Technology alone can not move the trajectory of student performance. Tools such as technology must be leveraged in the right way to enhance teaching and learning. According to Ed Tech, there are five main strategies for effectively using technology:
Use of Multimedia - videos, pictures, and instantaneous information captures students' attention
Utilization of Social Media - exchanging ideas through collaboration is motivating for students and builds community
Using a Variety of Resources - podcasts, videos, OERs, blogs, and other resources are stimulating for all students but especially for special education and English language learners
Making the Most of Games and Advantages of Gamification - challenging students through competition makes them eager for learning. Gamification can be a framework for education that can be employed anywhere with a mobile device to ensure learning continues outside of the classroom.
Use Technology to Empower Students - artistic expression can be utilized for all students but especially the introverted students as they are given a voice through technology.
References Gupta, P. (2016, January 13). 5 Effective Teaching Methods and Strategies. Retrieved from http://edtechreview.in/trends-insights/insights/2271-effective-teaching-strategies
Students can be highly motivated by technology apps. The same academic skills that used to be practiced on paper with can be practiced through technology apps. Learning targets can be assessed through programs on computers, iPads, laptops, and mobile devices etc. Student performance can be tracked through reports generated from apps. Apps There are a plethora of apps that I would like to investigate to support teaching and learning. Below are my top five apps:
Big Universe - is a literacy app that provides fiction and nonfiction texts for reading in which higher order thinking skills are tested through multiple choice questions. The lexile level can be adjusted to best meet the needs of the learners.
Dropbox - is a place to store photos, docs, videos, and other files. Files are backed up safely and can be accessed from all devices. Users can send files to others even if they don't have an account.
Prodigy - is a few curriculum-aligned math game for students in grades first through eighth.
ReadTheory - is a free reading comprehension program. Students can progress at their own pace on their own level. 7.4 million students have completed 130 million multiple choice quizzes on this app.
Storia - is an e-reader app complete with questions, learning activities, and pop-up dictionaries. The app download comes with five free books and more can be purchased.
References TeachThought. Retrieved on February 26, 2019 from https://www.teachthought.com/technology/50-of-the-best-free-apps-for-teachers/
Technology innovations are changing the educational ecosystems of our schools. Therefore, school leaders must stay attuned to websites that feature resources and information to change classrooms of today into breeding grounds for a tomorrow that we cannot envision.
Websites Below is a list of websites for exploring at a later date:
edWeb.net - is a free professional social and learning network for administrators who need more support with educational technology. Blogs, files, calendars, live chats, links, webinars, and forums feature technology uses, practices, and characteristics.
Education World - is a website that has posts daily news about educational lesson plans, technology tips, ideas, and reviews. It also espouses a professional development library of resources.
Eduwonk.com - is a website about educational policy and political news concerning the Common Core, high school rankings, accreditation, and best practices for school improvement.
ISTE.org - is a website sponsored by the International Society for Technology in Education which highlights core knowledge and skills for K-12 leaders regarding educational technology.
TeachThought.com - is a website that features blogs about innovation in education. Design of school models, learning models, curriculum, technology, apps, and other learning tools are included.
Resources
Lynch, M. (2017, August 14). 10 ed-tech resources for school administrators. Retrieved from https://www.thetechedvocate.org/10-ed-tech-resources-school-administrators/
Canvas is a content management program that was launched in 2008 for teachers and students. It is used in more than 3,000 universities, school districts, and institutions around the world. It is a cloud-based system that connects all the technology applications teachers use into one simple platform. It is designed to allow access to course content, files, images, and resources from the internet.
How Does Canvas Work?
Canvas easily integrates with hundreds of applications while empowering teachers and students with countless resources to make learning and teaching easier and more fun. Canvas allows students to obtain notifications, submit paperwork, and interact with the resources shared with them. They can connect their Canvas account with their social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter. Canvas provides teachers a platform that they can create a learning ecosystem for their students. Teachers can embed videos, provide feedback, integrate blogs, link wikis, and connect education channels while monitoring their students' progress. Here's an overview video about Canvas:
Canvas LMS is easy to use and saves teachers time while grading with features like the SpeedGrader and the ability to record audio/video during grading. It is a dependable solution and by using it you can reduce support calls and queries from students. At the same time, Canvas LMS makes the job of teachers and administrators easier. Faculty can explore the many tools and features of the app to reshape their pedagogical approach. It is a very intuitive app that offers naturalness, flexibility, and customizability. It is a modern version of Blackboard and Google Classroom as it functions as a hub for teachers to post their syllabus, assignments, and documents.
