Showing posts with label Seesaw. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seesaw. Show all posts

Monday, September 11, 2023

Welcome to Chromebook Camp!

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Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Spring Bingo Challenge: Highlighting the Heroes


The amount of technology available to teachers can feel overwhelming. It seems like a new tool is released each week, making it hard for anyone -- let alone the busy teacher -- to keep up. But when it boils down, we know that technology itself isn’t necessarily innovative or meaningful on its own. Rather, we need teachers who intentionally implement that technology in their lessons and classrooms for the most impactful learning to happen. It's also true that teachers need time with tech tools to explore and implement, to try and try again.

In an effort to help teachers sift through the barrage of technology tools and templates available to them, NISD's Instructional Technology team hosts an annual Spring Bingo Challenge (happening in 2021 from April 1-30). Throughout this time teachers, K-12 and throughout the district are challenged with a fun way to explore instructional technology tools (new and old) at their own pace and when it makes sense for them.

A major benefit to this challenge happening during the Spring semester is that school is still in session. Meaning, instead of bookmarking a bunch of exciting ideas during a Summer PD that we someday hope to use (we’ve all been this person), educators are able to implement their ideas with students in the moment, as they learn, and when they have the support of their team and instructional technologist should they need it. After all, there is research enough to support the fact that effective job-embedded professional development can have a positive impact on teacher practice. However, between breaks, benchmarks, standardized tests, and end-of-year celebrations it shouldn't come as a surprise that the Spring semester is also a wildly busy time of year for teachers.



And yet...


At the time of writing this, we are already halfway through this year's challenge and well into the Spring semester. Teachers are asked, as a part of the challenge, to share their learning on Twitter using the hashtag #NISDITBingo.


Teachers have too much on their plates.

They are teaching in a pandemic.

They are tripping over their to-do lists.


And yet, that hashtag is filled with teacher heroes.


#NISDITBingo is filled with dedicated educators who are committed to prioritizing their professional growth for the sake of their students. It's filled with those who are courageous enough to try something new, and who are determined enough to try it now -- today -- when it will impact these learners. That hashtag is filled with teachers who are learning by doing and who are sharing their successes.


The thing is -- change is hard. Pushing yourself to learn something new, especially while those around you talk about things coming to an end, is hard. So, yes. These teachers are heroes who deserve to be celebrated.


Highlighting the Heroes

Below are only a few "hero highlights" from the Spring Bingo Challenge. See all of the shared successes at #NISDITBingo.


Engaging Hooks with "Mystery Reveals" 

As educators, we know the importance of grasping our learners early on in a lesson or unit. Creating a little mystery around a topic is a great way to get hook students and get them excited about their learning. When teaching her students how to compare fractions, Mrs. Kemper used a “Mystery Reveal” activity in Seesaw where students used a magnifying glass to reveal the fractions as they learn and work to solve the problems.



If you don’t use Seesaw, don’t sweat it! Mrs. Herrera used a similar Jamboard template to engage her students in problem-solving and to review the math concepts they were working on.


Problem-Solving and Communication: Flipgrid

Mrs. Robbins creatively combined a Google document and QR codes with Flipgrid, a platform for video responses complete with a whiteboard. She cleverly created a problem-solving “flip escape”. For this task, students had to solve each math problem, scan the cooresponding QR code, and then entering a code word so they could share how they solved each problem in Flipgrid before they could unlock the next one.


Not only did she design an engaging, gamified learning experience for her students, but by integrating Flipgrid at each step, students were empowered with a voice and recognized for their success in learning, where they could both showcase and share their learning to an authentic audience of their classmates. Even better, because of her intentional planning students could collaboratively learn from one another along the way. 


In Mrs. Waddell's class, students were given the chance to lead a discussion through Doceri, an app for mobile educators. Not only did Mrs. Waddell's intentional use of this tool foster classroom communication and individual reflection, but it gave students a chance to practice leadership while learning.


