 Hello, everyone. Welcome to the CESA Tech Integration Success Series. We are honored that you are spending time with us here today. And a little bit about me. I'm Angela. I taught kindergarten for 15 years. I had five iPads in my classroom and we were using CESA daily. I now lead the community team here at CESA. And I'd love for you to connect with me on time at Mrs. Gadkey. And a few months ago, several months ago, actually, I was really thinking about your role, tech integrationists or administrators or coaches that really support and work directly with teachers. And I thought to myself, how can we better support them? How can we give you not only support, but inspiration and connection. So that is why we began hosting these sessions for you. So I want to talk a little bit about what you can expect when you're coming to this series. We are going to talk about a variety of topics. So each month will be a little bit different. We're going to focus on practical ideas and resources that will support you in your role. And also get you connected with a community of colleagues. So hopefully you can continue those conversations and again, share great strategies and resources. And as a reminder, please join us. We're going to be here the second Wednesday of each month. For those of you that are here live, you are already set up. You're registered for the next six sessions. But those that might be watching this recording and you're thinking, how can I get in on the next one? Make sure to follow this link to register and join us next month again as well. I also want to let you know that we have a Facebook group devoted for tech integrationists. So that is a great space to connect and, you know, share those ideas directly with other colleagues that are in the same position as you. And just a reminder as well. This series is not devoted to showing you how to use SESA, but instead we're going to be talking about a variety of topics to support teachers and specifically needs you have in your role. However, we do have an amazing resource for teachers that is specifically about teaching them to use SESA and giving them great examples and activities and ideas. And that is our PD and your PJs program. We offer free live webinars every month. And we actually just started our July session yesterday. So this is a great resource if you haven't yet shared this with your teachers or if you haven't yet attended one either. So I think I've sped through all of that. And now today, the topic at hand is six tips for back to school with SESA. You'll notice there is a bitly here that will take you directly to the slides for this session. So make sure you follow that. But if you registered, no worries. They are going to be coming directly to you in an email as well as this recording. But I am super excited to have two amazing technology integrationists with us here today. They support, I don't even know, countless schools that are implementing SESA. So first, I'd like to introduce Heather. Hey, Heather. Hey, hi there. I'm so excited. I am a tech integrationist that works mainly with elementary schools. We just, like Angela said, we have C software schools in all of our elementary schools. We just did that last year and there's about 42 of them, I want to say. And then we also added a couple of middle schools as well. So we are really like getting in the swing of all that. And just like Angela said, love for you to follow me on Twitter as well. So we can connect. And then we have Joanie with us here as well. Welcome, Joanie. Hello, everyone. I'm Joanie Quinn-DeVallee and I am also a technology integrationist. Our district isn't quite as big as Heather's, but we have 16 elementary schools. And we are a C software schools in all of those elementary K through five. We started a process of adding grade levels year by year. And we're happy to say that this year is our first full year of K5 integration with CESA. We're really excited to use it. And I'm also on Twitter if you'd like to follow me on Twitter. Yay. Well, we've got some real pros with us here today. But just to give you an idea of what we're going to jump into. So we're going to talk about open house ideas, connecting families and supporting teachers. So when we talk about open house, for example, we're talking about any sort of face to face event at your school. Maybe it's back to school. Maybe it's drop off school supplies. And then we're going to move on from that to really think of ways to support your teachers that are just getting started with CESA. I also want to mention as well, we are going to throw tons of ideas at you and lots of resources. And you will have to obviously use your best professional experience and judgment to determine what resources might fit appropriately with where your teachers are at in their CESA knowledge. So some of these are going to be great for teachers that are just brand new, have never used CESA. And some of these examples are going to work really well for teachers that have used CESA for a while or like Joni and Heather have explained that they have entire schools that have been using CESA as well. So I almost call this an idea buffet. So we're going to show you a lot of things you're going to be able to pick and choose what works for you. So let's get started with our first tip. We're back to school with CESA. It is really foundational to set up your CESA classes, right? Nothing is going to happen until those classes are set up. So let's dive into that for just a moment. So if you are using free CESA, do you want to jump into this, Heather? Yes. So if you are using free CESA, you want to make sure that you have all your teachers creating the new class and they're adding their students. And most of you might have seen already, but they've added to where they can even import from Google Classroom already. So if they've added their students that way, they can easily import or they can just follow the steps. So what we've done is create printables for you to give to your teachers. And these pictures are linkable to slides that you can print off as PDFs or you can send them in as email pictures or however you would like to do that. But it walks them through kind of just quick and simple how to create their class. So even if you just want to hang this up in the workroom just to make sure before the kids come with that free CESA version that they've created their class and also how to connect the students, whether it's by QR code, email, whatever it is, those two links right there will get you to those resources. So let's talk a little bit about paid CESA for schools, Joni, and you have some tips for that. Yeah, so obviously in paid CESA for schools, the