This is a post from my good friend Betsy Cruz. I met her over a year ago at the SCKA Conference and she told me a little bit about Seesaw. It's almost too good to be true. Oh, yeah, and it's FREEEEEE!
Seesaw The Learning Journal is a free app, available on all platforms, that allows students to share their learning in creative ways. Students can show what they know with photos, drawings, audio or video recordings, notes, and links to projects, all of which are compiled in a digital portfolio. My students use it frequently in many ways. They take photos of their writing and record their voices reading it, record themselves explaining how they solve a math problem, take a picture of a leaf they found and use drawing tools to label it, etc.
Now, as my school has gone to remote learning, I have turned to my old friend, Seesaw, to reach out to students at their homes. Seesaw made their class app available for home learning, (with private home learning codes), and Seesaw offers wonderful remote learning resources. https://web.seesaw.me/remote-learning. In addition to student generated projects, Seesaw also allows teachers to create and assign activities with specific tasks for their students. Teachers can share activities to the extensive Seesaw Library, which all teachers can access to find and assign activities to students.
Knowing that my school was going to distance learning, I thought it was time that I started creating activities for my students, and to share with other teachers. I knew students would be using much more technology than might be best for little ones. So, I wanted to create some activities that combined technology with the philosophy of Dr. Jean activities, which emphasize hands-on, real experiences, language, music, art, developing social skills, etc. (I could go on and on!)
I have made several activities, using Dr. Jean as inspiration. They are based on Dr. Jean songs, finger plays, or blog ideas. For the student task, I tried to create multiple options, such as draw a picture, write about it, record thoughts and knowledge, etc.
In “Coronavirus Avengers”, students watch Dr. Jean’s video, take a selfie and use drawing tools to make themselves Coronavirus Avengers. They also have the option to draw what they think coronavirus looks like.
https://app.seesaw.me/#/activities/library?profile=pub.person.684f8024-6991-4770-820f-035208495ed6&promptId=prompt.6c1f7e19-6c43-4512-b7e2-c14ed152dcef
In “Finger Plays – My Garden” students record themselves reciting the finger play, have the option to draw their own garden or take a photo of their garden at home, and then write about their garden. Teaching these finger plays during a circle time video chat is a tip I just learned from Dr. Jean!
https://app.seesaw.me/#/activities/library?profile=pub.person.684f8024-6991-4770-820f-035208495ed6&promptId=prompt.e20ebb0a-33bf-4657-aa15-f8d180c88b02
“Spring – O” gives students a board with pictures of signs of Spring that students mark with a drawing tool as they find them. Then they have the option on pages that follow to take photos or draw pictures of what they found. They can also write about or record their voices talking about what they found.
https://app.seesaw.me/#/activities/library?profile=pub.person.684f8024-6991-4770-820f-035208495ed6&promptId=prompt.4c443a8d-307b-4feb-ac40-64ad52bc2975
In times like these, I am very grateful to be able to collaborate with educators around the world. Seesaw and Dr. Jean have been a great part of that. You can sign up for Seesaw at web.seesaw.me or by clicking “try” from one of my activities.
