Seesaw is a very powerful, yet simple to navigate and use, FREE online learning journal/digital portfolio. It was selected as the elementary Home Learning platform for several reasons, mainly because Pearland ISD already has 400 current teachers with active accounts this school year. This means that a lot of our students are already familiar with it from using it in their classrooms, making the adjustment to home use that much easier. Also, Seesaw has been used in PISD for several years already, so a lot of students have had multiple years of exposure and are very comfortable using it independently. Seesaw gives students the ability to show their thinking through use of six different tools: photos, videos, drawings, notes, links, and files. Seesaw provides a safe, closed environment to learn digital citizenship skills, as well as delivering a simple home/school connection that parents and teachers can use to communicate about school work. Teachers can choose to create their own assignments from scratch, or select an activity from the teacher-created products freely available in the Activity Library. Another benefit to all parties involved is that Seesaw can be accessed via the free Seesaw Class app (available in the app stores for Apple and Android devices), or via the web at app.seesaw.me.

Seesaw Highlights

• Documents can be uploaded and students can annotate and record audio and/or video responses to them.

• Teachers can post assignments with audio instructions that students can replay as often as needed.

• Teachers can post links to additional web resources.

• Teachers can utilize pre-created subject-based and grade-level organized activities.

• Teachers can send announcements to students and parents.

Seesaw easily provides the means to meet the district requirements for sharing TEKS-aligned videos, web links, and step-by-step notes to students and their families. And your Elementary ETSs can still facilitate trainings as we all begin to learn how to use Seesaw at home!

Some campuses have been using Teams for quite a while, and many also utilize the Staff Notebook created for your campus. If your campus uses this, please don't forget about the Technology Training sections that you have, containing handouts and resources that we have covered in our campus technology PD.