teachers are used to using it, the families are somewhat connected. But the biggest thing that we want to stress with those teachers is that please, please, please do not create your own classes. So we use a communication strategy where we send out an email communication to teachers, administrators and tech coaches to with several pieces of information. One, the classes will be archived on this specific date because we allow those classes to exist over the summer. And then the date that the new classes will be available is also shared with all the teachers and that's just a really important piece to remember. We don't create their own classes because they will do that. Second thing is one of our biggest questions is I don't even remember how to sign into CESA and I have no idea what my password is. So we've created a couple of resources for you to help with that, especially the password on the left side is a printable version of did you forget your CESA password. The right is also a printable for you. It's very specific to our own school district because your set up for CESA for schools may be different than this printable shows. So you may have to customize a tutorial that shows them how to sign in basically with your version. In our school district, we don't have the teachers use Google sign in. It's a really important thing to note because they try to often and then they're not finding their classes. So those those two printable resources may be very helpful for you. All right, let's go into tip number two for back to school you're really supporting teachers that are integrating CESA. Let's talk about a welcome post now when we talk about a welcome post. We're we're giving you ideas for what can be waiting inside the CESA class for families. We want to have something there. So we're starting to build that relationship and connection with families to start that engagement. So we have three ideas for you to have your teachers have something in their class before families are actually connected. So Heather start telling us some ideas here. All right, so the first one that we want to talk about is just putting in a photo of you and a lot of times people want to use, you know, bit emojis and stuff like that but I just really encourage you to use a picture of yourself like this one is just like a picture of someone with their cats. I mean, it could be you in your classroom, and then you can use the creative tools and right on top of it with your name. And like here are the cats name. So the resource on the right there just kind of walks you through how to, you know, get there how to kind of post that welcome photo easily. And we want to make sure that the teachers when they're posting this they're marking all students. So that way whenever any of the parents join the class they will be able to see that welcome post. So the next thing if they want to take it a little bit further, they're going to maybe possibly create a video using CESA so on the left here is a picture of me. It's actually a video I created just to kind of welcome people to a class and so they can add captions on the bottom and just have a picture of them talking or on the right. They can have more of pictures. And with the video feature in CESA it's great because they can pause and go to a different spot in their room or a different spot around the school and just make it a simple or a different environment as they would like but it's a great way to just kind of introduce themselves as they go so then another way is the collage with the creative tools. And so now, as you know, yay, lots of claps and cheers but you can add multiple photos to the canvas so that way you can add multiple photos about you as a teacher or you can add, you know, things about around the classroom but just something to where when the parents go in there, not only they can see that but they can show their child that as well. And since it's posted to all the students whenever the students log in they can see that picture or video or collage however you want to put that in there. Alright, so tip number three for back to school we're going to start talking about open house preparations and things that you might want to have ready or your teachers have ready as they start CESA. So the first thing is I want to just let you know that we have some websites for you that teachers can use to really introduce CESA to families. So the first one mentioned there is our family's website. When you go there it's really set up that it could be something that is projected on a smart board or shared with families in a link that gives a quick little intro video of CESA and then really walks them through the the why and how to get connected to CESA. We also have a new video on our main website that is listed here that basically just kind of gives an overview about what CESA is all about. So that is also a helpful resource and Joanie you're going to talk about this idea. Okay, so we know that different people have different ways of introducing families to their classrooms some people have open houses some people have back to school night some people have curriculum nights that that all happens differently depending upon your situation. But we would like to make sure that our families have what they need at those events. So the in CESA for schools these these packets would apply only to new families because as you know the benefit of having CESA for schools is once a family is connected to their students journal then they stay connected until they leave the school so it's kind of an awesome benefit. So for families that are not yet connected we always try to invent new ways to invite them in so you'll see the principles that are on this page are a welcome to CESA benefits. So that you can they can see exactly what CESA can do for them and the benefits and why they should join. And then secondly is to print out the individual QR code for each student. And again, because of security you want to make sure that that student's name is on the flyer, so that the correct flyer goes home with the correct family. I love that thanks Joanie and Heather what's this idea. So this is an idea that I did when I was in the classroom and I use like I had the kids that first week of school coloring a picture of themselves. And then whatever posts they did we create a QR code to put in a hallway. But if you have an open house before the school starts. You can always do this for either the kids that you had in the previous years or possibly just putting QR codes in the hallway to just share some things that you've done in the classroom, however you want to do that but my parents loved always coming in and just seeing different QR