Blog Post #9- Seesaw

 This entry is about a tool of my own interest, called Seesaw, from Doctor Wang's list of communication tools. Seesaw is a tool for all kinds of educators and students- administrators, teachers, support staff, etc. Educators can communicate with, message, and send announcements to students and families/guardians. 

An amazing feature of Seesaw is that messages and announcements can be translated with the click of a button. This feature tackles the difficulty that language barriers present for effective communication in education. Furthermore, teachers/students/families can communicate through multiple media types- videos, text, and audio. Because of the features of Seesaw, this is an CA (creative, amplifies) resource, according to the PICRAT framework. Students interact with teachers and one another and also have the opportunity to create and learn through their creations. In addition, the technology amplifies the communication and learning that can occur without the use of Seesaw. To read more about Seesaw's features click here.

Seesaw is unique because it works with other teaching technologies such as Canvas, and Google Classroom. To learn more, click here.

Students can join a class in Seesaw that their teacher has created, where they can view assignments, activities, messages, and more. A downfall of Seesaw is that it requires a subscription to get all the features and the greatest experience. Check out my example classroom I created on the free version of Seesaw by clicking here. Make sure to check out the activities, assignments, and announcements I created to show some key features. 

I would definitely consider using Seesaw, and I feel it is very likely I will use Seesaw at some point in my teaching career, especially if I am also using Google Classroom or Canvas. It is very easy to use and has lots of resources that teachers can use without having to create themselves, like the "Buckets Full of Kindness" activity I included in my example class. I did not create this, but I added it to my class from a bank of free resources for any teachers to use. The versatility of use is a benefit of Seesaw, as this tool can do many things, and provide easy opportunity for differentiation and accommodations for both families and students.