot of conflicts and help the school to build relations with such students normally.
These are just some examples, the list of which, on reflection, an experienced administrator can continue based on his experience. It is important for us to emphasize that the opportunities that the school site provides today are quite a lot in both educational and managerial spheres. Some are understandable, others are unexpected, and others can arise only from real practical experience. Hence, let us conclude that the school site is a new educational reality, the features of the work and the effects of the activity of which the pedagogical community are not yet sufficiently reflexed. And here is one way - the empirical.
In the most general form, we still try to answer the question of what the purpose of the school creating its website is.
Based on the comments on the first post , I want to once again draw attention to such a moment. The audience of this manual is school managers, people not experienced in the web. Something may look quite simplistic, some things are obvious. This is not in terms of an apology, but to prevent comments about “who needs it”, “it is obvious”, “what to write about it” and so on. Believe me, for many this is not at all obvious.
Any activity should begin with the definition of goals. The school site has its own goals. But we will not from the very beginning try to formally state these goals. Just give a few stories from real educational practice.
First story
Imagine that a parent comes to you - the school manager - at the beginning of the school year to send his child to school. It doesn’t matter if the child enters the 1st, 10th or any other class. Naturally, a parent is interested in a lot: who, what and how to teach, what is the mode of work, what are the opportunities for additional education, how are meals organized, what are the results of exams, how do graduates do, how is safety ensured - and a thousand other important and not so things . If the parent is not your first today, you will repeat to him the nth time everything that has already been said several times in different variations. This is tiring, time-consuming and not always constructive: for information from the ear is often perceived with distortion. The conversation will be much more constructive,
Another variation on the same topic. In your office there is a parent who has come to arrange a child for school. Naturally, you are interested in why he preferred your school, what specifically led him to you. And, imagine, you hear: "I learned about school from your site . " Tell me, what information about the person standing in front of you do you already have?
Firstly, most likely (not exactly!) Before you is a person of a certain socio-cultural level. He owns user computer skills and is “connected” to the Internet. Perhaps he has a computer at home. Or at work, therefore, it is a person associated with office activities.
Secondly, he preoccupied himself with the search for an educational institution for his child, and did not come to the school that is geographically closest, therefore, this parent is quite serious about the issues of educating and raising a child, and you can rely on him, since education for this families are value and they are really engaged in a child here, his life excites his parents. Do you want to have such parents, and not those who bring the child to school, as if they are surrendering to the storage room - so that you don’t hang out on the streets?
Thirdly, evaluating the information from your site, this parent made his choice and came to you. Already therefore, we can assume that, on the one hand, this is a person who clearly saw more than one school site and chose it quite consciously, on the other, which is very important, he assumes that your school will be adequate for his child. This is potentially your parent.
In education, quite often you can hear the expression "the struggle of the school for the student." Although our reality, for financial and legal reasons, often refutes this opinion, the struggle for any student of any school is a myth. It will probably be more correct to say that the school is fighting (or wants to fight) for its student. And in this case, when you see a prepared parent in front of you, the likelihood that he will bring “your” student to you greatly increases. It will be superfluous to say that a further face-to-face dialogue with such a parent will be much more constructive and concrete.
How real is this situation, how many parents today already get the primary impression of the school through its official website? Probably not yet, but the dynamics are interesting. In 2004, one St. Petersburg school had its own website. There were no parental responses for a year. In 2005, with the words: “I learned about your school from the site and I want my child to study here,” came three parents, in 2006 - 11 people. As it turned out, not a single really “problematic” child was among them, these were socially successful families, seriously interested in quality education, ready for a constructive dialogue with the school. How many such parents will be in the future - time will tell. We can say that so far there are few such situations, but in the future, the school site may well become one of the priority forms for parents to receive information about OS.
Second story
A forum for communication between the administration, students, graduates, teachers, and parents was created on the website of a St. Petersburg school. Among others, the section “Consultation of a psychologist” was instituted, in which school students were given the opportunity to anonymously address personal issues. This section was led by a recent graduate of the Faculty of Psychology of St. Petersburg State University, who worked as a psychologist at the school and was interested in mastering the Internet as a professional environment. For a long time, the contents of this section were questions like “How do you like a boy from a parallel class?” Or “How to explain to my mother that I am already adult and can come home not at 9 in the evening, but later?” But once in the psychological section on the forum the topic “ I don’t want to live anymore! ”. Without any signature (we recall, the section is anonymous), someone described the situation that led him to thoughts of suicide: troubles and conflicts at school, low self-esteem, turmoil in relations with parents, failure to see future prospects and meanings of life. The child wrote: "In fact, I’ve already decided everything, but maybe they will say something else here." A long cycle of correspondence, questions and answers began to correct the situation very slowly and gradually (does it need to say how anxious the administration was watching the work of the young psychologist: after all, there was no information other than statements on the forum about the person who wrote). The problem was solved. Only by chance after six months did it become clear what really happened. It turned out that the threat was quite serious, that this forum correspondence was encouraging and keeping the student from the last step.
Third story
Again, a section for graduates was created on the forum of one of the school sites. Despite the fact that today Odnoklassniki.ru , My Circle , VKontakte and other popular social networking services are very popular and popular, graduates of this school chose to keep in touch with each other on the school site forum. “Dividends” for the school were not long in coming: two young specialists came to the vacant places from among the graduates, they managed to find funds to repair two rooms through the graduates, the practice of the school included meetings with graduates who became one of the forms of career guidance and adaptation activities.
Fourth story
The school had a rather weak method for uniting math teachers. As a result, the level of teaching was directly proportional to the performance and dedication of students in this discipline. But at the same time there was a convenient site created on the initiative of an informatics teacher with the support of the administration. They started the interactive section "Entertaining mathematics", which agreed to lead a strong mathematician from a nearby school. After a while, this became the most visited section of the site, while students of this and other schools came here and brought their friends. The interest of students in the subject gradually increased, knowledge of mathematics at school slowly, but went up.
Fifth story
This is not even a story, rather, just a reflection. The school site can be used to organize distance learning. This is a serious issue that requires deep study, but its relevance today is undeniable, especially in a situation where, on the one hand, school profiling poses rather serious problems for educational institutions, which not every school can solve alone, on the other, it is necessary to look for new forms work with children who for one reason or another are not ready for regular attendance of classes. And we have many such students today. These are sick children who are at home schooling, and children who are seriously involved in sports or receive additional education outside the school (they often have to skip classes). Today there is the problem of attending school for 11th graders, especially in the second half of the year, when final exams in preparatory courses and university olympiads begin, participation in which provides benefits for admission. The distance learning system will remove a lot of conflicts and help the school to build relations with such students normally.
These are just some examples, the list of which, on reflection, an experienced administrator can continue based on his experience. It is important for us to emphasize that the opportunities that the school site provides today are quite a lot in both educational and managerial spheres. Some are understandable, others are unexpected, and others can arise only from real practical experience. Hence, let us conclude that the school site is a new educational reality, the features of the work and the effects of the activity of which the pedagogical community are not yet sufficiently reflexed. And here is one way - the empirical.
In the most general form, we still try to answer the question of what the purpose of the school creating its website is.