Seesaw

Seesaw 

The Learning Journal provides opportunities for students -- and teachers -- to really think outside the box. Students can show their work and thought processes in real time by submitting a video of themselves working through a math problem, snapping a picture of a paragraph they wrote, recording themselves reading a poem, or uploading a file to demonstrate their learning. Encourage kids to submit a series of images along with notes that tell the story that connects them. Or let kids collaborate with each other using peer-to-peer feedback to offer suggestions on writing content, scientific hypotheses, or creative ideas.

Teachers at all grade levels and across all content areas can use Seesaw to keep digital portfolios of student work, including commenting on student submissions. You can communicate with families easily and share student work with them, or push out assignments to students to individualize instruction. You can also choose work to share with a broader audience via a blog.

It's hard to find a tool like Seesaw that does so much to engage students and provide evidence of learning, especially one that offers most of its powerful features for free. Audio, video, and drawing options add tons of opportunities for differentiation and reflection, enabling teachers to accommodate a variety of learning styles without a lot of extra effort. Teachers can enable student likes, comments, and editing as well, providing opportunities for collaboration, peer-to-peer feedback, and social and emotional learning experiences. Notably, teachers may choose to moderate comments; while time-consuming, it may prevent inappropriate comments or inadvertently showing a student's struggles with writing or spelling. Teachers can use Seesaw to communicate easily with all students and parents. They have the option to review a feed of an entire class's work or view work by a specific student, which is especially handy for student or parent conferences.

While teachers may not like that there's no place to enter or track grades, doing so would feel almost antithetical. The focus is on mastery of standards, and teachers can monitor students' progress toward key skills (paid version) instead of pinning students to number or letter grades that fail to show the complete picture. Designed to show both process and product, Seesaw is a powerful way for kids to demonstrate evidence of learning over time.