My Journey with Seesaw

 

My journey with Seesaw started with the first COVID 19 lockdown in 2020. Our school had just received the update that NZ was moving into alert level 4 which meant that all of NZ will go into lockdown. From what I can recall, we had less then 48 hours to prepare distant learning materials for our students. As a Junior team, we had to consider what our hardcopy learning packs will look like and which online platform we will use for our students home learning. I am not quite sure how we came to the conclusion to use Seesaw but after briefly playing around with it, I was already excited by the prospect of using seesaw to deliver our online learning. Technology excites me and I always welcome the challenge to explore new applications that will benefit my students. I quickly found Seesaw easy to navigate both as a teacher and a mum. The availabilty of pre made activities was also very appealing as there was a wide range catered for all learning levels and needs. I enjoyed being able to create my own activities specifically aligned to what my students were already learning in the classroom.

To help our whanau navigate this new platform of learning, I took it upon myself to create a youtube video to show whanau how to log into Seesaw. Here is the video I created for our whanau:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3fuarIvEdU&t=82s 

I used screen recording to create my video, then uploaded it onto imovie before adding a voice over to match my screen recording. This was my first time doing something like this and I was absolutely estactic with how it turned out. Thinking about all the whanau that could benefit from this short video really motivated me to make this happen. I always want our community to feel completely supported especially with their children's learning. Since many of our families already feel uncomfortable about online learning, I wanted to remove as much barrier and doubts to using Seesaw. My hope was to show families that we are all in this together even in lockdown. 

Flash forward to 2021, we are now in lockdown again and I continue to exercise so much gratitude for Seesaw. This time round there was no rushing around and no sense of urgency to find an online method for learning. With new students who have all started school for the first time this year, I also had to keep in mind that Seesaw would also be completely new to whanau. Thankfully, I was already using seesaw in class to record students learning and share them with whanau in term 2. Although this direction was not given or forced on us by management, I took the initiative to continue Seesaw in my classroom practice. It made sense for me to use it as a reporting method to keep families updated on their children's learning. After all, Seesaw was created to better connect whanau, students and teachers. 

As I look through my active students journals on seesaw, I am amazed to see the progress they are making in their learning during lockdown. I enjoy being able to give daily feedback on their learning and share activities relevant to their interests. It has been wonderful to also see their confidence grow using Seesaw tools and icons. I hope in the near future, our school will strongly consider using Seesaw as a live reporting tool for whanau and students. In the meantime, I will continue to use Seesaw as a record of my students learning if not for their whanau then for my own evidence of teaching and learning.