September 2025

We've got some fresh new features for Seesaw! For all of our K-4 teachers, we've been upgraded to Seesaw's "instruction and insights" tier, which comes with some new features:

• Reading fluency assessment – have students record themselves reading and a passage and Seesaw automatically captures accuracy, words correct per minute, omissions and more

• Read-with-me – record yourself reading a passage and when students play it, Seesaw will highlight the words in sync with your reading

• Flex cards – custom, flippable tiles that offer you more customizability in activities to meet the unique needs of your classroom

• Focus mode – you can now control which tools a student sees when they complete an activity

• And more! 

There are certainly already many activities that utilize these features in the Seesaw activity library, and if you already have some activities from the library that you think would benefit from one or more of these features, you can customize them . Let me know if you’d like to see a demo or learn more! 

Self paced trainings this fall will be limited to my three newest: Clip Champ, Intro to Magic School, and Magic Student. I will be spending time this fall updating the rest of the self-paced training menu so that the information is accurate and timely. If you've taken these trainings in the past, you may wish to enroll again and take them to have the latest information when they're available again in the spring/summer. 

In an on-going effort to make the NYS Computer Science and Digital Fluency standards more accessible for teachers and students, I spent some time this summer creating a fun Gimkit question  set, all about the skills and knowledge contained within that standards document. Many of the questions in this kit are based on foundational technology skills that we all want our students to understand and be able to perform. You can grab this kit of questions and students can try it out with any game mode they prefer! Check out that kit here: https://www.gimkit.com/view/68a5f3107e23bc2b00ba1be1 

The lock of the day competition is changing a little bit this year. Breakout EDU has changed how students access content, so I can no longer post the links to each lock of the day on my website. Instead, students (and staff, when staff competition time comes) will have to join a Breakout EDU class. One benefit of this is that no one will have to wait for me to publish the lock each day! Instead, it will be there waiting for you each morning that you login to the Breakout class. In order to join the class, go to https://student.breakoutedu.com/signup and enter the class code: H272K1

Even though you will be creating a class to access the locks, you will still need to complete the LOTD form to be part of the competition, however you no longer need to actually type out the correct solution in the form, so it's easier to fill out. The form can be found here: https://forms.gle/Stq7j8XsjMnctuea7 

Don't forget that you can easily book time directly on my calendar. You don't even have to ask! You can use my Bookings page, which syncs up with my Outlook calendar. You just choose how long of a meeting you'd like and it will show you all the available times I have. You can find the link to my Bookings page in my email signature and at the end of this section. When you choose a time to book, you will be given a notes section to add any additional information or context. If you could include the purpose of the meeting in that notes section, I can prepare ahead of time. It's also helpful for you to include your room number so I can find you :) 

Book me here: https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/1dea0f7c54394ca58068c60494347fc2@cccsd.org?anonymous&ismsaljsauthenabled&ep=plink