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Using Seesaw in the classroom. Good or bad?

What is Seesaw

Seesaw is an app that houses student-driven digital portfolios and provides an easy way to communicate with parents. Students can use Seesaw to record and document what they have learned, reflect on their personal learning, and/or complete teacher-created activities.

Teachers can use Seesaw to communicate with families, monitor student learning, find or create individualized and student-friendly activities/assessments, and encourage student engagement.

Seesaw allows families to see their child’s learning, connect with their child, and encourage/support the learning that is happening at school.

Seesaw is now being used throughout my entire elementary school. Thankfully, it has replaced both our class blog and Twitter account, making life so much easier and streamlined.

Facebook for Kids?

So far I have just used the basics of Seesaw (posting photos of events and our learning) and I was explaining to a teacher-friend that it’s similar to Facebook, but for kids.

Well, this teacher was not impressed. “What are we teaching our kids when we are encouraging them to post their lives online?” “Isn’t that just feeding into the negative culture of social media where people are posting just to get people to ‘like’ their posts?” “Doesn’t that just make our kids narcissistic?”

As much as I tried to explain the other side of Seesaw, I couldn’t. Perhaps it was because I was not using any of the other features that Seesaw has to offer. I was just posting class events and having students record a few things that we were learning in class. Much like a Facebook account.

Yay or Nay for Seesaw?

I know there is more to Seesaw (creating lessons, posting activities for students to do, and probably a bunch of stuff I don’t know yet), but I have not really taken the time to explore how I could better use this tool in my classroom.

So, is Seesaw a “good” tool/resource to use in the classroom? Probably. I just don’t know all the benefits yet. Will it turn my students into little narcissists? I hope not.

Author:

I am a teacher and a reflective decision maker who continuously strives to foster the joy of learning in all students.

2 thoughts on “Using Seesaw in the classroom. Good or bad?

  1. Constructive comments.
    You have some good ideas. You could build from your post by inserting some hyper links to the SEESAW app. Or links to videos showing how SEESAW is used so readers could have a better understanding of what it is.

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  2. Both you and your friend have valid comments but I feel there is a major pro that you didn’t mention. Having students learning and achievements on a platform is great for the parents. It means they are relevant when taking with their child about what they have been doing at school. Parents can help support the teacher and the strengthen the parent, student & teacher triangle.

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