code on there that they could scan just to kind of see what was going on in our classroom. I will say this slide and the next one that I'm about to talk about are more advanced like they're more for people that have been using CESA whether it's free or paid but it's just, it might be a little overwhelming for those people that are creating their first class for the first time. So the next one is just some ways that you could possibly integrate CESA during your open house or meet the teacher night and putting those activities in there to give the students something to do and also kind of introducing them to CESA on the way things work so you could, you know, have them take pictures while parents are filling out information. Just a couple of different ideas so I've linked the three different activities that you can share with your fellow teachers and they can put it in their change however they want but just a couple of ideas again this is more for advanced teachers who know CESA and have kind of been working with it for a little bit of time. Alright, so tip number four for back to school with CESA is really connecting families and we are going to start just sharing some ideas for getting everyone involved because we know that connection between coming school is really cool. I'm here just like Echo so we might have to mute some people but we'll see how it works out. I know you wanted to start talking about this Heather. Yes. Okay, so, especially with this the paid CESA for schools you want to put here like a connection station because we really want to make sure the families are all connected and I know sometimes with us especially since we've only had CESA for schools for one year, we still have those parents who are not connecting to their child's journal. So really just the goal here is to make it easier for the families to get connected and to see why. And that's one reason why we mentioned making that welcome post to have in there. So the thing the things we're going to talk about it's really you can have a table set up at your open house meet the teacher night and the tech integrationist can be sitting there you could even have counselors there if you have everything kind of ready for them to go and do what they need to do but just something where the parents, it makes it really easy for them to get an account and to see some get connected to their child's journal. So one thing that I did is I created qr codes for each teacher's class. And so Angel if you'll go to the next slide. The way that I did this and also Johnny will talk about this too is when you click on plus families it you can go into the email where it shows the email and then. Can you go to the next slide there Angela. It's not showing up. Yeah I did but I think my connection is bad so I was like, okay it's showing here but I keep talking. Oh yeah there you go okay perfect so over here on the left. So just clicking on the plus families in the view sample email and then there's a picture of that sample email there and all I did was I took that link from the different classes, and I created qr codes for each of those links for those teachers. And the great thing about this is that qr code never changes so you could even give it to the office staff for when new students come and the parents can scan it right then and get into their child's class if they have already you know been enrolled and they're in the system. So, I just created pages with those qr codes had them out on the table. So when the parents passed by all they had to do is find their child's teacher scan the code. And then they get into their account and then I'm going to pass it to Joanie here because she did something similar and also gave us a little how to video on how to do that. So, as has Heather mentioned one of the things that happens with see software schools is we get a large number of families connected right off the bat but there's always more that we try to reach and it's been a big goal of ours since we implemented see software schools so we started we started having these connection stations at different events to not just open house but even later in the year during conferences. So to make it easy for teachers because it's always something that is difficult for them once they have started rolling with their classes we used a different method very similar to Heather's where we use the email invitation and we went to the link to the sign in page for this and then we created on one device and web links to those individual teacher classrooms. And we have that at a station again very similar to seesaw connection station, and when the parent arrives to the station we asked them have you are you connected to see saw yet and if they weren't they simply click on their teachers name. And it takes them to the exact same place where they sign in. And what's nice about it is if they have questions or they, they're struggling there's there's someone there to help get them connected and oftentimes what we see happen is there'll be a couple that will come up to the station and one of the husband or the wife will say I'm already connected well you need to get connected so it really helps get more than just one family member connected as well. And as Heather mentioned, we, I created a little clips video which is linked at the bottom that will show you how to make these web links, if you don't already know how to do so. So hopefully that will be helpful to help get additional family members connected. So I love I love both of these ideas and I think the one thing that I'm just going to mention is that in both of these examples, this is going to have families join via the specific invite. And once they connect they actually are not going to get in until the teacher has them individually. So keep that in mind as well if you're thinking well how does this work with making sure this is private so keep that in mind as well. And then Joanie you had also we're going to just briefly mention this for families that are new to your school. So again, if if you just to remember that if you as the year goes on or at the beginning of the year. Important to you can you can check the each seesaw teacher each classroom to see how many family members are connected and either do this for teachers or remind them to print the sign up letters for new families. We do the printing for them again just to make it easy for teachers as they're you know really crazy busy trying to get ready for open houses or the beginning of the school year. And then these are just two printables that are just really handy to have for any family that's downloading the app on their phone so these are linked in the slides that you're getting