Elevating Literacy Learning with Seesaw’s Digital Toolkit

Transcript

Kris (00:00)

Welcome everybody to the Learning Loop podcast, your best source for educational insights and trends. I’m Kris, your host. Today’s special guest is Hannah. Hannah is a third grade teacher and is our literacy expert for our show today. Hannah is a long time Seesaw user and a true pro in using Seesaw to get the most out of her students. We are so thrilled and excited to have her here. Hannah.

Kris (00:38)

Welcome to the show.

Hannah Irion-Frake (00:40)

Hi, thank you for having me.

Kris (00:42)

We are so excited. We’ll jump in with kind of a basic question here. Could you start by just giving everyone an overview of how you incorporate SeesawW into literacy instruction in your classroom?

Hannah Irion-Frake (00:54)

Yeah, I have been using Seesaw for quite a while now. I kind of have lost track. It feels like something that’s just always been a part of my classroom and we use it all the time. So when it comes, I mean, we do use it in a lot of ways, but when it comes to literacy, I probably use it most in one of two ways. So I love that kids can read to me on Seesaw and then I can listen to their reading.

later. So it’s as a teacher like your day is super busy and you can’t always sit and listen to kids one-on-one all day but if they read to you on Seesaw then you’ve got you know whatever time you need later on to sit and listen to them and you can provide feedback and share it with families and that just makes it really nice. So that’s probably my favorite way to use it even though it’s sort of simple. But I also…

love using it for like practice opportunities. So because there’s so many tools now in the, in like when students are in Seesaw, there’s so many different ways to practice things and keep it exciting and engaging and fresh for them. So.

Kris (02:09)

Super. It’s, you’re finding like the perfect balance of having this as your partner where students can practice and become experts at it themselves and then share that and showcase that and have it be something that you as a teacher can use when you need to and when it will help you in your classroom.

Hannah Irion-Frake (02:25)

Yeah, definitely.

Kris (02:27)

What specific literacy skills have you found to be best paired with Seesaw? I know you talked through recording things. I know you talked through being able to practice, but is there any, has you found anything that really has been like, this is just the perfect pairing when we’re learning about literacy, these specific skills work best with Seesaw.

Hannah Irion-Frake (02:47)

I do have a lot of fun with different phonics-based skills on Seesaw, because you can use the drag and drop features to sort by phonics skill. Students can use the highlighting tool to highlight different phonics patterns in a text. You can have students practice reading and sorting in all sorts of ways with what you’re doing. So, it does lend itself really nicely.

to studying different phonics patterns. So I do love it for that for sure. I also think that Seesaw can be fantastic for different fluency related activities. So especially tying into having students read to you on Seesaw, you can do repeated readings, you can have students listen to themselves and then try reading it again. You can focus on things like

and sounding like a reader when you read. So it’s just a nice tool to have students to be able to record themselves and see what they’re doing.

Kris (03:57)

I love that. I love how you’re getting to the point too of almost passing that baton to students of like, I want you to use this as a tool to help yourself improve and help that self-improvement come from within versus you as a teacher having to always come in and reflect on it.

Hannah Irion-Frake (04:13)

Yeah, and parents love hearing that stuff too. So I know in my classroom when kids have read something on Seesaw and I usually will comment on it and approve it, then I also get comments from parents. And so they get to sort of hear what we’re working on and they get to hear their child. And I think that’s exciting for a lot of families to have that connection into the classroom.

Kris (04:15)

Oh yeah.

Kris (04:37)

Absolutely. And even beyond reading, just the opportunity to be a part of that learning experience is something that, you know, most parents don’t have the opportunity to do. So the fact that Seesaw can help build that bridge for parents, that just helps everybody. Students, teachers, families, the whole community just to circle around learning. We’ll jump to the next question, and this has to do with differentiation.

So thinking in ways that you are either designing content or using Seesaw to support learning, how have you found Seesaw to really be a helpful partner for you to just make sure that your literacy instruction is more accessible for all of your learners in your classroom?

Hannah Irion-Frake (05:20)

Yeah, Seesaw definitely makes that really, really easy because when you go into a sign-in activity to students, you can select groups of students and send them different things. So I think I have a couple groups in my room that are sort of intervention reading groups, and we’re really working hard on different phonics skills along our scope and sequence. And so they need…

different types of practice or different decodable texts to read. And I can send everybody a similar activity, but they’re getting it at different levels based on what they need. And so everybody’s doing the same thing, but not really, because it’s differentiated. And that’s it. Seesaw just makes it really easy to do that because it’s not quite as easy to like pass out different paper to every student in your class. But when you’ve assigned it.

on seesaw, the students half the time don’t even know what’s going on.

Kris (06:21)

for sure and the ability now to schedule activities probably only helps that even more to be able to make sure that you’re distributing things on time and to the different groups as they go.

Hannah Irion-Frake (06:31)

Yeah, I do like that, because you can have it all ready to go at whatever time you need it to go out.

Kris (06:39)

Can you share with the audience or anybody listening here, can you share an example of a creative literacy activity that you either put together or maybe your favorite one that you used that really just made the seesaw tools shine and your literacy instruction really just came together perfectly.

Hannah Irion-Frake (06:58)

Yeah, well, a lot of what I make is very quickly thrown together, and it’s just something that I need in the moment. So instead, I’ll pass that off to some of the awesome resources that already exist in the seesaw library. I know I’ve used the Phenomenal Phonics resources quite a bit, and they’re organized by Phonics Pattern. So you can go in and find exactly the Phonics skill that you’re looking for.

Kris (07:06)

Yeah.

