 So today we're talking about music and digital portfolios again I'm Angela from the seesaw team and I'm going to hand it over to Megan right now Who is our amazing host today and at an amazing k5 elementary music teacher? Welcome Megan Hello, thank you guys I am so excited to be back with my seesaw family on doing another PD and my PJs although I didn't have time to put my PJs on Hopefully you are wearing yours and you're just relaxing So we're going to talk about music and digital portfolios today I am Megan into cunts again I work in Georgia in Fulton County schools, which is kind of around the Atlanta area guys follow me on Twitter I love to meet new people and interact online. So there is my information I'm trying to ramp up my Instagram. So follow me there. You're gonna have access to those links later after over I'm done with this webinar Okay, so why seesaw right? Well, let's talk about that because it's super important to understand what seesaw can do for a music teacher Before we even talk about these points that we're gonna go through today I want you guys to think about All of the Bolton boards that your friends are putting outside, right? They've got these really amazing ways of showcasing student work and then there was us Who are performing art and it was nearly impossible without inviting people in consistently to come to your classroom to share Well, then come social media. Well, that was great But not every family member is on social media as far as Twitter and all of these other professional networks So seesaw has been a game changer since our it came out I was begging a champion for seesaw in our schools So that we had a we finally had a way to share what's happening in our classrooms as far as videos Pictures and just and we're gonna go through with some of the amazing ways to share what's happening in our classroom And digital portfolios are the way so through digital portfolios and seesaw We can talk about how it adds activities and family communication It increases ability for performances for an authentic audience We can showcase the unit work or things that you're working on with your students or even your students favorite work which they of course love to share and We can show progress and assess student work and finally the biggest one is parent education and advocacy, right? We are always looking for new ways to Advocate for music in our schools. So these are great ways to do that So let's start first with talking about The activities feature in seesaws and how that can see saw and how that can help with family communication So think about all of the different written assignments that we try to offer our students And then we then have a blurb like you see here at the top that gives a little bit of information So when you send it home to the parents, they have that information Well poor little Johnny loses their paper on the way home and there's a missed opportunity So I've taken this and I keep thinking about why not digitize this so my original project is Paper and pencil task because it is important for them to get the skills to write music notes and as you see we have our baby bear composition we sing our baby bear song and Students then got to create a new a new animal in our story and this sweet child created the rainbow Rabbit because all kids love rainbows and they wrote the rhythm underneath After they drew their picture and they wrote their rhythms and they got the a okay, of course, then they performed it for us So we're gonna listen to one of my little first graders performing Their task, which was also shared on seesaw for the parents Oops, I did this earlier So little Carter not only got to share his work But he also got to share that performance piece with his family on seesaw So there's a couple ways of doing that This is a great way to digitize some of the work that you're doing and share with the the families of your students One of the tabs when you hit your little green plus button, you'll see is to create or share I'm gonna move this one bucks to create or share an activity There you're gonna be prompted to fill and complete out this information as you can see you give it its name and student instructions And then the students can actually upload their work My students added the picture of their work and then we recorded a video of them performing So now the parents get to see their work and then they get to hear their sweet little babies voices Which I mean who doesn't want to hear their babies voice during the school day, right? So then the next thing to think about is performances for authentic audiences One of our standards We know is how do we really develop and build our students so that it's not just a one and done in the classroom And one way to do that is to record performances and then put it out there for an authentic audience to comment on Through seesaw We're able to share various tasks and then when you tag the class you're able to Send it to all the parents and then the parents can like they can comment on the work of their students So here's an example a real quick example of something that I shared with an entire fourth grade classroom And all of the parents were able to look and see what their kids did for that day and start conversations at home So when we think about sharing sometimes, I think we think more about individual students and how do we Then record every single child singing one time all by themselves and share with their parents Well, that's not going to happen every time However, it is very easy for me to grab my phone real quick And or ipad and film the entire class And then you can actually send this video to all the parents and they're able to see Their children performing something that they've been working really hard on in class Um, so again, that's all through um adding an activity Through the video and that's why I put the little prompt back here So you guys can remember that and then um sharing with the parents and then the parents are able to comment Announcements are another great way um for you to share some of that information and share authentic audience and create um a way to elicit conversation from an audience Um, this happens through the green plus button again And you'll see I send announcements, uh button at the bottom And um, I embed a lot of times a pilot link onto my website so that we're reaching The confines of just our own community and other communities And so when we look through This one you see that I am letting the parents know that there is a link on my website But here's a direct access for them and they're a little one-stop shop, right? It's sends a notification to the parents. They're able to click directly right on this link It pulls into this padlet wall and you can see here that we have teachers and parents commenting on student work Um, I know this is an older padlet that I kind of screen clipped for you But you can actually comment right on the work So now the parents can comment and see saw but then we could also like I said reach outside of that world to get into The global audience Don't forget though, of course anytime you're filming and you're putting things out there, especially out on your website To have those special permissions from each student Um, whatever your school policy or your district policy is make sure you're following the rules for that when posting and sharing things outside of Seesaw. Um, so just food for thought there on that. Um, while it sounds like a great idea I just got to make sure you're following your rules. Okay guys So showcasing a unit work and or maybe the students favorite work Um, you finish the unit you've worked really hard in my district. We focused on um unit of study This particular example these examples. I'm going to show you it takes us through a unit of study on rhythm Into melody and how we took one piece to create an entire work of art. So um, here's an example um of actually this first example is going