Seesaw Description: Seesaw is a classroom app that allows connection between students, teachers, and families. Each student has a digital portfolio to document their work while teachers and families can interact with their content.

Website: https://web.seesaw.me/

Cost: Free for teachers. Seesaw plus (with premium features) costs $120 per year. Follow the link to view pricing and alternative features: https://help.seesaw.me/hc/en-us/articles/206381415-How-much-does-Seesaw-cost-.

Pedagogical Uses: Seesaw allows opportunities for endless creation from teachers and students. There are many different ideas to use this interactive technology tool.

Idea 1: Send students activities for homework.

Idea 2: Have students reflect on their learning with an exit ticket creation - type or record.

Idea 3: Students record themselves giving a book talk.

Idea 4: Send newsletters to families through messages.

Why should teachers use it?

Seesaw is a powerful tool to connect teachers and guardians of their students. It offers instant messaging to connect with families and updates on when messages were read. Students are able to upload or create content (like draw and record, collage, video and more) on the app for their portfolio. Teachers have to approve work before uploaded to their portfolio for families to see. Teachers can send activities for students to complete, which can support learning goals. Teachers can connect with the Seesaw Community and have access to all activities in the library already created. Parents or guardians attached to their student account can like and provide comments, along with the teacher. Seesaw truly provides meaningful engagement.

ISTE Standards

Teacher Standards:

#5 - Designer: 5b. Design authentic learning activities that align with content area standards and use digital tools and resources to maximize active deep learning.

#5 - Designer: 5c. Explore and apply instructional design principles to create innovative digital learning environments that engage and support learning.

Student Standards:

#3 – Knowledge Constructor: 3c. Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.

#6 – Creative Communicator: 6c. Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.

Click on the picture to save my activity in your Seesaw library.

Example:

In my example, I created a reading reflection activity. Students could either read the instructions or listen to my audio of the instructions. Then they used tools on their student account (the video tool) to record themselves reading a passage for one minute. Students were able to watch the video and reflect on how well they read with accuracy, punctuation, rate, and expression.

PROS

Easy to navigate and find activities for students.

Quickly send premade activities to students on their own account.

Students are creative in their production of content.

Shortcuts allow for clipart pictures of what students need to use.

Students can have multiple classes.

CONS

Creation of class can be time consuming.

Premium features cost more money.

Resources:

https://help.seesaw.me/hc/en-us/articles/203816959-Seesaw-icon-and-logo