Weekly Tech-y News October 26th-30th

 

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Weekly Tech-y News October 28th-November 1st

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Weekly Tech-y News!

Seesaw Print Feature

Seesaw has a cool new print feature that allows you to print students' posts, which converts them into a PDF with attached QR code.  This would make a cool interactive bulletin board display - especially if you are doing spring conferences!  The QR code needs to be scanned with either the Seesaw classroom or Seesaw parent app, so what a great way to encourage parents to get the app, if they haven't already!

To use the feature, click the three little dots underneath a post and select "print".  That easy!  Seesaw also created this great info poster to show students and parents how to scan the posts.  Click the image to download and print a copy of the poster.

Happy Seesaw-ing!

Student Self-Reflection Videos with Seesaw

This is an awesome idea that we tried in some first grade classrooms this morning, and they turned out great!  Many teachers have their students work on a self-reflection or report card to share students' perspectives with parents during conference time.  Mr. Anderson had the idea to turn these into videos that he can show parents during conferences (or they can watch at home, if they have access to Seesaw.)

Students brainstormed answers to three questions:
1) What do you do really well in first grade?
2) What do you need to work on in first grade?
3) What is your favorite thing about first grade?

The students then worked with a partner and used the video tool of the Seesaw app (when using Seesaw on the computer you can't record video, but you could use a photo and record audio using your computer's microphone) to record their answers.  One student "interviewed" the other, using the questions above.  They posted that video to the student's Seesaw journal, then switched jobs.  These videos are now available for the teacher to view and share with parents at conferences.

If it's too late to do this before your parent-teacher conferences, consider doing a post-conference self-reflection.  These can easily be shared with parents by enabling parents to view student work on Seesaw.

I made a task card that you could use with this activity, and have students brainstorm their ideas ahead of time.  They could even have a little "script" for their video.  If you'd like a copy of the task card, click the image below.

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Conference Scheduling Made Easy! Awesome Idea from a BPS Classroom!

Mrs. Schopp, a 2nd grade teacher at Newman Elementary, uses technology to make conference scheduling easier for her and the parents in her room.  By utilizing a form, parents can sign up for conferences online, cutting down on back and forth paperwork between Mrs. Schopp and the parents. (Mrs. Schopp does still send home a paper note for students without access to the internet.  However, with most of her parents utilizing the online form, her paperwork is cut significantly.)  You could do this a couple of ways.

Mrs. Schopp has an awesome blog (check it out at http://www.schopptalk.com/) that she has created using Weebly.  When Mrs. Schopp created her conference form, she used a tool directly from Weebly.  It looks like this:

Click the image or click here to view the full page on Mrs. Schopp's blog.

You could also use Google Forms to create the form, providing the available times and allowing each time to only be chosen once.  This same method would work great for any volunteer needs you have in your classroom, as well!  Brilliant!

Mrs. Schopp also utilizes the tool Remind to generate parent traffic to this conference form.  If you've never used Remind, it's a wonderfully easy, quick tool for sending out messages to parents that are like text messages (without sharing your personal contact information).  It's free and it's great!  Click the link above to learn more about Remind.