Teachers and students can access the app on their mobile devices to engage with each other anytime, anywhere. Instructors can grade students quickly and accurately. Canvas makes it easy to create courses, curriculum, and certification paths. With Canvas, users are directed to specific courses. Parents can be informed of their child's progress by automatically connecting them to their courses. Click on the video below to learn more about how Canvas works.
Benefits of Canvas
Canvas provides many user benefits such as:
Openness - is an open source software that provides APIs, security audits, and feature discussions.
Customizability - has an extensive, open API to plug in third-party apps for data import and export.
Pedagogical Flexibility - offers an app center to search, install, and add technologies to.
Reliable Support - experts provide prompt and reliable support to maintain speed.
High Speed - fast due to being hosted on Amazon Web Service platform.
Assured Security - conducts regular internal audits of independent security specialists for public publishing.
Scalability - scales up to demand with automated peak load management.
Uptime - uptime Service Level Agreement.
Low Risk - cloud based so there are no upgrades, downloads, or migrations of new versions.
What Are The Unique Features of Canvas? Canvas has unique features that enhance the programming and user friendliness such as:
Collaborative workspaces
Audio and video recording and uploading
Video and audio messages
Integrated learning outcomes
Web-standard browser
Customized user profiles
Content editor
Web conferencing tools
RSS support
Course notifications
Graphic analytics reporting engine
Mobile app for iOS and Android
Integrated media reporting
Cut and paste links from the Web browser
Integrated tools like Google Documents and Etherpad
External service integration like Facebook and Google share resources
Other unique features of Canvas can be found here.
What Are the Creative Uses of Canvas and Ideas for School Leaders? Canvas can be used to house any professional development that professional learning teams are assigned to take or desire to learn more about. Examples include:
mClass basics
reading fundamentals
the science and art of teaching reading
3 Ms of math (modeling, manipulatives, and math talk)
fire drills - common regulation infractions and documentation of drills
crisis table talk exercises
504 process
introduction to special education
school finance for budget managers
school based trainings for sexual harassment, restraint and seclusion, and blood borne pathogens training
lockdown drill steps and documentation of drills
What Others Are Saying About Canvas? Students say that Canvas is:
interactive
engaging
self-paced
makes learning
accessible at school and home
Teachers say that Canvas is:
easy to use
saves time
mobile-friendly
dependable
enhances the learning experience
doesn't hold instructors/students/administrators back
Parents say that Canvas is:
informative
versatile
an online tutorial
better than outdated textbooks
International Technology Society for Educators said, "Canvas is the most usable, customizable, adaptable, and reliable learning platform. It is adopted faster and deeper than any other learning management system. Canvas makes learning and teaching easier for everyone."
The Cisco Networking Academy endorsed Canvas as the, "World's largest classroom." To read more about Cisco's implementation on Canvas click here.
Personal Review and reflections on Canvas There are many positives to Canvas such as it is:
Simplified: The dashboard of Canvas is not littered with many icons or information. It is easy to sync the system to a common email to receive notifications and communications from the course instructor.
Organized: Canvas has a calendar with due dates, to do list, and is very easy to communicate with course instructors. Canvas replaces the need for a daily planner.
Supported: One can seek technology help twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Continuous: Students in K-12 can utilize Canvas so high school students come to highschool accustomed and skilled at using the learning management tool.
Versatile: Canvas is expansive and can be used for several purposes, including self-paced lessons.
Even though Canvas is a good tool, there are many areas for improvements such as:
Click Happy: This program has too many clicks to get to the desired file. There is not an intuitive path to follow as there are many extra buttons. For instance, pictures must be uploaded to files before being linked to a forum discussion. It just has too many steps.
Discussion Board: Comments on the discussion board are listed separately. It gets confusing when there are a lot of reply comments. Reply comments need to be hooked to the original post or in the same thread. Multiple conversations can be difficult to follow.
Collaboration: Canvas is missing the large white board space where collaborators can all work together on a document to edit. When they work offline together and want to submit one document, there is not a way for course instructors to grade one project and assign grades to multiple students. Each student has to individually upload the assignment.
