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.