Hannah Irion-Frake (07:25)

and it has a section where you can do the present to class and use it for direct instruction, and then you can push out the different practice activities. And I just think that’s like just the kind of resource that everybody should know that already exists and you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. And I know there are other similar like collections for phonemic awareness and.

learning letter names and letter sounds that already exist within the seesaw library. I don’t know if I could create something quite as beautiful and exciting, but I do love those.

Kris (08:04)

fine. That’s okay. As long as you’re finding power in the combination, I think that’s really the important part is, you know, whether you create them or not, you’re recognizing that Seesaw is there to help you out and really to boost your students literacy instruction. We’re going to jump to just a tiny little bit down here and just thinking about…

how to blend together digital resources like SeesawW and literacy instruction. And when you think of things like curriculum pressures, you think of things that might be coming through districts, but also the ability that you’ve seen and the power you see within digital instruction, how do you really find that balance in your classroom of reaching all those curricular demands, but also ensuring that you’re providing students with 21st century learning, we’ll say.

Hannah Irion-Frake (08:54)

Yeah, I understand that definitely as being a challenge because most districts have an approved curriculum that’s been kind of given to you, and you’re expected to teach it with fidelity. And so it might not naturally lend itself to doing anything digitally. But I think I know I’ve already mentioned different practice opportunities. They’re very easy to provide in SeesawW. But you also.

Kids can take pictures of the things they’re doing. They can, if you have a student who is maybe struggling with writing, sometimes they can take a picture and record themselves explaining something. And I think that also provides students the opportunity to practice using technology tools that they might not otherwise have access to. So I think as teachers, we can be creative.

in ways to like use the technology tools in SeesawW to help students access the hard copies of curriculum that they might find themselves using. Even if we’re not creating elaborate activities for students to complete, there’s a lot of really helpful tools within SeesawW that just help with differentiation, with helping students access assignments if they struggle with reading or writing and those kind of things.

Kris (10:21)

I think that’s one thing that you really spoke to that I think a lot of teachers are working to understand is that to use Seesaw you don’t have to make activities or even use activities. You can just press that green add button, take a picture, take a quick drawing, record your voice, add to your journal through that way too and you can still have an extremely powerful robust portfolio built for all these students as you go. I love that you…

Hannah Irion-Frake (10:47)

Yeah, absolutely. And the kids, sorry, the kids love doing that stuff too because they love taking pictures and doing like a voiceover or taking a video of themselves because they feel like little YouTubers in action, so.

Kris (11:02)

They sure do. Oh, that’s amazing. I love that you’ve reached that point in your educational career and your sageness, we’ll say it that way. Your teaching expertise that you recognize really how to use tools in the proper way that’s going to make sure that you’re reaching those curricular demands and you’re ensuring that your students are having everything that they need to be able to showcase what they know. Yeah.

Hannah Irion-Frake (11:28)

Thank you.

Kris (11:29)

We’ll jump to one portfolio question here, and then we have just two more quick questions after that. Thinking of SeesawW as a digital portfolio, do you have any examples of moments where you really saw student growth literally come to life right in front of you using the SeesawW digital portfolio?

Hannah Irion-Frake (11:51)

Yeah, I mean, again, my examples, I always feel like they’re really simple, but when you look at, because I do have students read quite a bit on Seesaw, and you can just watch their reading just progress and grow over the course of the year, and to listen to what they were reading at the beginning of the year, versus the middle, versus the end, and it’s just so tangible for them to see that progress, and for me to see it, and for families to see it.

I just think that’s related to literacy for sure. That’s just such a powerful awareness for students to have that I worked hard and I got better.

Kris (12:30)

and you can see it, you can feel it throughout the entire year right here in Seesaw. We’re going to jump to the loopy question, and this is just a question that we ask that’s just kind of a silly question we ask all of our guests here. What is your favorite way to unwind from a really busy, crazy school day?

Hannah Irion-Frake (12:51)

Oh. Usually it is reading or just watching mindless TV. One or the other. Just something that I get to do alone.

Kris (13:04)

Absolutely, recharge your batteries, move into the next phase of your evening all ready to go. Those are good advice and those are things too that I liked to always have my own personal time sometimes after school and so I think that’s important to hang on to. So hopefully you’re getting that after every busy day. Hopefully everybody around you is just making sure you have that space.

Hannah Irion-Frake (13:11)

Yes.

Kris (13:27)

We’re on to our final question. And as we close up our episode, we always try to make sure that we provide any advice for anybody who’s listening. Maybe there’s somebody who’s brand new to seesaw, maybe there’s somebody who is brand new to literacy and wants to really help boost their skills. So if we have someone like that listening, Hannah, what advice would you give them to really either improve their literacy skills or their seesaw skills or both of those things together to get to a point that you are here today?

Hannah Irion-Frake (13:53)

Yeah, I know I’ve told other teachers this before too, but you can only do so much at once. So pick one thing at a time to try to implement in your classroom. And I think that works for literacy. I know learning about the science of reading can be really a daunting task as people learn more and more and want to revamp everything they’re doing. Or if it’s learning how to use seesaw and realizing

just all the resources that are available for you, you can’t do it all at once. So pick one thing and get really good at that and then pick something else and get really good at that and take it one bite at a time.

Kris (14:36)

It’s the old saying, go slow to go fast. But I think that’s very, very powerful advice. We are at time, Hannah. I just want to say thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing your expertise. Thank you for being just a seesaw leader and a literacy leader out there. We are so thankful that you are here, that you took time away from your busy day to just share your expertise with us.

Hannah Irion-Frake (14:39)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Hannah Irion-Frake (14:58)

Yeah, well thank you so much for having me.

Kris (15:01)

Thank you, bye!