Seesaw Student Journals

If you have not taken a look at SeeSaw yet then the latest updates to the online student journal app might make it worth your while. SeeSaw has been around for a while and has carved out a niche in the lower elementary grades as a great place for littles to share their projects and ideas in a safe online space. This latest round of updates brings all the ipad features to the chromebook platform.

SeeSaw is an online student portfolio that lets students post their work in a portfolio viewable by teachers and parents. Once a teacher sets up a classroom in SeeSaw they invite students to login by either scanning a QR code (Grades K-1) or logging in with their school google account. Once logged in, students have a variety of tools they can use to post items to their portfolios. The teacher approves each posting and family members can be invited to view portfolios and post comments and encouragement.

Below is a video of a First Grader reflecting on ways to make 7 in an annotated video created using the tools in Seesaw.

With a variety of tools students can demonstrate their learning in ways that work best for them.

SeeSaw has recently announced some updates to its system to allow students on Chromebooks to enjoy the same features that students on iPads have been using for some time. With the popularity of the Chromebook extending down now into the K-3 grade band it is nice to have the option of using all the features of SeeSaw with your students.

To get started go to http://app.seesaw.me and sign up for a free teacher account.

Probably the simplest kind of activity is to have your students take a picture with the camera on their chromebook of something they are working on and post it to their portfolio. This can be a great way of tracking progress as each student portfolio is a scrollable record of all the work during the year. It could be used at parent teacher conferences for example.

Photos can be annotated, text and captions can be added and students can also record audio and video of them interacting with their image. If you are looking for some ideas on what you can do, be sure to check out the Activity Library for a large selection of activities that are searchable by grade and subject.

Teachers already using Google Classroom will find this a welcome addition and can import their classes directly into SeeSaw and then can take advantage of all the cool tools and activities while keeping their files all in one place in Google Drive.

I hope you take the time to checkout SeeSaw this fall and see what great things your students can do.

John Mansel-Pleydell

Google Certified Trainer