HOW TO INCREASE PARENT INVOLVEMENT IN THE CLASSROOM- The AMAZING SeeSaw App!!

Me:  "What did you do at school today?"

Daughter:  "Uhmmm... I don't know, but at recess I played with Sally!  We played family and I was the mom"

Me:  "Really?  Awesome.  How was Math?  What are y'all doing in Math?"

Daughter:  "It was good."

..........sound familiar? I hear parents complaining about this every year and I feel their pain.  I go through the same thing with my daughter and if it weren't for my son's amazing preschool and the daily journal that they fill out for us, we would have the same conversations with him!  (not exactly... he's 15 months old)

well... da da DA!!!

This app is AMAZING! ...and FREE!!!!

In just a few simple steps, my kinder friends are able to take pictures/videos/etc. of their work and add it to an online journal for their parents to see!  Don't worry... all entries added by a student come to the teacher FIRST for approval BEFORE going into the student's journal!  All journals are secure and only that child's parent can see their entries.  That's how I have mine set up; however, you can enable it to where classmates can see everyone's entries.  I didn't find this necessary.

 

How do you get started??

So how do we use it in Kinder?  What are the logistics?  Setup was simple!  I created my teacher account and called the students up to take their pictures.  The app also has little icons the kids can use if you don't want to take their pictures.  I think, at least with littles, the pictures allow them to find themselves in the list quickly when adding items to their journals!

After creating my account and my class list, it was time to get down to business....teaching KINDERGARTENERS how to use it in hopes that they can do it INDEPENDENTLY.  Well well well...it just so happens that SeeSaw had the same thing in mind and created a perfect little handout with kinder-friendly directions!  All I had to do was print (on cardstock for durability) and post in a few places around my room!  Now I should clarify...these directions showed students how to login to the app!  Not how to add things to their journals. 

To teach students how to add items to their journals, I used my trusty Reflector App!  If your school doesn't have this...ask for it NOW!  It's like AppleTV.  I've got a post about this- here! ;)  So I showed students what to click, went over the rules for what types of things we wanted to add to our journals, etc.  Then it was time to try it!  They had just created these adorable Shape Monsters and Graphs, so I had 6 students at a time come up and add a picture of their project to their journal!  We also added a fun, voice greeting that explained to parents what it was!  Some said "Hey Mom!  This is my shape monster!  Isn't my graph great?"  or "Do you like my project?".  Things like that!

We've only been using this for about a week but parents are LOVING it!  Moms and Dads are able to "like" projects or type comments to their child!  I sent home parent letters (those are already made for you, too!!) and parents haven't had any trouble logging in!  It's been so fun to see parents write positive comments to their kids or even just show that they saw something by clicking the little heart!

Here are some pictures from my end (the teacher side of it!).  

This is what it looks like when I open the app.  You can see on the left, the red number shows me how many "unapproved" entries there are.  I told you they love it! :)

 

I can scroll through the entries and view each one, decide if it is appropriate, and if not I can delete it.  With a simple click of that red button, this entry would not go to parents.  However, this friend did a great job on his precious monster, so of course it was approved! :)

 You'll notice that at the very bottom, you can click the green button to approve all.  I scroll through and view each entry before doing this, but this is what you will click after you have deleted any unacceptable entries.  :)

 If you click the 3 little dots under a child's entry, you get a box like this:

 And when they're all approved, it looks like this:

As the teacher, you can also add entries!  We were doing an author study in the library last week and I went around and took pictures of the groups working.  It took two seconds!  I was actively monitoring and connecting with parents at the same time!  

I sure do love me some SeeSaw!!

What are you waiting for?!  Visit SeeSaw's website for more info!  They have a great little video right on the homepage that gives an overview!

My absolute, MUST HAVE app for teaching littles about technology

In case you didn't know...I'm an Apple Addict!  At home we have a handful of iPods, a MacBook Pro, a Desktop, and 2 iPads.  We love us some apples!  Ohh...I almost forgot!  I gave  myself my husband an AppleTv for his birthday!  My techy daughter (9) and I have a blast coming up with different things we can do with it!  ...but this post is not about AppleTv.

