Sunday, November 27, 2016

Blogging in My Classroom with Seesaw

After reading AJ Juliana's article about taking risks, http://ajjuliani.com/risks/,I felt it was time I shared this site with my class. I also felt as though I'd been blogging with my students all along.  I started combing through last year's Seesaw archive for a particular student's video posts, as I thought he'd been modeling blogging all along. Sure enough, Matson was blogging and didn't know it - the problem was, neither did I! A great opportunity slipped through my fingers!
                                      Click here to see Matson's Game

It was an awesome way to share his learning, in a personal way, and he felt very empowered! This was "HIS" site! He must have posted 6-8 videos ending with, "Thanks for watching."

Now, after reading the article on taking risks, I told my students I want them all to use their Seesaw account as their personal blog.  We will still only post their best work, but what a great conferencing opportunity this creates for myself and my students! We can view their work together and decide if it should go "live" into their account.  Sometimes I happen to see them recording live, so I can approve the work without having to view it a second time, but we usually do, as a lesson in editing (you never know what the sound quality is like, for example).
We are first graders.  Our videos are far from perfect.  Sometimes saying goodbye at the end of videos gets silly.  Cameras zoom in and out, faces get really close to the cameras, voices change during the last 10 seconds of recording.  It's all a part of creative expression and style - and learning what your audience wants (or what your teacher will tolerate, lol). Time to talk about building digital footprints!
By the way, I will blog about the video you watched - the math lesson I did with my students  - later.  It was FANTASTIC!!! :)
Happy Blogging!!!