Ten+ Things to Love About Seesaw

There is a lot to love about Seesaw. In fact, if I had to give up all educational technology tools and pick only one app to use for the rest of my career, Seesaw would be it.

1. Seesaw Looks Familiar

Seesaw posts are organized into journals, which function as a feed of student work. This is similar to the way posts are organized in popular social media apps like Instagram and Facebook. You will even find buttons for likes and comments on each post.

As the teacher you can switch between seeing the entire Class Journal in one feed or scroll through a feed that includes the work of a single student.

2. Seesaw Has Powerful Creative Tools

When students work in Seesaw they can post to the journal in 6 different ways.

• Photo: Use the camera on your device to take a picture of yourself or your work.
• Drawing: The drawing canvas offers multiple tools for expression including a pencil, marker, highlighter, magic pen, eraser, label tool, shapes, and a caption tool. You can also take and upload photos and videos and can even record yourself speaking and drawing.
• Video: Use the camera on your device to record a video.
• Upload: Upload from your tablet’s camera roll, your computer, or Google Drive.
• Note: Type a message.
• Link: Provide a link to a website or file.

Teachers can guide students to particular tools for a lesson or allow them to decide how they will express their thoughts.

3. The Activity Library Helps You Jump Right In

In Seesaw, teachers can assign activities to students that use Seesaw’s creative tools. You can make your own activities or select from the activities submitted to the community library.

You can filter the community library activities by grade level or subject, search with your own terms, and view collections to find activities that are just right for your students’ goals.

4. You Have Options for Assigning Activities

When you have an activity ready to assign you have several choices that will help you get it out to students.

• You can assign an activity to an entire class or multiple classes.
• You can select individuals to assign the activity to and exclude others.
• You can have the activity automatically placed in a folder once complete.
• You can schedule the activity to appear on a certain day and time.

If you are using other learning management systems like Google Classroom or Canvas you can grab the student link that will take students directly to their assignment.

5. Seesaw Is for Everyone

Most digital tools are designed for users that can already read and write. Seesaw, however, works for all ages. Icon-based navigation helps young students learn where to click even if they can’t read.

Even better, students with emergent literacy skills can benefit from the many built in audio and video features.

• Audio comments- Comments on student work can be recorded via microphone and played back to students.
• Add Voice caption- The drawing canvas has many options including adding a caption. With Voice caption students can create their caption by recording their voice.
• Add Voice Instructions- Record your voice reading the directions on your activities.
• Add Multimedia Instructions or Example- When creating your own activities you can use Seesaw’s creative tools (see number 2 above) to attach visual and/or auditory supports for your students.
• Insert a video into the drawing canvas- You can record and upload videos in a drawing canvas post. These can include videos of you talking to the camera, screencasts, or other learning videos.
• Make whiteboard videos on the drawing canvas- You can record yourself using the creative tools on the drawing canvas. Both what you add to the canvas and your voice will be recorded.

6. Seesaw Works with Google Workspace Apps (formerly G Suite for Education)

Files created with Google Workspace Apps like Google Docs and Google Slides can be uploaded or linked using Seesaw’s creative tools. This is great news for teachers of older students who want the benefits of a full-featured word processing program. Read more in Seesaw’s Help Center Article.

Seesaw works with Google Classroom. See item 4 above to read about how you can assign Seesaw activities in GC. Read more about Seesaw and Google Classroom in the Help Center Article.

7. Use Sample Student to Test Out Activities and Provide Demonstrations

With Sample Student you can try out Seesaw’s creative tools and test out activities to make sure they work before assigning them to your students. You can demonstrate the activity live or in a screencast to provide instruction.

8. Settings Put You in Control

As the teacher you can customize your Seesaw class settings.

• Change the appearance of your class by selecting a class name, theme, and icon.
• Determine what sign in mode works best and switch between modes when needed.
• Determine what access rights students have. Can they see each other’s work? Can they like and comment? Does their work require teacher approval before showing up? Can students edit items they’ve already posted? Can they tag each other in posts?
• Enable family access and determine what access rights they have to their own child’s work (parents can never see another child’s journal). Can they like and comment? Can they share student work? Do their comments require approval before posting?

9. The Blog Helps Students Connect

Enable the blog when you want your students to connect. If you are using Home Learning Codes to log in or if you turned off the setting that allows students to see each other’s work, then you can select student posts to send over to the blog for the whole class to see.

Seesaw classes can connect to other Seesaw classes within your school or around the world for collaborative projects. You can also share the URL to your blog to connect with non-Seesaw users. If you need to keep student posts private, password protect the blog.

10. Seesaw Makes Family Communication Easy

When family access is allowed in settings teachers can send announcements to all families and use the inbox to private message individual family members. Like email, private messages can only be seen by the two individuals communicating and not by other family members or coteachers in the class.

Seesaw has built-in translation features that support over 55 languages making communication even easier. Read more about translations in the Help Center article.

Seesaw Works on Every Device

You can download the Seesaw Class and Family apps for iOS, Android, and even Kindle Fire! You can also access Seesaw online from any computer.

Disclosure: I have been a Seesaw user for years and even did the Seesaw Ambassador training. This year I was upgraded to a Seesaw Certified Educator. As a Certified Educator I receive trainings and updates on the newest features and provide professional development. In return I get to use the premium features for free.