Seesaw is a great tool for managing online content and encouraging digital literacy, communication, and collaboration in students. In this post, we’ll take a look at how to use Seesaw as a medium for blogging.

Using blogs in education:

A blog is a powerful medium for students to share and showcase ongoing work. Students can interact with their peers by observing and commenting on one another’s thinking and discoveries.  When students are given opportunities to share their learning with a broader community, they are also taking on the role of educators. From this vantage point, learning becomes indelible.  

According to the ISTE framework (International Society for Technology in Education), becoming digital “creative communicators” is a vital skill toward global citizenship and future careers.Blogging naturally lends itself to supporting cross-curricular teaching and is a very useful method for building interconnectedness simultaneously among the disciplines. Blogs are often written in an informal manner, which is quite appealing to learners of all ages.      

How can Seesaw support blogging?

Teachers can help students write blogs by teaching them the traditional structure of a blog post by using platforms such as Edublog.com, Kidblog.com and WordPress.org. But, if teachers wish to dabble in a simpler, beginner level type of blogging geared toward the elementary grade levels, Seesaw is your answer!

Seesaw is the user-friendly digital learning management system where students showcase their learning in digital portfolios using multimodal tools such as text, drawings, PDFs, photos, videos, links, voice recordings, and more.

Students and teachers can share and comment on posts from students on their classroom blog. By default, Seesaw blogs are public on the internet. Anyone who visits the class blog URL will be able to access its content automatically unless it is password protected. It is highly suggested to password protect your Seesaw blog as it can be accessed on the internet. Student’s last names are not visible on the class blog. Additionally, all student posts to the Seesaw class blog must be approved by the teacher before they are posted to the blog.

How to create a blog in Seesaw:   

Here are the steps to creating a Seesaw class blog.

1. Login to your Seesaw account.
2. Tap on the wrench icon on your Seesaw classroom page.
3. In Class Settings, turn on “Enable blog.”
4. Create a blog name and URL.
5. Enable comments and password protect. Enter a password when prompted.

Once you have the basics set up you can customize your blog with a header and description. Choose an image for your blog header page by clicking “Add Header Image” and bring in an image from your computer to use as the header.

You are now ready to start publishing blog posts! Students and teachers can tap the globe icon to publish student work to the class blog. If a student clicks the globe icon, the post must be approved by the teacher before it will be published to the blog. Students will receive a “pending approval” notification after they click publish. The teacher will receive a notification that there are blog posts to be reviewed and can either approve or delete the item.

Connected blogs:

In addition to an individual class blog, Seesaw allows teachers to connect their class blog with class blogs of students in their building, their school district, or students from around the world.  This opens up even more opportunities to share, collaborate, and communicate digitally. To connect to another Seesaw blog, you will need the URL. There are plenty of blogs to connect to, here are some blogs you can connect with for the 2021-2022 school year. Ready to connect? Simply follow these steps:

1. Click the wrench icon on your Seesaw class page.
2. Click “Connected Blogs”
3. Click “+ Connect to a Blog”
4. Enter the blog URL that you wish to connect to and tap the green check.

You are now connected to another Seesaw class blog. Simply tap “Connected Blogs” in the upper right corner of your Seesaw class page and choose the connected blog.That’s all there is to it!  You and your students are now ready to blog, share, and comment on students’ posts. Families may also view and comment as well.  

So, tear down your classroom walls and let the Seesaw blogging begin!

For more tips, tricks, and tools for teaching in and out of the classroom, check out more articles on the Teq Talk blog.

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