Peer Review

Seesaw

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Reviewed:: Mar 15, 2017 by Teacher Education

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: Seesaw is a comprehensive tool used to allow students and teachers to track learner progress through individual ePortfolios. Using the camera and mic on the iPad as ways to capture work and annotate with audio and written feedback, learners can chart their mastery of the learning content with a visual timeline of development.
Type of Material:: ePortfolio
Recommended Uses:: Seesaw is best used a tool to comprehensively collect student work over the course of an academic year. Educators can use it to assess work and offer feedback to students, as well as reporting out progress to parents. It can be used by students and teachers to review progress over time and demonstrate growth. Seesaw can be used to give students an authentic audience of their peers, parents, and even other classrooms around the globe, encouraging better work and real feedback.
Technical Requirements:: Seesaw works on a variety of devices, to include iOS, Android, Amazon Kindle Fire, Chrome Books and computers with Chrome or Firefox.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: There are no set learning goals, but this tool can be used to collect the work that will determine whether students are successfully meeting learning outcomes set by the instructor. Seesaw empowers students to independently document what they are learning at school.
Target Student Population:: Seesaw can be used by the following: Grade School, Middle School, High School, College General Ed, Professional, Pre-Service teachers.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Ability to download apps and instruct students to use the recording functions on a tablet or mobile device to upload work and annotate it with audio and text feedback.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: There is no learning content built into the app. Students upload their content for their teachers or peers to evaluate. Students can “show what they know” using photos, videos, drawings, text, PDFs, and links. You can also import directly from most popular apps. Seesaw portfolios are a great asset at parent teacher conferences or even student-led conferences!
Concerns:: None

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: No learning outcomes are set by the app, but educators can use the app to collect the evidence that learning objectives have been met. The app can be used to collect all sorts of material across disciplines and grade levels, including allowing educators to track the same students year after year within one ePortfolio for that student. There is a Seesaw Plus Option ($120) that allows teachers to do formative assessments and tag their students' posts with their own set of skills and standards.
Concerns:: None

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: The interface is incredibly intuitive, and establishes learners (regardless of age) as the documentarians of their progress through the curriculum. Feedback tools are varied and cooperative – students receive necessary interventions to stay on track and move towards mastery in an expeditious way. Seesaw allows users to browse work from the entire class or for a single student. Users can create folders to organize work by subject area or project.
Concerns:: none

Other Issues and Comments:: Though Seesaw works on quite a few devices, there may be some instances where it is hard to allow students to document their work individually based on access. However, resourceful teachers can collect work themselves as students are working to limit the number of devices needed.
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