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Most of the tools we’ve used to document and communicate ideas haven’t changed much since the introduction of Microsoft Office. We have documents, spreadsheets, and slides. Those are sort of the universal formats for communicating information. That seemed kind of dumb given that those were invented in a world of keyboards, mice, and DOS prompts.We now had these things that had cameras and microphones and touch interfaces and decided that there should be some new way of communicating ideas.

The child now has an audience for his work beyond the teacher. We hear time and time again from teachers that their kids want to do their best work with Seesaw because their parents are going to ask them about it when they come home. They also know their classmates are going to watch it.

it was clear that touch devices unlocked something for computing

On the parents’ side, I was incredibly frustrated watching all the work that all my kids’ teachers were doing to communicate what was happening at school. There were weekly newsletters that were long and involved; photo albums with 300 pictures, only three of which were my child. All of this was behind a password I could never remember. Teachers were doing all this work that was taking away from actual teaching or their personal lives. The experience felt pretty broken to me.It also seemed that kids might be able to document their own learning and reflect on what they were making more independently.As a parent, I’d ask my kids, “What did you do at school today?” and they say, “Nothing,” and I had no idea what next question to ask because I just didn’t have a thread to pull on.

the magic of Seesaw is all about changing the conversation from “What did you do in school today?” to “Tell me about more about this thing you made.” It’s a starting point for a conversation

Seesaw is a learning journal. It’s a place where kids can document their learning over time

We also heard from teachers about the practical problems

I cannot imagine a future where I will be okay sending my kids to school for eight hours a day and having no clue what they’re working on. This is the most important person in my life. I get immediate updates about everything else, and yet somehow I accept that I have no information on what my kids are doing for eight hours a day. It’s not possible that’s the future.

This became obvious around log-in. We knew this was a real hassle in classrooms, and we thought we could solve it using a simple text code. But a tech coordinator at one school suggested using a QR code instead. “What would really make this easy is if kids could just scan a QR code to log in.” Carl and I both thought this was weird — no one uses QR codes. They’re a technology from 10 years ago that no one adopted. But we decided to build it to see if it got used.It turned out to be one of Seesaw’s most important features, especially in the younger grades.

we really invested in those relationships. I would call them on the phone every week. We listened, we showed them stuff ahead of time. They would give us an idea, and we would actually build what they asked for. We developed a close connection with those teachers and they started talking to other teachers in their building and other schools and so on.Honestly, we took this word-of-mouth and advocacy approach because we were a little nervous to tell teachers how to use our product. We felt like we didn’t really understand the classroom enough to tell them what to do. So we went down this path of finding some teachers who are excited about using Seesaw and helped them tell other teachers about it. Our hope is that most teachers discover Seesaw from another teacher, not from us.

Get it in the hands of teachers, and if it’s good, it will probably spread. Teachers are asked to use a lot of crappy software. When they find something good, they tend to recognize it

I just wanted to tell you how life changing this app has been for me and my teaching, and for my students

but we get an email like that two or three times a week

I have had millions of people who are slightly more organized because I worked on Google Calendar. Good, but that’s not really what I want that on my tombstone

Parents don’t know what’s going on in their kids’ classrooms. It’s not because someone wants to keep it secret, but the information is not easily shared

I had to learn what issues teachers are struggling with, and then work through those problems

On the parents’ side, I was incredibly frustrated watching all the work that all my kids’ teachers were doing to communicate what was happening at school. There were weekly newsletters that were long and involved; photo albums with 300 pictures, only three of which were my child. All of this was behind a password I could never remember. Teachers were doing all this work that was taking away from actual teaching or their personal lives. The experience felt pretty broken to me.It also seemed that kids might be able to document their own learning and reflect on what they were making more independently.As a parent, I’d ask my kids, “What did you do at school today?” and they say, “Nothing,” and I had no idea what next question to ask because I just didn’t have a thread to pull on. When you ask a kid to describe something abstractly, particularly younger kids, it’s quite difficult for them to do it. If you show them a picture of something and say, “What’s going on in this picture,” they’ll say, “Oh, let me tell you all about this,” it totally gives them a thing to start with.

different attitudes towards or ways of using digital technology, can have an impact on the effectiveness of teaching and learning. But many trainee teachers are left to develop this understanding by chance.

