Classroom Websites Vs. Social Media: The evolution of commucating to the home

In 2002 I convinced my administrative team of the importance of creating classroom websites as a communication tool to home. We bought School Center and for 14 years I worked tirelessly to empower and inspire other teachers to create classroom websites, . I can think of sleepless nights getting photos uploaded to share with parents, adding documents to connect school to home, or pages, that showcased the enrichment opportunities for learners in our room. 

In the spring of 2015 I learned we would be switching to a district wide platform using Sharp School. I was informed that everything we did using School Center would be transferred over, even though I knew deep down nothing would look 100% the way I wanted it to. (See the new site here.) 

Over the course of the migration something shifted in my philosophy. I was waiting for the site to be created using the new platform and in the interim began using Google Photos to share classroom photos (parents love being able to see and download photos to share with family or on their own social media sites) and Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to connect with families. 

When I got the call that my photos would not transfer over I thought about it for 30 seconds and said delete the pages with the photos. The voice on the other end of the line was mildly surprised by my reaction as I think it was expected I would be frustrated by the fact that things were not migrating perfectly. 

In the time it took for them to migrate the website over I made a new discovery about the POWER of social media in the elementary classroom. I no longer needed to spend countless hours pushing information through a website when I could quickly share a post or a tweet. Parents began following our classroom accounts and loved the real time information being shared as they felt they were part of the experience. 

Students rushed home to see what new photos were posted on Instagram (student names are never used). I gave students hashtags using their agent numbers and first name so they could communicate with authors and experts on Twitter when I did not have the answers.  

We received an invitation to Skype with Kevin Carroll about our Red Rubber Ball In School project due to tweets we sent out about the work we were doing. The Global ReadAloud brought learning alive as we got to Face Times with students in Texas about living with dyslexia, which the protagonist in our story was learning to navigate herself. Parents began communicating through comments and connecting using the various platforms too. 

None of this happened on my classroom website. We have all been empowered and enriched by so many new experiences! So my current classroom website sits collecting dust as I have not touched it since my evolution into the realm of using social media as a tool in the classroom. 

Parents can still go on it and see the information I posted, which is still important. However the use of the website has become different. It is now a tool for yearlong information to sit, and the live learning is shared through social media. 

This experience has not only taught me the importance of teaching, modeling, and guiding digital citizenship skills but also the value of educating parents (and my peers) as well. Social media is here to stay. Students need to learn to use it effectively, safely, and efficiently in order to connect them to their world. In a war between websites and social media, I think social media captured our hearts creating an even tighter classroom bond between me and my agent community and our website serves a completely different purpose than it did in 2002. It is 2018. Things change! 

Follow me on Twitter @rlfreedm