Assessment: Jamboard

Mrs. Mogg wisely tweaked a pre-made KWL template from Canva to use as the background in an interactive Google Jamboard. By moving the KWL graphic from a static Canva to the interactive Jamboard, she elevated the task. Students were engaged on a platform that let them collaboratively share their thinking. 


Feedback: Bitmoji, Canva, Seesaw, & Autocrat

Feedback is a critical part of learning and should be timely, relevant, and specific. In a creative twist, Mrs. Weiss designed her own “digital stickers” in Canva using her Bitmoji. She then used her digital stickers to provide her learners with visual feedback in Seesaw. Similarly, Mrs. Washam took that idea a step further, using the audio tool to provide her students with verbal feedback that accompanied the sticker.  

 

Critical feedback is important to learning, but positive feedback can go a long way in building relationships with students and parents. Using a Google Sheets Add-on called Autocrat, Mrs. Moggs was able to quickly and efficiently send home personalized, positive notes for each of her students. This is such a powerful way to easily celebrate students and communicate with parents while saving on time.

Review: Flippity!

Mrs. Janese created an interactive game to help her students review their sight words using one of the templates provided on Flippity, which offers a variety of templates to easily turn a Google Spreadsheet into engaging activities. Then, she was able to easily and seamlessly link to the game through a Seesaw Activity so that her little learners could easily navigate to and participate in their learning task. 

 

Interested in exploring more? Want to put these ideas to use in your own classroom? 

Northwest ISD’s BINGO Challenge is running from April 1-30, 2021. Anyone can play and participants can start learning at any time during the challenge. Get your own BINGO board here! 
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Location: Fort Worth, TX, USA

Monday, April 20, 2020

No One SAW this Coming, but we SEE NISD Keeping Learning Alive!


We can all agree that the current situation is not ideal. Educators are unable to expect what they normally would from students. While teachers can’t recreate their normal classroom environment, our Northwest ISD educators are amazing! They have been able to keep learning and literacy alive, connect with their students, capture their voice, provide personalized feedback, and involve families as an integral part of their child’s growth. For K-2 teachers, Seesaw has been the platform for making these goals a reality. Mrs. Fitch, Mrs. Perry, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Embry, and Mrs. Moore from Granger Elementary have not only used Seesaw with fidelity all year, they’ve gone up and beyond to meet the needs of their students as they learn and grow from home. 
Continual Learning: 
Each Sunday, teachers send required and optional assignments home for students to complete. Perhaps one of the best features within Seesaw is the ability to capture student voice by allowing students to explain their thinking. With provided structure through Seesaw activities, teachers can encourage students to take their learning deeper with questions and question stems. One of Mrs. Davis’ favorite activities during remote learning is the Animal Adaptations science activity. Listen to the student’s understanding of adaptation, their language of the discipline used, and their ability to apply this learning to a real life situation. 

Click HERE to Enlarge and Listen

Continual Literacy: 
One of NISD’s goals for this year is literacy. Seesaw has allowed teachers to encourage students to keep reading and share their reading while they’re at home. One of Mrs. Perry’s favorite activities sent home to her Kinder class encouraged her readers to simply capture a picture of themselves reading. Mrs. Perry shares, “This activity not only encourages reading, but gives me a chance to see and listen to them read.”  
Click HERE to Enlarge and Listen

ELA coach Rebecca Maddox points out, “Seesaw is benefiting students, parents and teachers during this remote learning time with it's ease of use. Seesaw has allowed our youngest readers and writers the ability to respond and capture their thinking in a variety of ways. They use pictures and voice recordings to capture their thinking for others to view. It is great to see that students can document their reading and writing lives in this format to capture how they continue to grow and learn!”
Students from across NISD are reading and sharing their reading. The first week of extended break, Mrs. Moore sent an optional Seesaw activity to her class asking them to share about a book they read and one they are hoping to finish. These activities have since led to a deeper knowledge of books as the latest activity prompted readers to not only read, but to stop and jot information about the characters in their book. Get a glimpse into’s Reese’s reading HERE or by clicking the images below.

