M6: Blog Post 5

 

1. Seesaw: 

• Seesaw is a communication, learning tool geared toward elementary aged students. It allows direct communication between parents and teacher, parents and administrators, and teacher and students. Seesaw also provides learning tools and assessment features for teachers to assign to students. Lastly, it is an online digital portfolio of a student's school year, where both teacher and students can post work, pictures, and updates throughout the school year. 

• Seesaw provides a safe and secure place for teachers to effectively communicate with families. This is done in the messenger part of the app that is user friendly. Parents sign up through a QR code at the beginning of the year using their email. Message notifications are sent to seesaw directly as well as email. The easiest way for parents to engage with this program is through an app on their phone. Parents are also able to engage with this through a desktop computer. Students and teachers are able to post pictures and assignments on the classroom journal. Teachers can also assign different lessons and assessments on Seesaw for the students to complete using the resource library. There are resources that I have created saved here, there are also resources created by Seesaw and other educators available. When students complete an assignment it first is review by the teacher before being posted to the journal. Teachers can choose whether to students are able to see each others posts.  

  
  
  

• Seesaw is an effective way for parents to be engaged with student learning throughout the day. Seesaw provides opportunities for students to engage with their learning digitally. There are great assignments that can be given to students to complete as exit tickets or extra practice. Students do this through the assignment tab. They are able to use various tools to complete these assignments. Sometimes, these tools are not as effective and can be difficult for students to use. The pen tool can be difficult for students to use with their fingers on a touch screen and the textboxes can be challenging for students at times.

• Seesaw is a completely safe and secure app. Students can only see and communicate with what teachers allow. Parents are only allow to message with teachers and administrators, not with other students.

  
  
  

• Seesaw does require students to have some digital literacies and computer skills. Students need to be able to complete activities using the tools shown above. There are also activities that may require students to record audio and video. Students will need basic computer skills to navigate the website. They are also able to comment on posts that are sent to the entire class. These comments get filtered through the teacher first, but students will require and learn digital knowledge of what is appropriate to post and what is inappropriate to post on these pictures or assignments. In Kali Ledgerwood's article she wrote, "Integrating social media into the curriculum motivates and engaged students, as they can connect to what they are learning and becoming co-producers in their education." (Ledgerwood, 2022). Although Seesaw is not a traditional form of social media, it could be a stepping stone in engaging students in how to properly interact with others on the internet. Seesaw has a feed and students can like an comment on other posts. This would be a great place for teachers to start educating children about how to be good digital citizens.

  
  
  

• Seesaw is a very effective and well thought out app that has various uses in daily learning for students, teachers, and parents. This app allows many opportunities for students to reflect and assess their own learning and engage with their parents and peers in this process. Seesaw is best used when parents are active and engaged in student learning. Zhao writes, "In early years, social media Web 2.0 tools have been most frequently used for parent-school communication; scholars found social media to be an efficient, flexible, and effective way to increase parental involvement, enhance mutual understanding and build partnerships between families and schools." (Zhao, 2022). If parents are not checking Seesaw daily, students lose the spark of showing off their best work on this site. Seesaw bring together a students home and classroom creating a strong bond between the two working to best support a child.

1. Book Creator:

• Overview: Book Creator is a free website that allows students to create their own book using the online tools from the platform. Students can create, read, and publish their creations through this website. 

• Students are able to create a book based on any topic they would like. These can be nonfiction or fiction books. Teachers create a classroom library to store these books and students login through a QR code. The Book Creator website has many templates teachers could assign to students, teachers could create their own templates, or students can create their books entirely from scratch. Once students have completed their books, the teacher can publish them to be shared. These can either be shared with an open audience around the world or just to people who have the link. The link or QR to share can be printed out and shared with parents to allow them to see the students' books. Students can read and share their books with students all over the world. Also, students and teachers are able to collaborate on online books in real-time from various devices.

  
  
  

• This website allows students to be very creative with the ways that they display their learning. In the book creation lab, the students are able to choose different fonts, themes, backgrounds, shapes, or emojis. They are also able to add music, pictures, and videos to their books. This is one of the negatives of the website because the picture search is linked through Google images. Some of these pictures may not be filtered or exactly what students are looking for. Students will need to be taught how to properly look through these pictures and assess which are quality photos for their book. Some of the tools can be difficult for students to use at first but Book Creator has lesson plans and templates already made to help teachers teach students to use these tools properly. This website is not as secure as Seesaw, students can share and read books with people all around the world if the teacher and parent allows. This feature can only be added by the educator that is in charge of the account, which does allow for it to be more secure than no supervision.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Students will need some digital literacies in order to navigate the tools of this website. They will need to be able to use basic computer skills to use the tools and type their books themselves. There is also a feature that allows students to record their voices reading the book. This will require them to have skills in using computer audio. If teachers decide to allow students to explore the other books written by students around the world, students will require other digital literacy to effectively interact with these books. Students can leave comments and questions on books. Students will need good digital citizenship to be able to interact in this way kindly. When publishing students can also allow other people to "remix" their book, or use it as a template. Students will need to know how to properly interact with these books, and be taught about plagiarism.

  
  
  

• This website is great for students to show their learning in a summative project. It is an amazing platform for all ages and grades. Students are able to have full creative freedom to create a book however they want. Teachers can use this website in so many ways to engage student learning and creativity. Zhao writes, "Literacy instructions incorporating social media tools were found to have positive effects on young children's alphabet knowledge, speaking fluency, story comprehension, reading skills including reading comprehension and writing skills." (Zhao, 2022). Book Creator engages students in an online community of stories written by kids around their age. This could effectively engage students learning and interest in reading and writing. Students could create nonfiction books based on a research project, they could write a story that aligns with a unit on story elements, or they could be completely free in writing about what they are interested in. Once books are published, parents can share the love of books with their child by engaging with the book their child wrote on their own.

Resources:

Book Creator - Love Learning. Book Creator app. (2024, June 20). https://bookcreator.com/

Home - Seesaw: Elementary learning experience platform. Seesaw. (2024, May 30). https://seesaw.com/

Ledgerwood, K. (2022, July 31). Using social media to promote 21st-century learning. Technology and the Curriculum Summer 2022. https://pressbooks.pub/techcurr20221/chapter/using-social-media-to-promote-21st-century-learning/ 

Zhao, Y., Lu, J., Woodcock, S., & Ren, Y. (2022). Social Media Web 2.0 Tools Adoption in Language and Literacy Development in Early Years: A Scoping Review. Children (Basel, Switzerland), 9(12), 1901. https://doi.org/10.3390/children9121901