We don't have AppleTv at my school.  BUT we DO have Reflector!!  And O.M.G.!! This is a MUST for anyone who does not have AppleTv!  A much cheaper alternative! (only $12.99 for one user!...discounts available for multiple users!)

I use this thing almost daily!  Anytime I want to introduce a new app to my class, I show them using reflector.  If I want to play music in my classroom, I use reflector to play it from my iPad through the speakers in my classroom ceiling.

It's so easy...
There's an icon on my desktop computer that I double click.  Then on my device (iPad, iPhone, iPod, etc) I "swipe up" and click "AirPlay".  Here's where it gets tricky!  Make sure you know which computer is yours!!  Our whole school has this and one time, I may have sent "Shake it Off" blaring in the Kinder classroom down the hall! ;)  Sorry, Mrs. B!

Anyway!  You can click "mirroring" if you want your iPad screen to show on your desktop computer.  In my classroom, I have a projector, so I turn on my projector, which shows what I have on my desktop...whiiiich is whatever I have "reflected" there!  TA DA!

Then I can show my students how to use a new app!  We also use this for group activities!  You can "reflect" more than one iPad at a time!!  ...more on that later! ;)

Happy Reflecting!!

Differentiation with iPads! There's an app for everyone!

This week is Spring Break for us in North Texas, so I brought home my iPad minis to do some "Spring Cleaning".  I want to get them all fixed up with the apps I'll need for projects when we get back!

The first thing on my to do list is get organized!  This means, creating folders on the devices, deleting unused apps, and assigning students specific devices!

Something that has always interested me is using the iPads for differentiation!  I'm going to do this by creating assigned iPads for each student.  I've never assigned students a specific iPad and haven't ever had a problem.  BUT it occurred to me that IF I tell students which iPad they can use, I can put specific apps for the kids that will be USING that iPad!  DUH!  So I created these cute number wallpapers (that match my classroom!) for my 6 minis!  I used photoshop, dropped them in DropBox and then opened them on each mini!  Save the the camera roll.  Hold down your finger on the image and click "set as wallpaper".  It will then ask you to scale the image (just make sure you can see what you want to see) and then it will ask you if you want to also use the image for your home screen.  I say "use as both".  Easy peasy!

The next thing I have to do is group my kiddos (6 iPads = 6 groups).  I've seen where some teachers will give the kids who use THAT iPad a passcode to access it.  I love that...HOWEVER,  I teach Kinder which is a pro and con in this situation.  Con = they will never remember a passcode.  Pro = they want to please their teacher and wouldn't even THINK of using an iPad they weren't supposed to use! :)  I love my Kinder babies!  I *MAY* do a simple passcode like 1111 on iPad 1 and 2222 on iPad 2.  I could probably even tell each group that their code is a secret and they shouldn't tell anyone else who isn't in their group ;)  They would love that, but it's totally unnecessary.

On each device, I am going to have a folder named "EVERYONE" and then a folder with each student's name.  In the EVERYONE folder, I will have apps that EVERYONE can use.  In the "Bob"  "Mary"  "Sue" folders...I can put some special apps for each child!  These will be apps to help them work on specific skills.  I have students who come in reading on a 2nd grade+ level, ESL students with very little (or no) English, and others who are still working on letters and sounds in March, so this is going to be GREAT! :)  Everyone will get what they need!  I only wish you could put apps in more than one folder :(   i.e. if I wanted Mary AND Sue to work on a specific app, but I guess that's when the EVERYONE folder comes into play!

I also put a folder on each iPad with my name.  The kids know that they don't need anything in this folder and they shouldn't go in it.  It's where I put all those random apps that you can't delete and won't use in a classroom.  I also put the settings shortcut, app store, etc. in this folder.

What are some organizational tips YOU do for your iPads?!