Click HERE to Enlarge and Listen

Stop and Jot (Week of April 12)

Engaging students in their learning is one of Mrs. Embry’s favorite aspects of Seesaw. She states, “Seesaw provides me the opportunity to create engaging lessons that allow students to respond in a way they are comfortable with. They can create a picture with drawing tools, type, or create a video.” Mrs. Embry, Mrs. Davis, and the Granger second grade team have personalized reading assignments by linking in an Adobe Spark video encouraging students to find fun places to read as they work on their reading stamina. It's fun for students to connect with their teachers by seeing them teach and encourage in the videos they send home.

Click HERE to Enlarge 
Mrs. Embry’s Spark Video
Mrs. Davis’ Spark Video 
Connecting with Students (SEL): 
It’s tough not seeing student’s faces each day. It’s important that students know how to identify their feelings, but also that they have a platform to share and be heard. NISD has prioritized social and emotional learning this year, which has helped equip our students beyond their content knowledge. Granger students are especially familiar with “Seesaw Feeling Checks.” These activities have become especially important as teachers get a pulse for how their students are doing, even when they can’t see them each day. Click on the image below to see an example of Mrs. Perry and Mrs. Moore’s feelings check. 

Click HERE to Enlarge

Mrs. Fitch points out, “My favorite part of using Seesaw is being able to connect with my students! I love being able to post videos directly to their journals and I love getting videos from them even more. It is nice to be able to post work for one student, or the entire class with one click.” Mrs. Fitch continually provides her students with personalized video feedback. Check out how Mrs. Fitch used Seesaw to wish one special student a Happy Birthday and make her feel special even from afar.
The heart of our NISD teachers is what makes students excited to learn!
Click HERE to Enlarge and Listen

Providing Personalized Feedback: 
Another benefit of Seesaw is that it protects the privacy of our students and allows teachers to differentiate and provide personalized feedback for students without displaying that feedback to the entire class. Mrs. Perry is very intentional about giving writing feedback on student work. Click on the image below to see samples from the last few weeks. 
Click HERE to Enlarge
Seesaw allows feedback to be written, voiced in an audio comment, or even a personalized video.
Inviting Families Into The Learning:
Mrs. Davis comments, "By using Seesaw daily, parents are able to see what content we are working on and what products their child is creating.  Parents have been very thankful for this program as Seesaw is sparking conversations as home, and parents are able to connect our learning at school to real world situations at home."
Click HERE to Enlarge
Click HERE to Enlarge

Student Growth: 
Lastly, another NISD goal for the year is that students showing yearly growth. Since Seesaw is the house for these student’s learning, teachers are able to see growth over time. Mrs. Davis states, “We have used Seesaw since day one as our students’ academic portfolio, so seeing growth is easy when you compare assignments from the first few weeks of school to their current work.”
Mrs. Fitch adds, “Being able to provide feedback and having the students go back and check their work has allowed me to see growth in their writing. I have assigned the Daily Oral Language activity for three weeks and have seen growth from week to week.” 
NISD is the Place to Be: 
Our NISD teachers are a walking example of this quote by George Couros, “Technology will not replace great teachers, but technology in the hands of great teachers can be transformational.” Our teachers have thrived in a season of uncertainty. While the situation is not ideal, these teachers have not thrown in the towel. They’ve connected in a way that shows their heart for students and their heart for learning. 

*The NISD IT Team is happy to announce that NISD has purchased Seesaw for Schools for the upcoming school years. This purchase is for all NISD schools ages Pre-K to 5th grade. Click HERE to learn more.
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Monday, January 20, 2020

Seesaw Superpowers: Able to Read and Reflect with a Single Bound!

Unit 2 of Lucy Calkins Units of Study for Teaching Reading introduces Kindergarten students to their reading SUPER POWERS. Just like superheros kindergarten readers begin to call on their reading superpowers to read emergent storybooks, shared reading texts, and unfamiliar level A and B books. During this unit children will learn how to unlock their pointer power, snap word power, persistence power, and picture power to mention a few.

