EdTech @ ISB

Transforming Teaching & Learning

Category: ES (page 3 of 3)

Seesaw: Getting started

September 19, 2017 / / 0 Comments

How to make your first welcome announcement to your families and students

  1. Take a picture or a few pics of your new homeroom class
  2. From your school iPad open the Seesaw app, or, if you are on your laptop, log into https://app.seesaw.me/
  3. If this is the first time you are logging in to Seesaw, you will need to select “I am a teacher” and log in with your ISB email address and password
  4. Click on the large green “+” symbol
  5. Select “Send Announcement” > Send To: All Students and Families (if some parents aren’t connected yet they will receive instructions on Monday afternoon)
  6. Type your welcome message to your students and families
  7. Upload your class photo(s) from your camera roll
  8. When you have completed your message, click the large green tick button and it will appear in student & parent feeds.

Please note, as new parents will not yet be connected, this welcome post will be made in the student announcements for all users to see. In the future (when all parents are connected) teachers will be asked to use “Family Announcements” to ensure student journals don’t contain parent communications.

On Monday, Tina, Angela and I will distribute printed QR codes and instructions to all homeroom teachers, for families to connect to their child’s Seesaw journal. Families will need to follow the instructions to download the Seesaw Family app and scan the code in order to see any Family Announcements or student posts.

Throughout Monday, we will prioritize our time to support any teachers who require help with Seesaw. We’ll be available for 1:1 help all day including after school. Please be in touch or stop by the ES Library office if you need any help.

What is Seesaw?

Seesaw is a student-driven portfolio platform that is used across the ES to empower students to document, share and reflect upon their learning journey throughout the academic year and across their years in the elementary school.

As part of our Seesaw Common Agreements, there are certain tasks and setup procedures that each teacher should do once their class has been created. There are also some introductory lessons/ideas that can help you get started using Seesaw in your class.

You can use this checklist to guide you.

Setting Up Seesaw

  • Ensure preferred names are correct in your class list
  • Invite all specialist teachers as “co-teachers” to your class (except Chinese as they have their own Seesaw classes)
  • Manage settings: student likes & comments, post moderation, parent comments (as appropriate to your age and class group)
  • Create color-coded folders for portfolios (L21) and content areas:
    • Innovation & Creativity (Purple) 
    • Communication & Collaboration (Yellow) 
    • Inquiry, Critical Thinking & Problem Solving (Blue) 
    • Leadership & Responsibility (Green) 
    • Global Thinking (Red) 
    • As well as folders for Math, ELA, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, PE, Science, Social Studies
  • Create any additional folders as required
  • Print out your class account QR code so students can join your class
  • Send home “parent note” generated by Seesaw

Teaching with Seesaw

  • Post a “Welcome!” message to all students/parents.
  • Teach (or co-teach with your Tech Facilitator) an “Intro to Seesaw” lesson
  • Teach (or co-teach with your Tech Facilitator) a RUA lesson based on Seesaw use
  • Plan (or co-plan with your Tech Facilitator and/or grade level team) a variety of ways to integrate Seesaw into all curriculum areas

You can also get a digital version of this document/table.

Icons as a Visual Scaffold

September 19, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Seesaw is like many applications in that it uses icons to create a visual fluency to help learners navigate the different features and tools available to its users. Many of these icons are consistent with so many other iOS apps and it makes sense for us to scaffold our learners in how these tools can be explicitly applied in the process of learning.

Recently, Pana Asavavatana shared a series of useful posters designed to assist Pre K – 3 students in their deliberate use of processes and features in Seesaw. She wanted her students to move beyond simply checking off everything they post and think more deeply about what they were doing in Seesaw and why. Each poster links one of the Seesaw tool icons with a student statement that encourages students to make a conscious decision about what they are doing and why.

The posters are available in English and Mandarin and are free for you to download and use (thanks to @PanaAsavavatana). As always, let myself or Bec know anytime you would like any Seesaw resources or support for you and your students.

Download: Thinking with Seesaw (English)

Download: Thinking with Seesaw (Mandarin)

Sam

How to update Seesaw class settings

September 13, 2017 / / 0 Comments

The ES are doing great things in Seesaw, including lots of student, teacher and parent activity. There are a range of different settings you can explore to find ways to customise the Seesaw experience to your class or grade level. In the following video, I’ll show you how to:

  • Add specialist and co-teachers to class journals
  • Edit students’ preferred names & icons
  • Add parents & allow parent access
  • Add/edit folders & skills
  • Allow student comments & “likes”

We will continue to add Seesaw resources to the Ed Tech blog. In the meantime, please let Bec and myself know anytime you have a question or celebration around Seesaw or if there is another resource you think would benefit the school.

Sam

Collaborative Systems in the Elementary School

September 5, 2017 / / 0 Comments

At ISB we are lucky to have access to a wealth of tools and systems facilitate teaching, learning, and collaboration in our classroom and in our school. Unfortunately, all of these systems can sometimes get confusing: which one is best at which time?

To help our new (and returning!) teachers in the Elementary School, Sam, Bec and I shared a quick 45 minute presentation that helps to clarify three of our main tools for collaboration: Outlook (specifically accessing Groups and making calendar bookings), Office 365 (Groups v. OneDrive, sharing and collaborating on documents), and OneNote.

What Can I Borrow? Checking out Tech Equipment

September 4, 2017 / / 0 Comments

As you know, the EdTech Facilitators have moved into the libraries to work more closely with the librarians and to make way for the beautiful new ES Design Lab.  So, all the equipment has also moved as well and is ready for check out!

We are now using Destiny Quest to check out tech equipment, just like library books, so come on down to the MS/HS EdTech HUB in the library to(short-term) checkout a great device to help you with your next project.

You will see a variety of items below. We also have two green screens, and one frame.  The 3D printer is not to borrow, but we have three in the library.  They are for use by teachers and students with permission from teachers (for school work).  We also have a plethora of iPads for short term use.

If you want to check something out, come on by or contact Jonathan Song: jsong@isb.bj.edu.cn

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