Connection: The program needs to allow students to link documents from Google drive into Canvas. Without this capability, students have to convert Google documents to word documents to upload them.
Accessibility: Unless the creator of the Canvas course makes sections of a course unavailable to students before a certain date, all content is accessible at once. This can be overwhelming for the course user and a course spoiler for the course creator. It creates the problem of too much too soon.
Not Intuitive: The interface takes time to understand and is not intuitive at first. The more time users spend learning Canvas, the more comfortable they will become with it.
References AISD Digital Learning. (2016, May 3). Getting Started in Canvas (for teachers). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGNIQAVObkI. Canvas. (2019, February 22). Retrieved from https://www.canvaslms.com/. CanvasLMS. Canvas Network. (2015, September 21). The Cool Things You Can Do With Canvas. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdDS6gVdI10. EdSurge. (2019, February 18). Retrieved from https://www.edsurge.com/product-reviews/canvas.
Finances Online. (2019, February 24). Retrieved from https://reviews.financesonline.com/p/canvas-lms/.
MasteryConnect is a competency-based learning platform that teachers use to pinpoint levels of understanding, target students for intervention, and inform data driven instruction. Teachers can generate online assessments and customize student reports of progress towards mastery of standards. This program is embedded with common core and state standards but is adaptable to teachers adding their own questions. This tool can house formative assessments to be used with multiple classes over time. Essentially, it gives teachers more time to teach and students more time to learn.
What Are Some Unique Features of MasteryConnect?
MasteryConnect is a simple yet sophisticated program that offers a variety of user friendly features. Targeted standards can be color coded by domain and sequenced by themes. Student grades can be entered as raw data from rubrics, bubble sheets, and performance tasks from GradeCam support. Student criteria for proficiency scores can be set at an accuracy rate that matches that teacher's expectations. Much like Pinterest, MasteryConnect has a user friendly interface that is used to search an assessment bank. Educators can download or modify existing peer reviewed assessments or create new assessments. Other features include:
MasteryTracker - assess standards, monitor student performance, and report mastery
Common Assessment Creation and Sharing - make and share multiple choice, open-answer, rubrics, writing, and oral assessments
Resource Pins - pin and discover standards aligned resources
Learning Community - create professional learning networks
Grading Tools - disseminate formative and benchmark/interim assessments, and make grading automatic and fast. Scores appear in real-time in MasteryTracker.
Reports - compare and collaborate with common assessment data
Integration Tools - synchronize student information including subgroup data, demographics and mastery levels. Single-sign-ons make connecting MasteryConnect data to district and school information warehouses intuitive.
MasteryConnect offers a plethora of resources including a user guide, training pack, videos, and a blog.
What is the Cost of MasteryConnect?
It is a free resource that includes MasteryTracker, Common Core Assessment Sharing, resource pin option, and Socratic Instant Response. Users with the free version can scan up to ten questions using the MasteryScan GradeScan feature. Assessments that are generated in the free account are automatically shared with the community at large. Check out the complete price guide for more information.
For $249 a year, Premium Teacher Pro allows teachers to GradeScan up to 100 questions, export data, utilize collaborative tools and reporting, generate student and parent reports, and formulate curriculum maps. Schools and school districts can obtain MasteryConnect for $7 per student per year. Included in this subscription is benchmarking capabilities and assessment tools, progress reports, teacher and student management, and student information system (SIS) integration. Privacy controls are embedded in the paid subscription accounts along with ways to share assessments across a district or schools. Paid subscribers can upload copyrighted assessments into MasteryConnect for current and future use.
How Does MasteryConnect Work?
There are four ways that teachers can input student data into MasteryConnect:
By entering raw student scores from formative assessments
By entering MasteryConnect's GradeCam to take pictures of bubbled score sheets
By uploading rubrics and determining mastery based on observations
By assigning online assessments generated with MasteryConnect's online item bank of technology enhanced questions
MasteryConnect has a "Socrative", a real-time assessment feature, and "Mindful", which is a staff development tool for educators. In Socrative, teachers can check for student understanding through multiple choice, true/false, short answer, quiz game, and/or exit tickets. On a technology device, students respond to questions while teachers view a live results table that populates individual and group performance. Reports can be generated that show how students performed on standards taught and assessed. Teachers can create, save, and share assessments, as well as, review data from past quizzes. Data can be used to inform instruction for remediation and determine student skill groups. Intervention groups can continue until mastery is achieved. Below is an overview of how MasteryConnect works:
What Are the MasteryConnect Creative Uses and Ideas for School Leaders?