In Northwest ISD, our youngest learners develop life longs skills of selecting, reflecting, and sharing their work in a digital format called ePortfolios. The standard program our district uses for primary ePortfolios is Seesaw. In partnership with district ELAR Coaches and Instructional Technologists they were able to offer kindergarten readers the opportunity to utilize Seesaw to reflect and set goals for their reading superpowers.

Casey Dibenedetto, Kindergarten teacher at Roanoke Elementary, is definitely a Super Teacher who is out of this world! Casey looked over the activities provided by the coaches and added audio instructions so her kids could listen to them independently. Before students began the activity she reviewed the Super Reader Powers and gave students time to think about a power they used frequently with ease and a power they often forgot to use - basically a celebration and a goal.

Students leveraged the creative tools in Seesaw to reflect on their learning and set goals. Specifically, they were thinking about the “Reading Super Powers” they had learned in their most recent reading unit. As a Kindergarten Super Teacher she knows students can talk about their learning much easier than they can write about it. By using this Seesaw activity her students were able to easily share their strength and their goal with their teacher and their families.

Casey believes “Seesaw is absolutely amazing! I love that there are so many tools available for students to utilize as they communicate about their learning. They can draw pictures and add text and drawings to annotate work or a provided image. It is also easy for students to collaborate and complete work together. The aspect of Seesaw that most helps to augment my students’ classroom experience is that they can record their voice and I can listen to their responses. The multi-page activities have also been a game changer in the way I am able to use Seesaw with my students. Communication with families is another key feature of Seesaw. Parents love seeing what their kids are doing at school. I also use it to share newsletters, links, announcements, and other information with families.”

In Mrs. Di’s classroom, her students use the NISD Portal to access Seesaw and Google Classroom often. She provides visual instructions to help her students remember the steps and follow them independently. Students in Mrs. Di’s classroom use Seesaw almost every week to share their learning. Sometimes this is an open ended Journal prompt where students share a piece of work and talk about it and sometimes it is a preloaded Activity that they access and complete. Students also use Seesaw to practice reading aloud and sharing their writing. Her students really enjoyed this opportunity to reflect as Super Readers in Seesaw. They loved getting to color themselves as a Super Reader, and they loved sharing their strength and their goal.

Please check out Casey’s adapted version of the activity - verbal instructions, wording changed slightly to sound like her.

Below are student samples of the completed activity as well as Seesaw activities for future units of study.


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Monday, December 2, 2019

Leveraging Seesaw for Problem Solving

“Problem solving is for students to dig deeper into their thinking about math. They take the problem and break it down. The most important piece of problem solving is getting the students to talk about it using mathematical vocabulary and getting them to explain and justify how they worked the problem and how they arrived at the answer. Sometimes there is no defined right or wrong answer. It is more for them to explain to me how they got their answer.” -Mrs. Mancino.
At Haslet Elementary, Mrs. Mancino’s 2nd grade classroom uses Seesaw to leverage their problem solving in Math. It is truly unbelievable how quickly her students have picked up use of the Chromebook in the classroom. She did not return to the classroom from maternity leave until the second week of October. Before her return, the students did not do many activities on the Chromebook and did not use Seesaw at all. They started problem solving on Seesaw the last week of October. They now use Seesaw daily and have started learning to use Google Classroom, Google Sites, Google Slides, and Adobe Spark.
In their math journal, students explain step by step what they did to solve the problem. They write out the equation and the solution, take a picture of their work on Seesaw,  then use the record button to explain their thinking.


An example of a multi-step addition and subtraction problem. The students have to start by breaking the problem down into 4 squares (I know, I need to know, equation, and solution). They know Ava and Shelby say 42 geese. They also know when they got to the top of the hill they saw 25 more geese. Lastly, they know 15 flew away. The students then have to figure out what question they are trying to answer. They need to know how many geese were left after 15 flew away. 
Seesaw activities are another way they problem solve. The question is asking the students to find the quadrilateral with all sides a different length. Mrs. Mancino teaches her  students to connect the dots using different colors so they are better able to see how many sides each shape has well as how long each side is. By using different colors for each answer, it helps them learn to do this for similar questions later on. They used different colored pens to draw the shapes, then they had to record their justification of why they chose the answer they did.
The power of problem solving and having an authentic audience can change the way your kids look at their work! Seesaw has allowed these students to work hard, share their accomplishments with their peers and family members. Talk about motivation!