to be um My students sharing their favorite A portfolio inside of portfolio if you've ever played with Thinglink It is a it's a really fun resource for kids They are able to take a picture and add in targets over the top That actually will spotlight whatever it is they want. Maybe it's a picture. Maybe it's a video things like that Um, and I've included this link here for you. Um, this was a link put into our Seesaw Um that you guys can explore and experiment with to check out and see what that looks like But Seesaw takes the link. So think about all the ways that students are able to create and share um, and They generate a link. So you're able to put that right into their portfolio Um, here's some example of the targets. They took and made with Seesaw. Um, they took and shared their little pentatonic melody And then through Quaver they recorded the video screen of their music playing a pentatonic melody here And so we were able to put that into um Seesaw They also used chatter picks Which is another great exciting little app That makes the picture come to life. It makes a little mouth talk and I've got a couple examples to show you Have some funny ones in a minute Those are all links that they shared into Seesaw and then comic headlights on the right And what we did was we took all of their favorites from that that they posted on Seesaw and made a Thing link of their favorites and then put that in Seesaw at the end of the unit It's kind of their way of showcasing their favorite as not our I guess our own little music show like you would have an art show So when we look here at this example, um, here are two examples. I wanted to share with you About how to use some of those little apps This one is chatter picks So you see how the little mouth talks and he basically took his rhythm and was able to showcase that he understood 16th notes And then this final one is they were talking about understanding definitions With comic headlight You know that rhythm is a combination of like long and short sounds So everyone knows that we learned that in first grade So the kids have fun with these types of um ways to learn and share Things that they know so keeping in mind that Seesaw is a good place to house all of your um different Apps that link so it's kind of like app smashing if you will To showcase student knowledge now. I know that is probably a little bit Above and beyond but for some of you who are really Excited about app smashing and doing crazy things with technologies. Hopefully that has inspired you Seesaw is also a really great place for a one-stop shop to show progress and assess student work So if we look here, um, this is the project. I was mentioning where students were They're moving through different units of study. The first step, of course Was for them to create a rhythm a little short ostinato With the picture tool they snapped a picture of their finished product of the worksheet And then they used the record and annotate button to draw over the top to explain what they did So it's part of a reflection piece that's included with the posting So instead of just posting a segment picture students have to really spend a little bit more of that higher order of thinking To take it to the next level for sharing And i'll skip through so you can see where they're writing on the picture Now we were able to take this and this is the best part is that you can use this for formative Assessment and feedback obviously they've put the dot and the eighth note and the writing places So for them posting it I was able to view that catch it in time before they got to the next step to fix their problem Um, then the next step was for them to create, um, a melody to lay over the top of their rhythm So with the video feature and seesaw they were able to video write in and play their melody Okay And then step three of course was to take it and transfer it on to the staff For written notation and they were able to talk about the changes they made and why they made those changes Okay, and it's super cute. Oh, hold on. This is my favorite So he made changes because that's what you do when you're writing music How precious is that right so it's hearing the student reflections and their thought processes Sometimes really surprises you and finally make the full class performance to share with parents so that they can see The finished product of how it all works together So there's my babies putting together their leap tracks that they created for their parents Now the best part again is this a one-stop shop. So when you look through at each of those steps It is in one continuous Um stream on the parents Um seesaw so they can see step by step what happens That also is good for you as a teacher to see step by step what happens So that you can kind of make those decisions on how they're moving how they're progressing What do they know? What do they not know so you have a better clear view of that? Um Seesaw is great for posting and sharing and offering a reflection statement and teacher feedback as you see here The students were able to create a composition and then I was able to give them some information on their reflection It's also really good for skills assessment If you'll notice the little um, I guess it's a graduation cap At the bottom with um a one that's the skills assessment You'll see that it can be tied to the standard This one is on form I was able to give them five stars or four stars for completing the task correctly So when I look back later that I'll know that they've achieved that particular task if they do continuous ones I'll know then all of their stars are filled in that child knows form if there's any area where there's concern It'll be different star numbers different color highlighted in shading And I'll know to reach out to that student for help guys. This is like an entire webinar on its own skills I can't wait to share with you. Maybe that'll be another topic for another day And then of course family education and advocacy So my favorite fire robin has um created john fire robin is created. Well, actually it was his wife Ask me cards So you basically would send him a little bit of a notification with parents to encourage students to sing With their students or with their families at home and give them a little piece of music to take with them Here's an example of a card to share this as an activity and have them respond about how it went I think it's powerful. Um, I put a little reference on the bottom corner of where this resource was found Um for you guys to check out But do know that um, I think this is an incredible task especially for you to digitize it because again papers get lost So for them to reach out to their parents in a different way in a digital world And their safe little um portfolio is amazing And then of course podcasts you guys can link in podcasts and this is a great way to show parents Uh, what's going on around the school and in the building? So here's just a little snippet and then we're about done to hear of my students created podcast So there's a little bit of education tied in with what's happening on this podcast It's not just um information about what we're doing, but it's also um some education pieces for parents So they know what their students are actually learning when they send home those pictures of eighth notes It's not a mystery anymore. Which is kind of fun Um, so I know that was super fast and a whole lot of information you will get the slides Please please please you can just send me messages guys at twitter Um or instagram and there's my email address we can connect we can continue the conversation And I look forward to hearing what other kind of questions you guys might have for me Yay, thanks, Megan. That was awesome So I just want everyone to know that Megan is always so willing to share and give tips and tricks as well So don't be shy when you're reaching out to her because she will be more than happy to answer your questions