Teachers can use MasteryConnect to:
search and pin standards-aligned resources for planning units of study.
upload resources to their curriculum map.
pin resources for student "playlists" to be stored on student's personal page.
implement pre and post test quizzes for each unit of study.
develop an item bank of academic language for each unit.
conduct guided reading and math groups Monday through Thursday. Friday can be the assessment day to check for understanding.
generate common formative assessments in reading and math.
set personal and individual goals for the class with parents during Open House.
plan team time with intervention groups in Professional Learning Teams.
plan next week's lesson based on student performance.
maintain online grade books to display and track student growth over time.
write individual student development plans.
Superintendents can use MasteryConnect to view district, school, teacher, and student data. These reports display total percentage of standards assessed, progress towards standards mastery, and information on individual assessments. Information gleaned from these reports can be used to write SMART goals for the district's strategic plan. Professional development could be designed to integrate MasteryConnect into daily teaching and learning.
Principals can use MasteryConnect to engage parents at back to school night. Data can be shared to show the grade levels' and school's growth from the previous year. This data can be used to set SMART goals for the school improvement plan and professional development plans for principals. Principals can also use data in Professional Learning Teams to evaluate common formative assessments and next steps. Professional development could be designed to integrate MasteryConnect into daily teaching. The video below shows how MasteryConnect can be in used in schools:
What Are Others Saying About MasteryConnect?
Dr. Rick DuFour weighed in by stating, "Thanks to MasteryConnect, educators can connect with colleagues throughout the nation to develop and share common assessments. Educators can now extend their professional learning communities beyond their schools. This ready access to expanded expertise is exactly what we have been hoping would become available to educators."
Teachers across the country praise MasteryConnect for the real-time data that is used to create fluid intervention groups. The BubbleScore app allows students to have instantaneous feedback as the students complete assignments. BubbleScore also conserves time for teachers by scoring the multiple choice tests immediately as soon as they are scanned. Educators feel empowered to remediate students as quickly as the student responses are scanned. MasteryConnect allows educators to complete in depth searches for specific resources based on the standards that the students need more practice to master. It provides collaboration for teachers to share with other teachers across the country.
Parents enjoy easier access to not just the grades but the actual assessments. This transparency keeps an open line of communication between the teacher and the parents. To help their children, parents like that the individual student reports reflect the standards mastered and the standards that students still need to learn.
Principals appreciate the versatility of MasteryConnect as students can access the assessments on the iPad, laptop, desktop computer, or paper bubble sheets. Paper copies of bubble sheets can be scanned as soon as they are held in front of the computer's camera. Administrators like that teachers can always have their pulse on the instructional needs of the students as MasteryConnect color codes data sheets by standards after each assessment. MasteryConnect checks for student understanding while practicing the EOG format that schools are compared on. Below is a personal story about the difference that MasteryConnect made in a school:
Personal Reflection and Analysis of MasteryConnect
The Wake County Public School System uses Understanding By Design (UBD) for lesson planning. Being able to begin lesson planning with the end assessment in mind is a distinct advantage of MasteryConnect as teachers can search grade level standards before designing units of study and assessments. MasteryConnect is an ideal companion application as it can travel with teachers wherever they go since it can be accessed by mobile devices, tablet, or iPad. Teachers can set up grade books for their students which can visible to individual students which holds them accountable for their one learning.
In analyzing this online assessment program, I like that assessments are rated and sorted by the ratings. From time to time, MasteryConnect conducts random reviews of teacher made assessments and provides comprehensive details to inform the alignment to the standards.
There is a collaborative social networking element to MasteryConnect as teachers can share assessments, follow each other, and pin resources. However without a paid subscription, the learning community to share and collaborate on resources is limited.
MasteryConnect does not promote higher level thinking for students. This program fuels the lower level of Bloom's Taxonomy by asking multiple choice questions to prepare students for state EOGs. Continuously testing and assessing the students does not guarantee an increase in student performance. In fact, students can lose engagement and become very stagnate in their learning if all they do is answer multiple choice questions. MasteryConnect needs to expand its capabilities to incorporate peer to peer discourse. More rigorous assessments of learning must be included in the black and white world of MasteryConnect.
