Seesaw Reviews

by Shapeshifetr

Hello! Those of you who think this app has a perfect Instagram- like setup, and super fun and easy, you are wrong! this app is annoying. The computer this app is better than Seesaw one, but they are still stupid. Teachers, kids are allow to make random videos. Just imagine the inappropriate issues your trouble-making kiddos would do! Plus, there’s no preset comments. Those trouble-making kiddos in your class could swear or hurt someone’s feelings. It also encourages kids to sneak and watch classmate’s videos instead of doing work. There’s no way to ban video making. Kids reading this, you don’t want to have this app, it’s little-kiddie. The grade ranges that do enjoy it is K-1, 2nd+ just hate it. Schoolagy (did I spell it right?) is more ages 3rd grade + and is perfect! It’s harder to make videos than just tapping a button, and you can like videos. Kids have fun doing that. Teachers can also make great videos. Teachers, if you prefer Microsoft Stream, when you are showing your students how to get to it, there will be a little button in the corner to view the video on Microsoft Stream! Teachers, video making on Schoolagy (if I didn’t spell it write, I’m sorry) is amazing. Do scratchy sound issues like on this app. If you are a K-1 teacher, use this app (it’s the best you got) Thank you for reading

by Mmmmmqwerty

Our school uses this app for managing remote school work. However we (techie adult included) are having a hard time submitting homework. I get “Error. Item not found.” Seriously, couldn’t you catch these errors and handle them gracefully for grade school kids? It had come to a point where I needed to help my son redo his hard work because we couldn’t submit and had to redo the work. Couldn’t you at least save the work locally (on device) so we can recover previous work? The most frequent issue is that my son finished all his art work and then he cannot record audio (pause button is showing instead of microphone) and again he’s stuck and we have to redo the work. Such a frustrating and unreliable app. And it’s only the 3rd day of school. Seesaw makes remote learning frustrating. Screenshot is more reliable.

by Anomly1

Like many, I’m sure, I have been using the this app app for distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. Overall, Seesaw has been beneficial for the teachers to share the lesson plans and we utilize Seesaw similar to a social media (FB) platform by responding to the teacher’s posts with the completed assignments.
Unfortunately , this is also why I only rate Seesaw 3 stars. The issue is that once I’ve responded to an activity posted by the teacher, there are no indicators that the particular assignment was completed/responded by me resulting in a lot of time spent searching through activities that need to be completed. I liken this issue to having read an email in Outlook and then going back later for that one email but all emails are marked as “unread”.
It would be excellent if the developer were to create a means for the completed assignments to be highlighted that it has been responded to/completed. Further, it would be additionally helpful if Seesaw indicated that the instructor reviewed the students work and whether it needed to be redone.

by Jimiamoore

Seesaw is good. It could be great if developers could enable Seesaw to auto-save or at minimum handle submission issues more gracefully. Over the past year and a half of use my tech savvy kids have lost hours worth of work due to issues with submission. If they happen to be outside of WiFi range for a second during submission or if this app is having an issue on there end their completed assignment will be lost completely. Seesaw needs to hold onto the completed work until it confirms a successful upload. Currently it does not do this and if you click submit and encounter an issue you will almost certainly loose everything. I am an IT professional with enterprise grade access points all over my home. I trust the development team is aware is this issue and is working on it. Until they fix it I have tried to coach my kids to continually save a draft of their work so that a submission issue won’t be quite as devastating.

by Mrs. Saxophone

this app is a great program. There is nothing can replace it as there are tons of options for teachers and student to interact and show learning. However I find that the program is not user friendly. As a teacher I wish there was a way to message my students. Instead of having the option to send a message I have to go into post student work then select note then the green check a couple of times then select the student that I want it to go to. It seems like there should be an easier way. That’s just one example of how the functionality could be much better. My students are submitting things to me by accident all the time because it is clearly marked how to save without sending.

by Jack12344321$$

this app is great for casually keeping parents in the loop with their kids work in school and some limited amount of outside of school learning. It is not great in how it organizes content or in how it lets you search for content. It is mainly set up in a blog style format putting the most recent assignments at the top. Unfortunately by default it resets you to the newest item in the “news feed”. This can make navigating to old assignments very difficult. There is a calendar view for completed assignments, but not for assignments in the “news feed” queue. Some schools are trying to stretch this app into their primary distance learning vehicle and that is clearly not its intended purpose. In order for that to work the basic interface needs to be evaluated and updated.

by Jazz Pasco

Like many other people, I use a lot of this app during this pandemic, so I have to deal with some issues that get pretty annoying when I deal with them every day. First of all, a button to hide the tool bar would be helpful. Second, you can’t do anything to videos that are recorded, like cut out parts or crop it. Third, you can only post videos individually, so I have to make a video separate from my post. Fourth, an auto save would be helpful because if I accidentally close Seesaw or something, all of my work is erased. Last, this is a small thing, but when I scroll down, then go somewhere else, I have to scroll back down and find the assignment. Other than that, it’s a helpful and easy-to-use app.

by Kaumualiʻi

I really love how engaging this app is for the kids and how many options they have to show their work. The ability to add voice instructions to assignments are very helpful, especially to us who work in Hawaiian language immersion. I wish this app had a resource for behavior-management like ClassDojo, where they accumulate points depending on their behavior. If there was some way this platform could incorporate that, that would make Seesaw the BEST! The “Skills” resource is extremely valuable. That is what separates this app from the rest, being able to give the students quantifiable and qualitative feedback on specific standards.

