Seesaw: the digital learning journal
For the past two years I have been working with the International Baccalaureate program as a primary teacher. I teach grade 3 under the PYP, which is the Primary Years Program. It is an inquiry-based program where students should take control of their learning and direct it. The principal role of the teacher is to facilitate self-directed learning. In addition to developing the inquiry about knowledge while learning, a critical component of the IB curriculum is a focus on the holistic approach of the student in order to create a peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. The IB curriculum highlights key social attitudes of the student which the IB believes has an impact on the students’ learning and development as a global citizen. In addition, the program outline a learner profile that we, as educators, need to encourage and foster in the classroom when teaching. This learning profile emphasize the social aspects of the student, the actions that student would need to be an IB student, such as to be an inquirer, a thinker, a risk-taker, to be caring, or balanced, to name a few elements.
The IB program requires each teacher to document evidence of learning by the students, which requires recording students while in action. Teachers are required to focus not only on documenting academic achievements, but also documenting students when they exhibit the learning profile. Seesaw is the perfect application for the IB program to record and document evidence of learning for all the students. Seesaw was created by a team of computer scientists who worked to include the fun, engaging part of learning to the science of creating an e-portfolio which can easily be shared. The founders gained their experience to build such an application while working with big companies such as Google and Facebook. They added the social component to this app by including parents and classroom peers to comment on the students’ work and reflections.
Seesaw benefits the three major players in the education system. It benefits teachers in several ways: by offering an organizational tool for each student and their work, as a communication tool between the teachers and the parents, and it facilitates assessments and writing report cards, and eliminates any surprising elements for the parents when teacher’s interview time comes. For the students, Seesaw empowers them by giving them the liberty to independently document, reflect and comments on their learning at the same time as providing authentic audiences for their work. Additionally, it benefits administration by minimizing the pressure during accreditation and inspections. All student evidence is ready and organized to be shown to any observation party that requires to see it. Moreover, it has been documented that Seesaw parents have great satisfaction on seeing what is happening in the classroom on a regular basis. This puts them at ease while preparing their children for exams or assessments.
As published on www.techchurch.com, in June 2016, Josh Constine, informs us that one quarter of the US school teachers now use Seesaw. The review stated that Seesaw is used by 25,000 schools in about 100 countries and is continually increasing in popularity.
https://www.commonsense.org/education/app/seesaw-the-learning-journal
However, as any technological product in the market, it has lots of competitors, and naturally has opponents and proponents.
So, what are the pros?
- Simplicity of use: seesaw is a straightforward app and software, it needs little training for students, teachers and parents. Students can use all the formats that they are used to such as documents, photos, video clips, and drawings. For the teachers, the software is very easy to use wih their iPads or any other platform. Seesaw offers video tutorials too, in order to show and facilitate the use for teachers. And for parents it is a very easy app that can be installed onto any device. Once the students share an approved piece of work, parents receive a text message indicating that their child is sharing his work with them.
- Wide range of platforms: This is often a big debate within school boards and families: what is the best platform for our students and children of today? Is it Apple IOS, is it Google Android? Happily, Seesaw app work with Android, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Kindle Fire, and Chrome.
- Maximizes users: As we know, Seesaw is self-use application, so students will take control of this machine and the app and start collecting evidence independently. This simple app can be used by all students at all levels and grades; it can be used from kindergarten through to grade 12.
- Price: As it is a very important aspect of any educational app, schools and their boards have a designated budget when it comes to buying applications. Seesaw has a free version that can be installed and it is easy to start practicing with for the teacher before a purchase. This free version does not have all the features that can satisfy all parties in the classroom, however, Seesaw offers two paid applications; the first one is offered for an individual teacher called Seesaw Plus which costs $120 USD per year per teacher, so any teacher can easily buy it individually. However, Seesaw offers a discounted price when it comes to the whole school subscription. It is called Seesaw for schools. The price depends on how big the school is and how many students will have access to the app.
- Accessibility and formatting: it is accessible from any device from anywhere in the world at any time. Students can use all types of formats, photos, documents, slides, videos, and audio. They can type their reflection or record their reflection into their piece of work that will be shared with the student’s world.
- Communication: Seesaw offers instant, on-time communication, the minute that a teacher approves the student’s post, the application communicates with the parents that her child has shared. This communication feed will be useful during any conference with the parents during the year.
- Engagement: As we know, any technology should be fun and engaging for it to be successful and popular. Seesaw offers to the parties involved the ability to comment and see the student’s progress. The app also can be engaging and fun due to its design, style and ease of use.
- Support: The app offers a resources section that can support the teachers and students with online professional development.
There are few cons. As with all new applications, Seesaw faces some minor challenges that can be easily overcome such as:
- Time consuming at the beginning: Teachers must take time to set up the initial classroom platforms. It will take some time to train the students, particularly primary and early years students to use the application successfully.
- Formatting: some students have requested more features in the formatting section such as size and fonts in order to take their work to a higher level of presentation.
- Cannot save the unfinished work: If a student logs out while working on a project he will lose everything.
In sum, for me as a PYP teacher, this application serves all of my needs. It gives my students the power to decide on which piece of work they want to show, and to reflect on it and to share it. This application allows for collection of evidence of the IB learner profile, which has been a challenge for IB teachers to do. For example, if a student is helping and caring for another student, the teacher can document that by taking a photo of the student in action to document it. Some teachers also document specialist teacher disciplines such as PE classes so they can record their swimming or running and share these achievements with their families. Art and music teachers can show and share how students can be creative and risk-takers and share it with the parents. Even in the canteen, monitors can praise the healthy food choices of students and share it with the parents demonstrating an important component of living a balanced life. It is a very powerful tool for the IB teacher and student to use during learning.
On the other hand, and as we know, there are many applications and software that competes with this application. Some of the others offer less than what Seesaw offers in terms of services to students, teachers and families. Some other applications do not give the students the power of choosing and reflecting. Big companies such as Google have created such things as the google classroom where any teacher can create his classroom and record all the students work, send and communicate with their parents. However, this google classroom does not give the power of choice to the student, and it is not as engaging and fun as Seesaw.
Some other products on the market such as Evidence for Learning, and Seesame are competitors to Seesaw but they are not as easy to use and are not student friendly. Therefore they compete only on the level of price instead on the quality of learning. Some applications give all control to the teacher instead of the student which creates another pressure on the teacher and does not allow any student choice nor does it permit students to take ownership of their learning. Other applications do not support all the formats that students use on a daily basis such as photos, documents, audio, video, or paint, among others. Also, other applications are not supported by all the platforms presently on the market, so it becomes a challenging issue to include all the students or all the teachers. Finally, the notification formula that Seesaw uses is easy and very adaptable to the differing needs of parents; some parents want to see everything that happens in school with their child while it is happening, some parents desire to see all the work of their child at the end of the day, and others want to see it by the end of the week instead. Seesaw allows for parent choice, too.
In conclusion, Seesaw as an evidence tool for the teacher and the student is essential to schools that want to document student work because it offers so many benefits and possibilities for personalized documentation of learning. It is essential for organizing all the documents that each individual classroom produces every year and historically has physically stored in rooms after rooms inside the school building. With Seesaw, all of the evidence is stored in a safe place with easy, simple access. Another benefit for teachers is that they can track the progress of the student throughout the years in a discipline. Seasaw is a living portfolio that is built over all the years a student remains in one school, and builds a multi-year documentation of student growth and learning. Additionally, Seesaw is an essential tool for teachers when they meet with parents to explain the child’s progress: evidence is clear and concise, and, perhaps the most powerful component of learning, the student’s reflections, are included. Parents can see not only the academic success of their children, but the metacognitive development, too. Seesaw is an essential tool to the students because they use it as a journal where they can keep all of their work, they can create a portfolio that can be shown to parents while conferencing with their parents at the child-led conference.
Seesaw creates a social platform for each student, especially when they post their work and they share it, then other peers comment or like it, then they comment back on their peer’s work. This engagement encourages students to refine their work, to work harder and “show off” because once the work is public it is in on display for all see. For students, it is a very useful journal that they can keep and have access to throughout the years. Parents are benefiting from this app as well. They can save and create a record for their child year after year. As a parent myself, I wish I could have collected evidence for my own children since the first year that they started school. Presently, I have hard copy documents stored in various places, as well as soft copy exemplars of their work stored on multiple devices. Finally, parents who are regularly involved in their child’s learning can be a positive enforcement for the child’s achievement. Seeing the daily or weekly work of their child facilitates a parent’s involvement in her child’s learning. When the parent see what the child is doing at school, the parent can praise his achievement and encourage the child to work harder and offer help if needed.
In sum, if I were in charge for school boards and wanted to implement digital journals and evidence material for my district and school board, I would definitely implementing Seesaw in all schools.
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