References
Armstrong, P. (2019, February 26). Vanderbilt University - Bloom's Taxonomy. Retrieved from https://wp0.vanderbilt.edu/cft/guides-sub-pages/blooms-taxonomy/
MasteryConnect. (2019, February 17). Retrieved from https://www.masteryconnect.com/.
MasteryConnect. (2015, February 26). MasteryConnect Overview. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWBW9z0kD0s&t=5s.
MasteryConnect. (2012, August 3). Mastery Connect In A Nutshell. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZj9bottmCE.
MasteryConnect. (2015, February 5). How MasteryLearning is Empowering Students, Reshaping a Town - Piedmont Alabama. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3FkaB97ouY.
Sunday, February 3, 2019
Seesaw - Balancing Collaboration, Community, and Communication Between School and Home
What is Seesaw?
Seesaw was uniquely developed by Adrian Graham and Carl Sjoogreen, who were former Google mangers and Facebook directors (Barhoumeh, 2017). Half of all U.S. schools have teachers that are incorporating this innovative, popular learning tool into their daily instructional program. Seesaw is globally employed in schools across 150 countries (Constine, 2018).
Seesaw is an application that functions as a digital showcase for student work. Through this platform students can highlight their work by uploading pictures and videos of their learning experiences. Seesaw is a student friendly program that allows students to independently document their learning by using photos, videos, drawings, text, PDFs, and links. It acts like an assessment tool as student learning is visible in their reflections to content standards (Seesaw, 2019). Here is a sneak peak;
Universally, Seesaw is known as a parent engagement tool as students post about their academic ventures and share them with their parents/guardians. Teachers, students, and families can comment on the student posts to affirm, encourage and guide student learning. Seesaw is versatile as teachers can use it to communicate with parents regarding school activities, newsletters, upcoming events, and individual student needs (Constine, 2018).
What Are Some Unique Features of Seesaw?
Through Seesaw, teachers can build capacity within students to create, reflect, share, and collaborate about educational topics through posting photos, videos, drawing, files, and note links. Students can record their thinking while drawing, sharing, talking, and videoing themselves, others and their academic artifacts. A warehouse of student work is organized and teachers can access one student’s work or view the entire class’ work in their feed. This online management system enables teachers to monitor student performance and collaborate with parents. This student digital portfolio is compatible with iPhones, Androids, Kindle Fire, Chromebooks, and computers using browsers such as Chrome or Firefox (Chrome, 2019).
Seesaw offers a variety of special features such as;
student folders categorized by essential learning targets or subject matter
student directed learning which creates ownership, independence, and agency
easy QR code sign ins
simple, green directional buttons for student independence
intuitive navigation creation tools to provide access to all students
teacher approval before publishing which makes it safe for all students
child friendly (auto-focused) integrated camera
compatibility with SMS, Email, and app notifications for parents
adds succinctly from other apps such as Shadow Puppet, PicCollage, Book Creator, Explain Everything, iMovie, Skitch, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, Docs, Pages, Drive and more (Gupta, 2016).
All students benefit from Seesaw but the multimedia options are especially successful in working with special needs and ESL students. Seesaw allows them opportunities to express their comprehension of learning targets through speaking or drawing without the barrier of written expression. As students progress in their writing skills, their level of scaffolding with written expression should lessen.
How Does Seesaw Work? Typically, a teacher prompts a question or gives an assignment through Seesaw. After students upload reflections based on their academic simulations, the videos and/or pictures feed directly to the teacher’s account. Once teachers listen and view the student work, he/she can decide to approve or disapprove of the submission. Teachers can provide feedback to the students through oral, written, or video remarks. Next the student work can be shared with a broader audience such as parents and other students. They can then select to provide comments to the student. A video (Seesaw, 2019) was made that provides step by step directions for teachers:
Written directions for creating an account can also be read here; Create an account atChrome, Edge or Firefox or download the Seesaw Class app. Select “I’m a teacher” to get started!
Create your class, name it and assign a grade level. There will be a suggested sign in mode for your students based on their grade level. Play with some features in your class by using Sample Student!You can assign Sample student an activity, add posts as Sample Student, and more!
Help students sign in to Seesaw. You can add up to 150 students in each Seesaw class.
