Introducing Seesaw

As E-Leader I was asked to investigate a possible online programme called Seesaw that could be relevant to our school as our new e-portfolio. I had been involved in the process of setting up a possible site based e-portfolio but this was beginning to become a very time consuming project.

I spent a day release researching it online, attempting to contact other schools who use it and experimenting with the programme. I also used a student to see what it would be like from a student perspective to record their learning and assessment. The programme looked very promising, easy to use and navigate for students and teachers and so we jumped in with both feet.

I then spent time assisting the senior students in setting up their profiles and uploading their completed assessment. I ran a teacher's toolkit time one morning to help teachers get a handle of how to sign up and use it. I sent out help videos to teachers. I also established class profiles for the junior school. During a week I made myself and my classroom available to help and support teachers in using it to upload their students work.

For parents I have communicated via Care Monkey the link for connecting to their child's profile, I have answered emails and I made sure I was able to accept each parents request via the Seesaw app.

Following the system being released to the community I have continued to help teachers use this successfully. I have done an update at staff meeting and clarified with the staff and community how each part of the school will be using it.

So far we have seen a great engagement across the board. Parents are enjoying the ability to get up-to-date information regarding assessment and they seem to love the fact that they can comment on their child's work.

Our hope is that the use of Seesaw will help parents engage with their child's learning even more.

Reflection: This process has been very successful but we need to continue to grow engagement from parents. I think some more time spent exploring what other schools are doing would be helpful too, as I keep trying to push it forward as a tool to engage parents and children in the learning process. I think there are some particular development that could be done in the juniors and there needs to be a balance between Seesaw and Google. How can we make this work so they work together and compliment, rather than feeling like another thing? It needs to be sustainable for teachers.

Next Steps: Explore the above reflections more. Investigate other schools that are using Seesaw, maybe Templeton.