So following on from a PD session with the lovely Madeline. I've been thinking about how to make the learning sites not only more accessible to students but also the staff. The staff at the school are doing an awesome job and I'm not sure that everyone knows what's going on in other classes, I know I don't.

So yesterday I started my plan to share the amazing work the staff have been beavering away at recently.
1. Put any learning sites that have been made on the school website.
2. Share these in the staff meeting this morning, and ask staff to ask questions about a site that they have viewed.

This actually worked really well with staff and I found out about sites and staff doing this that I had no idea about.
It also had a bit of an effect on other staff that I wasn't expecting. Once staff saw what other departments had achieved several staff asked me how to do the sites and if there was a template. Staff wanted to keep up with others a side effect I wasn't expecting but was totally stoked about. Totally impressed with how well everyone is doing and those that aren't quite there yet are seeing and learning from others.

Problems to solve
a) Students need to know where they can get access to resources.
b) Students also need to have a reason to access these resources.
c) Students need to have access to devices so that they can access the sites.
d) The area we are in needs to have reliable rural internet so students can access this outside of school.
e) Is the site accessible on multiple platforms

Plans/ideas about some of these issues
The students all know where the school website is and frequently access it to find their timetables or information about the school. Today I showed my whanau class the learning sites page and they were all quite interested and excited to see what others were doing. The Junior sites and blogs have lots of diverse and interesting things in them so all the students were really interested in that (MC, CA). Missing classes and wanting not to fall behind is a good reason to use the sites but we also need to instil and love of learning, to build enthusiasm and enjoyment. With the learn create share method I think getting students to share their creations online will help to build up the enthusiasm and enjoyment. The accessibility of the sites on multiple platforms is a bit of an interesting one. We are generally using Chromebooks at school, but students will use lots of devices outside and I feel we need to encourage this. Found a handy wee site that lets you check to see what your google site will look like on a mobile. https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly

Things I have no control over
Hopefully, the juniors will be 1:1 devices quite soon and that will mean that they will have the capacity to access the sites daily. More Chromebooks would be awesome to use with middle school and senior students but hopefully, this will happen in time. I have no control over internet providers, unfortunately.