after this session. And then Joanie you wanted to talk a little bit about what you do in your district to even provide a little bit more information for families. So we feel it's very important to have our families understand what seesaw is and how it is used. We get great response from families families love it there's no we haven't had a lot of pushback or negative response to see saw so we want our families to be informed. So we've created a web page that has all kinds of information for families it has the introduction to see saw what is it video it shows them the benefits resources. And then we developed some frequently asked questions that we've run into when families, you know, first start using seesaw but our biggest piece of greatness was creating a school help email so the family is struggling getting connected sometimes that's hard for a teacher to even help them it's hard for them to know how to help them. So we created a seesaw help email address with our domain, and it actually comes to me. So when when parents fill out that email or send an email it comes to me and then I can actually be the one that can help get them connected or answer any questions that they have. So it's a big positive piece for us, as well as just keeping our families informed about what great things we're doing in our school district. Love that idea, Johnny, right and Heather just a couple reminders here about free seesaw. Yeah, so we just wanted to make sure that you are printing the QR code invitations for them, as far as what kind of what Johnny mentioned before. And Johnny, I think the video invitation was something you had done as well right. Yeah, so what we just try to get families connected or get information to families and so many different ways. And so one of the ways that we've done that is to invite, give families a video, like a clips video or something that's easy that they can watch a nice short video so that if they have questions or they're struggling getting connected or they don't know what they're doing or they don't know what seesaw is that they would have a video represent representation of what they need to get connected. That's it. So we're going to go ahead and cruise on to idea number five for back to school seesaw. We're going to go into some classroom ideas to really get your space set up if you're a teacher and quick tips that you can share and support as well. So the first one this is from when I was in my kindergarten classroom is we have five shared iPads. So it was really helpful to choose the home base for those devices. It was always located it made it easy for everyone know to know where to get a device. And it wasn't left on random tables, they were also always charged and ready to go so that is just an easy tip. First to share with teachers if they haven't thought about that yet. And then also if you're using class code sign in if your teachers are working with younger students. So it's great to keep this class code inside your classroom but make sure it's not just in one spot maybe you have it in four different places. So that students can just quickly scan it and keep moving along with with whatever they're using seesaw for to you know explain and reflect and create so one of the things I just always like to remind you about and specifically this audience is that these QR codes are should be secure. And I also warn teachers that you know sometimes you have people coming into your classroom to support you, or sometimes you might be taking pictures as well. And we never want this QR code to make it into a picture. Sometimes at the beginning of the school year we have teachers that are super excited that it's the very first day their students are signing into seesaw. And they will take a picture very much like the one pictured here to the left, but their QR code is is showing loud and clear. So I just like to kind of share that as well and in my classroom I always even put a post it note over the QR code was, you know, covered up in case, you know we're taking photos or whatever it didn't even appear in the background as well. The next tip I would give in this works really great younger students is to create seesaw recording spot. So when I classroom I had five spots, one in each corner of the room and I simply just hung up this recording spot poster, which is linked here to the slides that you'll receive. It was really a good space for students to go to when they were ready to record audio, it got them away from other peers that were working. And also it kind of shifted their thinking, especially with littles that Oh, this is the time that I'm going to think and explain and reflect on my work as well. And then Heather has some fancier options that she's going to talk about. Yeah, like Angela had mentioned before there's a Facebook group, but also Twitter is just I find so many wonderful ideas on Twitter so both of these pictures are linked to actual people that might be watching right now I don't know but they posted these and I just think there's so many great ideas that teachers are doing now. So I just put on there like you can turn any container or tub sideways like this one or those little foldable larger. I don't want to say boxes but you know containers that a lot of teachers have and think they're like $5 at Walmart, but they just are turned sideways and kind of provide a little recording spot and then this other one on the right is just like, you know boxes wrapped with posters to make it a little bit fancier but I've just seen really anything that teachers have just tried to kind of take the supplies that they already have, turn it sideways and kind of give the students a space to go and record. And then the other thing I wanted to make sure we added on here was just the computer login cards. I think it is so important for teachers to do this before the school year starts. There's a couple of options on here now this isn't like for us like Johnny had mentioned she's not sign in with Google, but we are we're complete Google district so for logging with the computers, you know we log in with our, you know district account but it's pretty Google everywhere, but no matter what age K to five or I don't know some secondary kids need practice. So you have the option here on the left where the teachers can just copy that slide and then paste the student info in, or I am a huge autocrat fan. I created a video I will say it's a little bit long because I go step by step, which is a little bit more advanced on how to fill out the cards on, you know, automatically. And then on the right, if you guys have never heard of Christine Pinto she's a amazing feature I think she's only been teaching a