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Monday, November 11, 2019

Bringing Seesaw to Secondary: Why Seesaw isn't just for Elementary classrooms

Bringing Seesaw to Secondary: Why Seesaw isn't just for Elementary classrooms

As a platform, Seesaw lets students blend pictures, video, voice-over, annotation tools, and external resources. It can be a powerful platform for both creation and reflection. Typically, Seesaw is used by elementary educators because it caters to kids -- it’s icon heavy, makes providing voice and video instructions easy, and because it is web-based, is easily accessed on Chromebooks. Secondary teachers, don’t stop reading yet… 
Middle School teacher Kristy Fair at Gene Pike Middle School is engaging her 6th-grade students through Seesaw. For Veterans Day and as a part of their nonfiction unit, she had her students read an article from Wonderopolis and then create a presentation about what they learned. Beginning with a lesson from Seesaw’s Activity library, which is filled with pre-created activities for K-12 for all contents, Mrs. Fair modified the assignment and instructions to better meet her students' needs. She added voice instructions and asked her students to make personal connections to Veterans day before sharing their research with the class.
What I love about this lesson is that she asks her students to reflect, make connections, and create a resource to share with their classmates all based on what they read. A lesson like this is flexible -- it can easily be made more or less challenging depending on the article linked in and on the level of critical thinking students are being asked to show in their evidence of learning. She modified the task to meet her students' needs. Regardless, Seesaw and Google Slides are simply the tools through which Mrs. Fair assigned and assessed student's comprehension and learning. 
I observed her classes using Seesaw and witnessed first-hand how excited and engaged her middle schoolers were while using Seesaw. They loved sharing their work so that their classmates could see it, and were quick to leave each other positive feedback on what they shared. They were eager to participate -- one student went so far as to respond to the Veterans Day assignment from home the morning before class, sharing a video reflection about how his great-great-grandfather was a veteran.
As a former-high-school-teacher-turned-Instructional-Coach, I had admittedly written this tool off as an elementary-only resource, but working with secondary teachers and students in Seesaw quickly showed me how useful this platform can be for meeting the needs of students of all ages and ability. At its core, Seesaw is a platform for sharing and curating work, for synthesizing thinking and evidence of learning in one easy-to-use and easy-to-share place. As an added bonus it seamlessly integrates with Google Classroom, which many secondary teachers are already using. Seesaw creates choice and flexibility in how students share their learning. Whether asking students to snap a picture of their journal, annotate and reflect on what they wrote or asking students to upload their lab data and reflect on the implications of their scientific findings using videos, Seesaw can amplify the reflections and learning that happens in secondary classrooms. 
Below are a few pre-created secondary Seesaw lessons for various contents that can all be found in the Activity Library. How will you use Seesaw in your secondary classroom?


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Tuesday, April 17, 2018

All Things Seesaw

Mrs. Anderson’s 2nd grade class are Seesaw natives. They use Seesaw for many reasons throughout their day. Whether they are creating their own problems and solving each others work, presenting to their peers and family, doing teacher created activities, celebration their hard work, or communicating with their parents, it is all done within the Seesaw platform. If you ask them they tell you what they like about using Seesaw, here is what they say. “You are able to show your work to your parents even if they are not there to see it. Just press the record button to record your work! It is easy to record your work progress.”

Here is Mrs. Anderson telling us the 5 ways her class uses Seesaw the most:
Student created problems: I love to use Seesaw for students to create a problems, post, and have parents and students solve their work. This is great for formative assessments and really fun for the students. You can see that the parent viewed it, liked it, and even solved it! Students can leave audio comments or type a comment to their peers.