Teachers need to be supported by policy and research to help them develop expert knowledge on the use of digital technologies

a lack of detailed explanations provided to teachers “as to how, or why, using tablets within certain activities can improve learning”.

the effectiveness of learning is determined primarily by the way the medium is used and by the quality of the instruction accompanying that use

The crucial factor for learning improvement is to make sure that you do not replace the teacher as the instrument of instruction, allowing computers to do what teachers would normally do, but instead use computers to supplement and amplify what the teacher does

the use of both e-learning and contact education—which is known as blended learning—produces better results than lessons given without technolog

the medium does not influence the learning

the medium seldom influences teaching, learning, and education, nor is it likely that one single medium will ever be the best one for all situations

students do not naturally make extensive use of many of the newest technologies, such as blogs, wikis, and virtual worlds

the main reasons young people use technology. These reasons are mainly social

Digital natives! Whenever the question of digital innovation in education is discussed, this is a term that immediately comes to the surface. But it should be avoided. Even the person who coined the term digital natives, Marc Prensky, admitted in his most recent book, Brain Gain, that the term is now obsolete.2

Prensky’s coining of this term—and its counterpart for people who are not digitally native—was not based on research into this generation, but rather created by rationalizing phenomena that he had observed

The students use a large quantity and variety of technologies for communicating, learning, staying connected with their friends, and engaging with the world around them. But they are using them primarily for “personal empowerment and entertainment

university students do not really have a deep knowledge of technology, and what knowledge they do have is often limited to basic Microsoft Office skills (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), emailing, text messaging, Facebook, and surfing the Internet

There is simply no experimental evidence to show that living with new technologies fundamentally changes brain organization in a way that affects one’s ability to focus. Of course, the brain changes any time we form a memory or learn a new skill, but new skills build on our existing capacities without fundamentally changing them. We will no more lose our ability to pay attention than we will lose our ability to listen, see or speak.

Note that many of these studies examined the influence of television rather than the influence of interactive technology, such as smartphones and social media

when people think that young people today read less, it’s not about reading online content or text messages, it’s about reading book

young people are still doing a lot of reading, and these statistics make clear that many of them are reading for pleasure. However, we need to be careful about making too many sweeping assertions, since the reading figures in many countries are falling. Even so, we know that reading continues to be important: both reading by young people themselves and parents reading to their childre

AltSchools are more than just schools. They’re mini-research and development labs, where both teachers and engineers are diligently developing the formula for a 21st century education

the gap between the students (and teachers) using technology and the people building it needs to be as narrow as possible

letting kids learn primarily through independent projects rather than direct instruction

using tech tools to manage the mayhem of a personalized classroom

Ventilla’s goal is to bundle them up into what he calls an “operating system for a 21st century education” and license them to the education system at large.

The biggest failure of technology in schools is people thought there was some inherent value to technology, rather than saying the only value in technology is that it enhances teaching or engages kids

A lot of people looked at this through the technological lens rather than the teaching lens, and that’s a huge mistake

determining to what degree teachers have altered how they teach as a consequence of integrating new technologies into their lessons

teachers have to give students work that demands critical thinking, problem solving, and that they expect a high standard for communication skills and collaboration skills. And the digital portfolio provides students with an opportunity to show mastery. And also—this is very important—to show progress over time.

the skills you need to succeed in a competitive academic environment bear absolutely no relationship to the skills you need to succeed in an innovation economy.

in fact the real world is evidence-based, not merely data driven. And a digital portfolio can be one of the best forms of evidence of competency and accomplishments.

teachers are far more likely to use tech to make their own jobs easier and to supplement traditional instructional strategies than to put students in control of their own learning

even if ed tech were adopted as thoughtfully as its proponents claim, we’re still left with deep reasons to be concerned about the outmoded model of teaching that it helps to preserve — or at least fails to help us move beyond

open-ended math activities in Google Slides because each student can play with visual representations, give feedback to peers, and receive ongoing feedback from the teacher.

Keeler likes using the technology because she can easily see how each individual is thinking about the problem. And students can interact with one another’s ideas, even when they aren’t physically in her class

visualize division by divvying up a pan of brownies equally among friends. Keeler does this activity in a spreadsheet

competitive, violent fantasy games contribute to the development of strong future leaders and citizens.

Without a solid knowledge foundation, pupils won’t be able to conduct a quick and fruitful Google search anyway.