Class Code Sign In: Finish adding your students’ names by tapping + Students. Then, Print your Class QR Code poster for students to use to sign in. To find this Tap “+ Students” (bottom right, under the class list) > tap. Print student sign in poster. Students will choose “I’m a student” from the Seesaw Class App, then the blue "scan code" button and then scan your class QR code. Email / Google Sign In:Tap “+ Students” (bottom right, under the class list). Share your Join Code with your students. They will type it in, create student accounts, and connect to your class from their devices using the Seesaw Class App.
Introduce Seesaw to your students! This video (Seesaw, 2019) will acclimate your students;
6. Send home a Meet the Teachernote(Chrome, 2019).
How Much Does Seesaw Cost?
Teachers and schools throughout the country utilize Seesaw as a free application. However, schools can pay $5 per student each year to sync Seesaw with student databases, grading systems, and analyze common assessments through centralized administration. Regardless of what the schools do, parents have the option to purchase an annual “parent premium” to access their child’s digital portfolio spanning multiple school years (Chrome, 2019).
Seesaw Creative Uses and Ideas for School Leaders This program offers a myriad of ways to enhance school leaders’ jobs. Here is a few ways to begin using this program;
School Leader Introduction: Before students walk into class on the first day of school, a school leader (principal, teacher etc.) can send a video introduction of herself/himself. This can replace the traditional school letter or postcard that families are sent over the summer. This will be a personable way to connect with families.
Standards Overviewfor Units of Study for Parents: Teachers could create video overviews of upcoming curriculum topics for the quarter. A more comprehensive overview would include teachers modeling the correct way to demonstrate the six different strategies to multiple numbers. Teachers must continually advocate for conceptual understanding in math as opposed to procedural outputs.
School Scavenger Hunt:Students could be placed in teams in which they have to draw, write, video and record their answers to clues as they go on a physical scavenger hunt of the school. This could be a wonderful activity to help students, at the start of a school year, become familiar with common areas throughout the school. This activity would also enable students to practice using each special feature in Seesaw.
Shelfies: Students can video themselves doing a book review on a book they recently got off the shelf in the library, classroom, or home.
Absent Archives: Teachers can send a video announcement to students that are absent or suspended so that they know what they missed in class, what needs to be done for homework, and any other pertinent information.
Frontloading Content: To energize the students about an upcoming topic, teacher can expose students to a video that highlights a Science connection. Students can post their background knowledge about the topic and predictions about the content that they will be studying in the future. Providing this video at home will allow students to explore the topic at their own pace, frequency and duration as needed.
Parent/Teacher Conferences: Seesaw could be used to show students’ growth through the continuum of learning in a parent teacher conference. Teachers could easily remind parents of beginning of the year writing samples or oral book retellings to highlight middle of the year performance on the same tasks.
Snow Connection Challenges:A teacher could provide a Snow Connection Challenge during inclement weather. During a snow day, students could document their connection of science and math learned in school to the elements around them. Students could participate in online discourse about the students’ activity and the content connection. For instance, a student could video about the physics of sledding by showing two people sledding down a hill. The question could be deposed as to why one person finished sooner than the other person as it relates to gravity, acceleration, and Newton’s law of physics. Other students could comment and answer one another’s posts.
Global Awareness:After reading the Flat Stanley book, teachers could do a global challenge of getting students to take/send Stanley to the farthest place in the world over their summer vacation. Family members who receive Stanley could take videos of Stanley documenting the city, state, and longitude and latitude measurements of this locations. Students could predict in their online journals how many miles Stanley traveled to this location. The students could be placed in pairs to calculate the miles to assess how far they were from their estimates. This project would be an excellent way to get to know students’ families and assess their navigational and mathematical skills through the integration of Mapquest or Google Maps.
What Are Others Saying About Seesaw?
School leaders value Seesaw because it connects student learning from school to home. It provides a launching pad for parent to student discourse outside of the classroom environment. The privacy setting are in line with Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act since the videos/pictures are housed in private student, parent, and teacher accounts. It is a complementary program for BYOD and one to one device schools/districts.
