Seesaw Multimodal Tutorial
Summary of Seesaw
Seesaw is a student driven digital portfolio tool available for Apple devices, Android devices, Chromebooks, and any computer with Firefox or Chrome installed. It is free for an individual teacher to use for one year. After that, a school-wide account must be purchased. A quote for this level can be requested online. Seesaw allows students to safely upload their work via a shared classroom QR code login system, eliminating the possibility of a child joining the wrong class. This is one of many student safety features provided by Seesaw. Teachers can review student work and provide immediate feedback while building a year-long portfolio sortable by class, subject, or student. If a teacher chooses to invite parents, they can see their child’s work and leave comments via the Seesaw Parent app. Seesaw offers many supports to teachers including a help section and fast customer service. The benefits of using Seesaw are as follows:
Teachers
- Access account from any device or on the web
- All entries require teacher approval before sharing is enabled
- Review student progress and growth over time
- Digitizes piles of papers
- Easy preparation for parent-teacher conferences or IEP meetings
- Digital folders to sort assignments
- Assignments can be viewed in a range of ways: all work from one student, all math work from one student, all student work from one assignment, etc.
- Control over student and parent access
Parents
- Receive updates of student work throughout the day
- Stay informed of child’s progress
- Provide comments and “like” child’s assignments
- Facilitate conversations about academic topics and school activities at home
- Child’s work is safe and secure – only accessible to those invited to see it by the teacher
- Free parent app
- Option to upgrade to Parent Plus account – allows multiple year viewing for $10 a year per child
- Visual updates reduce language barriers
Students
- Upload own assignments using a QR code
- Variety of options in turning in assignments: photos, videos, drawings, notes, links, pdf uploads, or direct import from several apps
- Allows for reflection on assignments by adding audio, drawings, or text to uploads
- Permits asking for individual and specific help on an assignment via narration or text
- Comments and “likes” on assignments are motivating
- Builds independence and responsibility by uploading own assignments
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Apple
Android
Chromebook/Web
Pedagogical Use
As you can see in the table above, there are many benefits to using Seesaw. Being able to access student work from any device or on the web is a huge advantage of using this program, it eliminates the need to carry home papers or stay late at school grading. Allowing students to comment on their assignments promotes both self-reflection and self-assessment. Sharing student work with parents creates an open flow of communication and provides timely updates on student progress. Teacher and parent comments provide students an authentic audience which motivates them to do their best work.
One of the most beneficial uses of Seesaw is organizing student work and preparing for meetings. Teachers spend a lot of time organizing work for data purposes and attending meetings, which takes away from their planning and personal time. Preparing work samples for parent-teacher conferences and IEP meetings can take teachers hours both before the meeting and after. Seesaw eliminates the need for teachers to gather paper assignments from their filing cabinets, organize them into folders for each student, arrange the folders in order of the meetings, and refile assignments afterward. This is a huge time saver! Instead, teachers can flag individual student’s assignments and display only those work samples on a tablet, computer, or even a phone. In large IEP meetings teachers often have to prepare copies of student work so everyone has a chance to view it in a timely manner. Using Seesaw, a teacher can share work samples with the entire room via a projector. This cuts down on a lot of paper waste. Below is a link to a video tutorial demonstrating how to approve student work, provide feedback, and use folders to manage work samples.
How To Use Seesaw
1. Go to web.seesaw.me and click on “Sign Up!” Then create your account.
2. Create your class. Choose “Use a Class Code” as your method of allowing students to sign in. This will bring you to the “New Class” screen where you will choose a name for your class, the grade level, and enter student names.
3. You will now receive an email from Seesaw with your student log in QR code as an attachment.
4. Your teacher dashboard will now show your students in alphabetical order. Once students begin completing assignments they will appear in the feed on the left side of the screen.
5. You will need to approve all work before it can become part of a student’s journal or be shared with a parent. First, click on the red bar at the bottom of the screen to see all unapproved student work. You can choose to approve all, or choose a student from the list and approve a single item as displayed below.
6. After you approve a student’s work you can “like” it, leave a comment, or put it in a folder. More options are available, but they are not applicable at this time.
7. Clicking on the folder icon will bring you to setting up your first folder. You will need to click on “+New Folder” to begin. The next screen will prompt you to name your folder and choose a color. Now you can select the folder you created and place the student’s work in it.
8. You can view everyone’s assignments sorted into folders by clicking on “Everyone” in the class list, selecting the folder icon, and choosing a folder or flagged items to view. The same can be done for individual students.
Limitations
While Seesaw is available for free, it is only for one school year. Following this, a school-wide account is required. Prices for this are not available online. This could be costly and principals may choose not to purchase it. Also, other teachers may not want to use the program once it is purchased if they are not used to using technology. It would be better if individual teacher accounts were a purchasing option.
Conclusion
I highly recommend Seesaw for any teacher who is looking for a way to:
- allow students multiple methods to demonstrate understanding while increasing their responsibility
- reduce the amount of time spent reviewing and organizing paperwork
- provide clear communication with parents via visual updates
The customer service provided by Seesaw is outstanding. You will receive an email after signing up from a real person! You can reply to this email and get an actual response, not an auto-generated email which doesn’t allow for replies. The person I was contacted by, Emily, even offered to do a video chat if I had any questions or needed help. In order to make this tutorial I needed to have a class with student work. Since it is the summer, I do not have a class set-up. I asked Emily if Seesaw could provide me with a demo class for the purpose of this assignment. She was more than happy to help and within minutes I had a class of students with work samples which I could edit and add to as needed.