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I hope you are well. I can attest that this week has truly brought us closer, as a team. Together we can, “do hard things!” in the famous words of Jill Adelman-Weis. Know that you are always welcome to reach out via email, Google Met or phone (320) 492-8524. We will get through this. I just have a special shout out to Deb Koopmeiners; she has taken this on like a champ and has even given students voice recorded comments in their Seesaw, so they can hear her voice! All this in her final year. Maybe she’ll stick around for another one. Fingers crossed.
I just have a couple of quick resources to share:
This is a safe search engine that is kid friendly. Think of this if you are looking for articles or videos. All searches lead to kid/family approved resources.
https://www.wilbooks.com/free-resources-free-online-books
This is a fabulous site to visit for guided reading books levels prek-M. Sara and I came across it in one of our many journeys this week. It will be a great resource for students who may not have access to a variety of books at home and you can assign just right levels!
Media/Seesaw Updates
We are all learning tons about Seesaw! It’s amazing how far we have come already! Here are a few updates to make your life a bit easier! Sorry this is so long!!!!!
1. Seesaw is a very small company that has never done anything on this huge of a scale before. They are constantly making updates and fixing problems as they arise. If parents are having any trouble with links not working or other small things on a school iPad, please tell them to go into the Self Service app and reinstall Seesaw. If they are using a personnel iPad, they will need to do this through the app store. If they are using a Chromebook or computer, the updates happen automatically. This is the only way to get the updates that Seesaw is doing.
2.Once a week, you may want to archive your activities in Seesaw so it is not so overwhelming for both you and for families. To do this, just click on the 3 dots at the bottom of the activity and choose archive. (See picture below)
This takes the activity out of the feed students and teachers see.
3. Need any easier way to see who has completed what?? Click on the calendar icon on your home screen of Seesaw. (See screen shot below)
Then just click on the date (example April 2nd) and it will open all student responses from that day!
4. I am adding an All Westwood students -Kindergarten & Grade 1 class, All Westwood students - Grades 2-3 and All Westwood students - Grades 4-5 to Seesaw for Derek and Camille to be able to communicate with students and parents through Seesaw too. There is a class limit size of 150 student so I couldn’t create one big school account.
5. Connect Ed - This program has been causing headaches throughout the district for students using iPads. It works slightly better from the Connect Ed app. On a school iPad, families would go into Self Service and download McGraw-Hill K-12 Connect Ed app. The problem with this is then even students set up for the simplified log in must log in with their sclunch number and password. It is not user friendly, but does open the books. Some teachers have found a way around directing students to Connect Ed by doing screen recordings of the book for the week and uploading it into Seesaw. Lori Eckert just said that Connect Ed has given us permission to do this legally during this time. Connect Ed works much better on a computer/Chromebook which still allows the Flash player.
6. Last thing, I have added some new things to the Westwood Symbaloo. If you have more things you would like added, I can do grade level pages if that’s easier for you to direct your students to. Just send me a list of sites you would like included!
7. Final last thing!! Remember to restart your computer daily. It is really getting a workout and things will run much more smoothly with a daily restart!
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