Teachers adore Seesaw because it motivates the students to produce quality work since other students and their parents will be viewing and commenting on it. Reluctant learners are highly engaged by technology so teachers love how all learners are actively involved in learning due to Seesaw’s format. Many teachers are grateful for the way Seesaw increases the level of communication with parents about student learning. Seesaw is a time saver for teachers as they can’t always conference with students one on one in a lesson but this program gives them a snapshot of students’ understanding of material taught. Teachers say that Seesaw is efficient, engaging, and effective (K. Reekes, personal communication, February 1, 2019). Here's a powerful Seesaw testimony from two primary teachers;
Parents enjoy Seesaw as they have talking points for their children when they come home from school. Many parents enjoy the dialogue about student learning and regard Seesaw as the forum to connect. Busy working parents love the brag board of student work displayed on Seesaw. In a digital age, Seesaw has become the electronic refrigerator to display student work (R. Lu, personal communication, January 28, 2019).
Personal Reflection and Analysis of Seesaw
Seesaw promotes equity in the classroom as all learners can access directions in the format that is most appropriate for them as determined by the teacher. Advanced learners can access directions in writing while ESL students can retrieve oral recording of directions from the teacher. Teachers can also provide scaffolds for special education students by providing sentence frames for them to begin their online journaling. This student empowerment enables students to build confidence and a positive growth mindset. I find ease and comfort in the simplicity of being able to develop QR Codes for younger learners that may not have strong literacy skills. Differentiation is a tremendous asset for this program.
In an evolving world, social media is polarizing with some families and schools. If schools are not careful, social media such as Twitter and Facebook can violate student privacy when students are included when they shouldn’t be. When schools are careful not to post anything related to parents that haven’t given their permission for students to be photographed, these students feel isolated and left out. However, Seesaw provides a platform for students, who may not have permission to post pictures and videos electronically, share their work in similar yet private ways as their peers. For parents that are separated or divorced, they can have equal access to their child’s electronic portfolio if all parties make a parent account. Seesaw can build community in a classroom since students are permitted to comment and post on other students’ work (when approved by the teacher). These comments can fuel academic curiosities and pride about content related topics.
This program can save teachers so much time. For grading purposes, teachers could access the student work anywhere they had internet access. Grading and completing student rubrics is so easy as teachers can view each child’s work on an assignment separately or in a window displaying all the student work. Even though schools may not have a paid subscription to Seesaw, at any time a teacher can contact the Seesaw help desk at seesaw.me to provide assistance for any of the program’s features.
A disadvantage of Seesaw is that unless parents have access to technology, the school to home connection is lost. This resource makes affluent families richer and the low income families poorer. Therefore, Seesaw could widen the opportunity gap for children in poverty. Another feature that could be troublesome in some situations is when parents have purchased a parent premium account and schools are not paid subscribers of Seesaw. This means that parents can pay to access their child’s electronic portfolio that may span multiple years. School staff would not be able to see the continuum of student learning. Without a paid subscription, a school would only have access to the current year’s posts of children. This means that parents would have more data than teachers and this data could become ammunition. Parents could accuse schools of not making academic progress with their child and the digital portfolio could be their artifact that could be used as leverage for educational malpractice against the school.
Teachers that do not have a paid subscription to Seesaw can not upload standards of learning with the student videos. This means that parents would see activities but it may not be automatically connected to the learning outcomes that the teacher originally designed the activity for.
References Barhoumeh, G. (2017, June 8). Adrian Graham and Carl Sjogreen. The Founders of Seesaw. University of British Columbia. Retrieved fromhttps://virtual.educ.ubc.ca/wp/etec522/2017/06/08/adrian-graham-and-carl-sjogreen-the-founders-of-seesaw/
Chrome. (2019, February 3). Seesaw - The Learning Journal. Google. Retrieved from
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/seesaw-the-learning-journ/adnohgfkodfphemhddnmikhflkolfjfh?hl=en-US Constine, J. (2018, February 7). Instagram for Classwork – Seesaw in ½ of U.S. Schools. Tech Crunch. Retrieved fromhttps://techcrunch.com/2018/02/07/seesaw-for-schools/ Gupta, P. (2016, May 19). Why Use Seesaw to Demonstrate Student Work. EdTechReview Retrieved from http://edtechreview.in/news/2383-seesaw-app-to-demonstrate-student-work Seesaw. (February, 2019). Seesaw for Schools helps Somerset Stephanie Increase Parent Involvement and Motivate Students to Produce Higher Quality Work. Retrieved from https://web.seesaw.me/seesaw-for-schools-somerset-stephanie
Technology alone can not move the trajectory of student performance. Tools such as technology must be leveraged in the right way to enhance teaching and learning. According to Ed Tech, there are five main strategies for effectively using technology:
