Using technology for family conferencing
Lesson 1: Using Seesaw for Education
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Objective: Learners will create and navigate a Seesaw account for their classroom.
Watch: Seesaw Tutorial for Educators
Activity: After having the chance to watch the video, head over to Seesaw to create your classroom's page. Some schools may have linked the district to Seesaw, which may include a pre-made account and classroom for you and your students. You may add students through their student email, and invite families to connect their emails to their student's work! You may also add additional teachers to your classroom through the settings.
Exit Ticket: After you have completed your Seesaw classroom, and have added student and family emails, add me as a teacher to your classroom using the email Lwebb@albany.edu. This way, I will be able to observe and edit what is posted, see student work, and help create a portfolio that will be mentioned in the second activity.
Lesson 2: Using Seesaw as a Portfolio for Conferencing
Objective: Learners will use Seesaw as a technological tool to help capture student work throughout the year.
Overview: After creating your Seesaw Classroom, there will be online activities and lesson that will most likely be posted there throughout the year. As parent-teacher conferences rolls around, this technology can be taken advantage of to help create a student portfolio of work throughout that term length. There are may benefits to doing this, which you will hopefully be able to name by the end. In the lesson, you will be shown how and what you can include in your Seesaw classroom that will make your parent-teacher conferencing informational and efficient.
Learn: Throughout the school year, there will be multiple standards that are necessary to tech through each semester. As parent-teacher conferences rolls around, educators should be able to efficiently convey information on how each student is performing. Here is a step-by-step lesson on how to use Seesaw to prepare for conferences:
- As conferences begin to roll around, educators can begin creating activities in Seesaw that ties into specific learning goals throughout the school year.
- As most schools run, there should be a curriculum map/list of standards that teachers are expected to educate on before a certain point in the school year. Therefore, each standard that must be taught will be associated to an activity posted on Seesaw
- Most subjects include a standard or some sort, including math, science, social studies, writing, and reading. Therefore, there will be an activity created for each of these subjects in Seesaw. The activities may include a variety of modalities, such as writing, recording, drawing, responses to questions, and many more.
- At the parent-teacher conference, educators can show these activities to families to inform them on their student's academic progress. Families may also ask questions and make comments related to the work. This allows for a smooth, easy-to-transition conference that will inform families, as well as make them aware of what exactly is going on in the classroom.
Although this lesson is specifically for creating a portfolio for conferences, Seesaw can be used throughout the year as a way to have families stay involved in student learning. When connected to Seesaw, families can view and comment on their own student's work, as well as keep up with what is being taught day to day. This, combined with technology like ClassDojo, will help families feel immersed and part of the classroom community.
Exit Ticket: Create an example activity that is related to one or more standards in your school's curriculum. Make sure the activity gives the student an opportunity to showcase what they have learned, fulfill the standard, and explain their thoughts and feelings on the work process.
Final Activity: Please complete this Google Form that includes some questions about what has been learned in the course.
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