Presentations: Using Seesaw for presentations is great for you and parents! I love it because it gives the students opportunity to start their presentation over, they love helping each other on recording, and the parents can see their presentation. It is also saves classroom presentation time!

Teacher created activities: We LOVE doing Seesaw activities in my classroom! Sometimes, the students ask for me to create an activity. I can do it quickly and in the moment, I just use pic collage to create it on my phone and then post it. You can create things for them to read, label, draw on, etc.!


Celebrations: We also have a celebrations folder where we post fun pictures and events! The kids love celebrating themselves and seeing their peers hard work as well.


Parent communication: Parents and I love the announcement feature on Seesaw! It is so quick and easy from my phone, you can see which parents view it, and it goes right to their phone on the app with a notification! You can also separately message each parent privately! My parents love this features for quick reminders about their child, ride changes, etc. It is easy for them to go right to the app!

Walking in Mrs. Anderson’s class you can tell that her kids are familiar with this process and love all of the ways Seesaw has transformed their learning.
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Monday, February 6, 2017

Learn, Experience, Explain: Kindergarten Jumping Into The Frog Life Cycle


Working on the Popplet Flow Map
Students in Mrs. Slimmer's Kindergarten class at Hughes elementary recently learned about the life cycle of a frog. Rather than simply reading about the process in a book, these students got to create their own frog habitat, take care of their own class frogs, and create a collaborative flow map explaining what they've learned. This project allowed the students to explain their learning through visuals and voice over using SeeSaw and Popplet. Popplet gave students the opportunity to draw their learning and connect different parts of the life cycle, which is great for visual learners. Mrs Slimmer pointed out, “This project gave my students exposure to the technology in a very meaningful and purposeful way. They are used to playing games on the iPad, but this project allowed them to create and be producers rather than consumers.”

Owen, Kalynn, Mason, and Alliah had a lot to say about this experience. When asked what they learned throughout the project Kalynn's face lit up as she stated, "I learned that frogs actually live in land and in water." Owen quickly added, "And they need food. They need lots of crickets." Mason adds, "Did you know that frog's eggs look like eyes? They start as eggs and then turn into tadpoles." The group all agreed that their favorite part of the experience was taking pictures of their frog habitat and drawing each step on the iPad. They especially liked drawing the frog eggs and the tadpoles. They also enjoyed being able to use SeeSaw to explain their learning with voice over.

When asked what the most challenging part of the project was, Alliah comments, "I had a hard time drawing the water and finding the best picture of eggs to take from our book." At a young age these students are learning how to gather, organize and sequence their information. They are also able to explain their learning, and work together to create a published product.

Students Take Pictures of Their Frog Habitat
for Their Flow Map



Primary Student ISTE Standards:
  • 3C: Students curate information from digital resources using a variety of tools and methods to create collections of artifacts that demonstrate meaningful connections or conclusions.
  • 6B: Students create original works or responsibly repurpose or remix digital resources into new creations.
  • 6C: Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.
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Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Riddle Me This

Second Graders at Clara Love Elementary are pros at justifying the number riddles that they wrote. The students in Mrs. Melbourn's class have been working on ways to represent numbers.  They have spent time working on whole number representation and relationships such as: odd, even, place value, comparing, and ordering.

To demonstrate their understanding of a whole number's position, they created Number Puzzle Flip Books.  After creating their flip book, students took a picture of a blank hundreds chart and created a voice over in Seesaw as they justified their thinking about the position of their number within the hundreds chart.

After adding their videos to their Seesaw Class, they spent time creating QR codes for their video to be placed with the Flip Book. Linking their work to a QR code allowed students to share with their authentic reasoning with an audience.





Alex, a student in Mrs. Melbourn's Class, shared that having an opportunity to record his voice to explain his thinking helped him really think through exactly what he was telling his audience. He went on to say, "It helped me kinda count and cross them out and helped other people kinda to learn. Then they know that 50 is an even number, because its 25 and 25."
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