couple years but anyway she has a whole login card system that has where you can tape the rows on the keyboard just to help them with typing. And I think not only does that help them with logging in but also if they wanted to use the note feature or labels or anything like that help them with the typing on the keyboard. And Heather I loved your video so I highly recommend anyone watch it it's great, great tip. All right, so we're going to go into tip number six for back to school with CISA we're talking about first day posts or even first week posts. We're really trying to create that conversation around learning families and students as well so that's where we're kind of giving you some ideas here to really get that engagement started in my kindergarten classroom on the very first day of kindergarten I made it my, you know, my goal to make sure that I kind of caught students in action, because I wanted to, again, create a situation where when they went home from that very first day of school, the, you know, the, the communication was very different. It wasn't, you know, how did your first day of school go. Oh, it's fine. We didn't do you know whatever. It was telling me about what's happening in this experiment right. So as a teacher as a reminder teachers can always post to the student journal when they are signed in as a teacher as well. And Joni, I know you've done some similar things in your district with teachers as well. Yeah, we as Angela mentioned the most important thing is having to show the students in action during is, even if it's on the first day of school that family members that that's what they want to know what happened on the first day of school so we've just, you know, having teachers take individual photos of every student in the class or entire class photos. One thing I would mention on this our school district has a policy as far as acceptable use agreements that families sign so in our school district to they have signed that agreement then they're we it's a it's acceptable to take their photos so you'd want to make sure that you knew that that was an acceptable thing to do if you're using students in photos. But having students playing with their friends going on classroom tours having the student go through the classroom taking video and explaining different parts of the classroom and one of the favorite things that we've discovered recently with my student tech team is boomerang and using boomerang photos to just show the enjoyment and engagement that they have during their school day. They love it and it's not not hard to do and the students can definitely figure it out. And then, in addition to that, as I mentioned, you want your families to have a conversation with what's happening at school so looking for things that are conversation starters for families. So activity is an activity in Seesaw and this would probably be one where you if you were going to use it you would be a Seesaw user before attempting this one, but explaining all of the friends that you met during the day because one of the biggest pieces with social emotional learning and what parents are concerned about not not always academics but but what is your school experience like so I think this great activity about connecting is is a perfect example of that. And then, in addition, if you are a Seesaw for schools district or if you have all of your families connected, just making sure that you communicate to them what happened today or what happened this week so with the great new exciting tools that you have you can add up to 25 photos at a time so you could create an announcement a first day of school announcement and attach using the creative tools examples of what other things that we did today or what happened today and I feel like that would also be a great conversation starter for communicating with families. And to jump in real quick, Joni, I think a lot of times now like the kids are coming from school here that or daycare or whatever it is that they have all these programs where they take pictures and send it to the parents. So this is a great way to kind of transition the parents as well because they're used to getting that feedback. And so it's definitely a great thing to do I push that a lot for them to take pictures. And then, once you've been in Seesaw and you've been using Seesaw for a long time, you the ability to locate the first five posts, creative tool posts that you are shown when you first created an account so if you're brand new to Seesaw. The first thing that pops up in your activity library is these getting started with Seesaw posts. So once you've downloaded activities, it disappears so Angela, lovely Angela, gave me this great tip and I thought I would share it with you. So once you've used Seesaw for a while and those first five posts disappear, you would open up your activity, Tiffany library rolled out to the bottom where it says more collections, and then scroll all the way to the right. And then on the getting started activities, they pop back up. What's great about these activities is a great way to introduce creative tools to your students if they haven't used Seesaw before, as well as a newer teacher that hasn't used Seesaw. It gives them a great starting spot. And if they can get through those first five posts, they are on their way to being Seesawers. I love it. That's a great reminder, Joanie. So wow, we did it. I'm so excited we made it in time here. We were concerned we might not make it through. But hopefully you've enjoyed these tips. We are going to take some time just a couple minutes here for questions but also letting you know that if you haven't connected with our Seesaw community yet. On the right hand, you'll see all sorts of spaces where we are located. Make sure to also share these with your teachers. And as a reminder, this type of webinar is specifically for you tech integrationists, but we do offer those series of webinars. Each month called PD and your PJs, which is really all about supporting teachers as they get started with Seesaw. So that's a great thing to share with your teachers as well. We're happy to train teachers and support them as they get started with Seesaw and also provide you resources in a format like this. So one of the things that I want to let you know before we head out and go into questions here is we're going to have a survey pop up when you exit this session today and we would really appreciate if you filled that out. If you want to know what you would like to talk about in upcoming sessions and any feedback that you have, we greatly appreciate it. So we are going to look into the questions now, but we are so eager to see you next month as well.