flickr photo shared by thedailyenglishshow under a Creative Commons ( BY ) license
Hi,
Can’t believe this is the final official blog of the COETAIL course. It has come around so quickly but has been a really enjoyable learning journey and I am looking forward to taking what I have learned and carry it into my future teaching career and spreading the COETAIL message around.
Anyway here is the video of my final project which was based around children using e-portfolio’s with an app called SeeSaw improve parent engagement in the classroom.
Some things I am really proud of with this project is the excitement and motivation the children still have to update and add to their portfolio’s. This has really been helped when they see their parents commenting on theirs and other’s work. I also like how much some of my parents have engaged with the portfolio and have given me a lot of positive feedback. My use of Seesaw in my classroom has now begun to spread around my school with all children in Year 4,5, and 6 recently being set up with Seesaw accounts. I hope to run some PD sessions in the coming weeks to show some of the features especially linking classrooms together so that children can comment on each others’ work. This project has really only got off the ground in the last few weeks and I am excited to carry it forward for the remainder of the year. I think it will be a great way for children to reflect on and remember some of their learning and happy memories from the school year. The project has really been a success when looking at my main goal of improving parent engagement in the classroom.
On reflection there are a number of things that I could have done to improve this project. Firstly i have taken on a new role as Mathematics coordinator this year. It has been a great learning experience and has allowed me to expand my PLN within the school and make an impact on learning throughout the school which is great. However, it has a big impact on the free time available to me which has restricted how time I could devote to planning, prepping and interacting with Seesaw in the class. This is the main reason why I am only making global connections using the Seesaw blog recently and really I should have done this at a much earlier stage as the children love it and it has improved their engagement and learning. Secondly. my school has a big focus this year on consistency between classrooms for our inspection which restricted how “crazy” I could be when implementing the project. Thankfully, the inspection is finished now so I have a bit more freedom to explore and implement Seesaw more consistently.
If I was to do an e-portfolio again (which I definitely will!!), I would stick with the Seesaw application as it is very child friendly and easy to use (although more suited to tablets than laptops) and also it is easy for parents to engage with. I would maybe introduce the portfolio earlier in the year and give children a lot of time in the first week to become familiar with the application and establish a clear understanding of what makes a good addition to their portfolio. I would also try to ensure that i begin the year with global connections already established so that exciting element is there for children right from the beginning.
I hope you enjoyed the project and I look forward to hearing some of your comments.
Thanks
Paul