You’ve been to a science fair, right? Tri-fold boards, volcanoes and blue ribbons. This month, my colleagues and I shepherded the “STEM Fair” into existence. The STEM Fair is a showcase for any Science, Technology, Engineering or Math project our students produced over the course of a month. My school produced forty to fifty blog posts, hundreds of digital pictures, a dozen two minute videos, thirty presentations and about ten individual physical showcases. I have a room filled with Japanese art-chemistry, rocket cars, rockets of various propulsion methods, a small robot, a Lego-Branded robot, paper gliders, a seesaw and more. How can a teacher show off his students work to parents, grandparents, etc who may not be able to attend the event physically?
The Digital STEM Fair.
I have I ever told you this is my other…other….other blog? I have a handle at Lumberjocks, I blog here and I blog at school. Well, my students blog. I facilitate the school’s Website Committee. Last year, I revamped the committee’s operation – launching a WordPress-powered blog. This year, I opened the site to the various other parts of school – student newspaper, various academic classes and clubs. This week, I will use this student-centered, student-owned tool to create a digital gateway into the Math/Sci department at my school.
The Plan:
A splash page which directs parents to the different classes. The classes will link to STEM Project Proposals, Updates & Final Posts. All of this can be sorted by a strong tagging system. WordPress also makes certain posts “sticky” – meaning they always lead the blog’s front page. I’d like to “farm” this work out to my students, but most likely I’ll need to do this, as I have administrator access.
Next, I’ll have the students upload their videos to a web-hosting service and embed those videos into the posts itself. I use Youtube as a video host, so I need to turn of the “suggested video” option. If a “suggested video” happens to be controversial, we don’t want people thinking it’s the school’s issue.
Lastly, my students will create a inclusive slideshow of the work they did, embedding this into the splash page.
Our school does have some rules which I should be aware of -
1. Each kid’s parents/guardian signs a media release.
2. Only use first names.
3. Any video is unsearchable & password protected. WordPress can password protect individual posts and many sites like Youtube have an unlisted option.
4. Don’t put anything up which shows the school in a bad light…
5. Last but not least, turn comments off.
I like these rules – if you blog about children, take them into account. Teacher Tom only posts pictures of kids hands and keeps the screen squiggly. Other bloggers do the same. I tend to only take shots of the finished products. Unlike my examples, the student blog has a kid-driven focus – its intent is to show our students and their competence. I try to keep that in mind as I put student work “out there”.
Make it safe & keep the rubber side down.
