Our school is one of a handful in my district that uses Seesaw school-wide. Seesaw is a combinations digital portfolio and learning management system. Instead of me sharing all of Seesaw‘s features, I’m going to focus on how it develops Media Literacy based on Unesco’s 5 Laws.
Law 1: Critical Civic Engagement and Sustainable Development
Students see what their classmates post within Seesaw and they can in turn like and comment on those post. This is an extension of the classroom community that we as educators take great care to develop.
Law 2: Creators of Information and Knowledge
Students can create their own unique content and post it in on Seesaw. Seesaw’s app invites students to create videos, images, drawings, and texts. Students can also appsmash by creating a book review with Chatterpix and then posting it in Seesaw. They can create an Augmented First Chapter Friday with 3DBear and post it in Seesaw.
Law 3: Messages may have bias
Posting a question, image, or video for students to analyze is one way to introduce bias to students. Have them analyze websites, news articles, or videos. You can also have them share which resources they prefer to research with and why.
Law 4: Everyone wants to know and understand information
Using Seesaw as a learning management system allows you to post content and lessons for students to interact with. They can solve math problems and share their process or they can share information learned about a topic. Another appsmashing opportunity is have them use PicCollage to take pictures of matter, label it, and post it in Seesaw as a formative assessment.
Law 5: Meida Literacy is a process that requires a combination of schools
Over time, students acquire the ability to analyze posts, create posts, and how to access information within Seesaw. You can use rubrics to help students develop high quality posts. I have created one that I use with Kindergarteners.
The best part is that Seesaw FREE for educators. You can upgrade to get additional features, or purchase Seesaw for schools which includes analytics and makes it easy to integrate classes from PowerSchool (or other school data source) each new school year.
