ULearn18: Breakout Seven - Capturing learning with Seesaw

This year my school started using Seesaw schoolwide and the fully paid up version too. Seesaw is pretty much a daily reality in my classroom. 

The children have used it to record themselves reading and performing poetry and posting pictures of their Invitation to Create creations during Reading Tumble.  I've used it to post pictures and videos of the students working and learning in the class.  It is a great way to send private messages to all or individual parents.  Parents are responding to the photos, videos and recordings.

But I still think I can learn some other ways to use it. So I signed up to the Breakout
Capturing learning with Seesaw with Stephanie Kitto at ULearn18.

Here is the abstract:
In this hands-on workshop teachers will learn how to use Seesaw, a student-driven digital portfolio that empowers students to independently capture and share their learning. Teachers will explore Seesaw’s built-in tools, which give students the flexibility to document and reflect on their learning, in a way that suits them. We will look at the parent communication tool that allows for the seamless sharing of work and helps to build strong home-school partnerships. This session is for teachers who are new to Seesaw and not yet participating in Seesaw for Schools.

Please install the Seesaw class app on your smartphone / tablet / iPad device and bring your device to the session. You do not need to create a Seesaw account before the session.

Stephanie began by showing some examples of how her class uses Seesaw to work independently:

• learning sight words
• practicing reading
• explaining how they solved a maths problem

She then showed us about how to use "Activities", where you can set tasks for students to respond to.  I tried this last term and failed miserably, and now I know why.  I never taught my students to use the green button on each activity that says "Add" to add their response to the Activity.  Doh!

Our first Activity was to do the "Get to Know You" activity.

When we had arrived we did this drawing activity, so I took a photo with my laptop camera of the work and uploaded it to Seesaw and then recorded the response.  This is when I really understood about using the Add function in Activities rather than just adding it to my folder.

Stephanie then came around with Smarties.  I was hungry and ate mine prettly much straight away until I realised we had to use them for an Activity.  By then, this was the only maths problem I could really make.

But I couldn't take this photo with my laptop, I had to use my phone and that caused all sorts of issues getting it onto my computer so I could upload it on to Seesaw.  But I figured it out.

And so I eventually added it as my response to the Activity.

Here are some examples of what others did in the workshop:

We also took photos of ourselves, uploaded them to Seesaw, and then used the Copy & Edit feature to "modernise" the photo with the drawing tools.  Sadly, I forgot to screen shot that.

So how have I used this learning?

When I got back to school I did this Activity:

Some children forgot to go to the Activities label and click on the Add button.  So this was a valuable time to teach this to them.

Eventually we got there though.  One child has been absent since the start of term so has not responded and another has been ill and catching up on other work, so I need to chase her up this week because her picture is going to be epic.

But this is another epic pic and you can see from the graphic underneath that she has recorded her story.

We've been catching up on a lot of artwork started or planned for last term.  So I then put this Activity up for them to talk about it and explain to their parents.

As you can see, one child still has not returned to school and another has been away for all the second week sick.  You can also see there is one child's response still waiting for "teacher approval".  Teacher approval means that you can vett all the content the children put up.  It allows you to ensure it is appropriate, reflects the learning, and it creates teaching points.

We have also been using it more for maths to explain what we are learning.  It's meant I've been able to dive into the thinking by the children as well and pick up who understands and who is lost in the mathematical sea.

So where to from here?

Stephanie talked to us about the copy and edit function, and this last week I talked to the Seesaw Ambassador at my school about this.  So that will probably be my next teaching point with the students.  

I'm also going to dive into the Activities shared by other teachers and try them out.

And then I will find a new thing I have to learn to do with this.

Invitation to Create - a new addition to my Reading Tumble

This year is my first full year teaching juniors with having a Year 2/3 class.  It has meant I've had to adjust and modify my programmes to cater for the fact these children are so much younger than I've had previously.

One idea that could my eye on Pinterest is "invitation to create" and the Reggio Emilio activity "loose parts play" and "tinker trays".  See these screen shots from Pinterest below to see some of the inspiration.

So I decided to combine these ideas into my version of Invitation to Create for my Reading Tumble.  The purpose was for the students to be creative and challenged.  To learn more about how the Reading Tumble works, click here to go to the post where I explicitly explain how it works.

The next fun part of collecting items that can be reused for different projects and mixed and matched.  And every teacher knows that your first port of call are $2 shops.... and I am trawling through them all!

I already had straws and coloured ice block sticks and match sticks and colourful buttons, but I went hunting for more buttons, coloured glass beads and stones and bottle lids.

The first challenge I set my students was for Anzac Day, to make poppies.

On the lid I stuck these instructions.  The children are also challenged to post their creations on Seesaw (which our school has gone all out on this year) so there is a record of their creations.  Below are some examples of the photos posted on Seesaw by the children with their interpretation of an Anzac poppy.

I've also decided this can be used for my Maths Tumble.  So the first challenge is to create algebraic patterns.  I'll blog about the maths aspect in another blog later in the year.

To give them a space to create within, I went to The Warehouse and purchased A4 photo frames at $2 each.  I removed the glass and replaced it with stiff black paper to be the backdrop.

Then I had to sell it to the students.  It was not a hard sell.  The children love this activity and the parents have responded with lovely comments on the Seesaw posts to their creativity.

After six days of doing the Reading Tumble rotations I did decide to change the challenge though.  Sticking to the Anzac theme, I asked them to do soldier medals.... but many are confused with medals from the Commonwealth Games... so we've had a few interesting pictures.

I also changed some of the materials in there.... but this is what it looks like when children don't put things back in an orderly fashion!!

And here are their interpretations of an Anzac medal....

As we moved into our Matariki theme, I changed the challenge to a planet.

And here are the children's interpretations of their own planet....

And then it changed to a constellation of stars.  And this was their interpretations of their own invented constellations and them copying one off the wall....

What I really love about this activity is that I can change materials in and out, the materials can be used in a variety of ways, they can create many new masterpieces but the materials can be repeatedly used and it unlocks their creativity.  I've also learned to not have it too often, otherwise the novelty wears off, so it is one of fifteen slots in my Tumble and I need to change the theme after they have all had two attempts at the challenge.

For this term (and maybe into the next) I have already brainstormed some Invitation To Create activities as you can see below:

And here is one I am planning for maths to incorporate our Lego into learning.

I will blog about how these challenges have gone later in the year to evaluate the whole of Invitation To Create in my Reading Tumble.