This Is the second time i am writing a review and I still wish that this app would add a behavior management resource to show the children and parents how they have been behaving. I do appreciate some of the updates made to editing and creating activities. I would appreciate if the activity didn’t change so much when I create it on my laptop to when the students work on it on their iPads. The dimensions differ I imagine and then certain text boxes move

by Inspiredjenn

Dear developers, as a teacher engaging in distance-learning I am regularly teaching parents and students how to use your app. It would be a wonderful feature if I could toggle between the student view and the parent view in order to seamlessly demonstrate where to go in Seesaw and how to use Seesaw . My families struggle to learn the basic features of the program but in order for them to support their students and communicate effectively with a variety of school professionals there are more advanced app use skills that I need to teach them. Same with the students. They need frequent re-teaching on how to use the features to complete assignments. They are learning environments are very busy homes with many distractions I need to be able to show them exactly what they are going to see. Some students with disabilities need further re-teaching. I would so appreciate your consideration of this request.

by Derek Smalls On Bass

I love everything about See Saw as a teacher, however they have made a change in that when I try and share a picture from my phone with my student’s parent (via Seesaw ), it no longer allows me to add a simple caption below the photo. This is important as I need to be able to give a brief explanation to the parent as to what is occurring. Rather, when I select the photo(s) from my phone’s camera roll to share, Seesaw only lets me select the student’s name/family to share with, but then immediately posts the picture before I am given a chance to add a caption. This never used to happen last school year. Please, developers, make the fix to change it back to allow adding captions from my phone app. Thank you!

by Gauri12985

I enjoy using this app for myself as a parent and for my child as well. It’s been a great tool this past week as we started distance learning. Communication between students and teacher is made easy and submitting completed assignments is literally a piece of cake. All in all a great user friendly app for schools and students. Definitely beats Schoology!! The only thing I’d really like added is a way for my child to keep track of completed vs not completed assignments. With online learning there’s sometimes 10+ assignments every day and they’re impossible to “mark as completed.” If the developer would find a way to improve Seesaw in this aspect I’m positive you’d make all of us parents lives easier as we push through becoming homeschool teachers with no qualifications. 🥴

by Mommycam

I looooooooove using this app in my first grade classroom. I use Seesaw as a communication tool between myself and the students families. The kids and I love making videos of our learning to send home to families and I take pictures a couple times a week to show families what we are doing in the classroom. I also love how I can send reminder messages to the entire classroom , just the families, or individual families when I need to. It is so easy for parents to use and they are always begging for more. I can not imagine not having this app in my classroom and love how easy it has made the school home connection.

by Reinaag

In my previous review, I had written that while this app had many amazing features, it was missing a feature that was important to home-school communication: the ability for parents to send pictures through private messaging. Now, the latest update gives that ability and more! Not only can parents/teachers send pictures through private messaging, but also videos, pdf files, and others! Now, my one remaining wish for this app is to have something to the School Story feature similar to Class Dojo. This feature will help schools share school-wide activities/announcements to families. this app is amazing!

by Lillianj29

I have had a pretty good experience with this app so for the most part I am very happy. I just had 1 concern. So when you are looking at your assignments at the top right corner is a calendar sign and I was very exited. So I clicked it and it showed me what I already sent. I was a little confused. I would prefer if it showed when my assignments were due. I think it would help a lot of people I would defiantly use it. I would like if it also had holidays like Christmas or memorial day when most schools have it off. It would surely help. But otherwise this app is great. I hope everyone is doing great. Have a nice day! ❤️😀

by Henry A. Sayers

this app is a great school app in my opinion because it helps you learn a lot of stuff and it is a fantastic way for teachers to create assignments for students. And those assignments are actually fun a lot of the times. It also is a great app to store all of your hard school work you’ve done and chat with friends! I loved this app in the year of 2020 and 2021 because it helped me create lots of great friendships and it helped me a lot with learning. Though I did want to be at school in person, it was certainly a great learning experience. I am looking forward to being back in person in 6th grade, but I will miss this app that’s for sure. It is such a great learning and school tool that I will look forward to using it again!

by Atumn Kitten

It’s great but it’s better on a computer though but that’s really fine though people say that there is no WAY to crop but there IS a WAY how to crop you just click on a photo and on it then you move it to the side and when it has the green plus you let go of it then try to find the photo then you just click anywhere and make it how you want it to crop and when there is a blue square (it can be any shape) then on your keyboard you click control v then go to this app then to your assignment then when your there you just click control c then it’s there! There is SO many ways to do things on this app and I have no idea why they just don’t wanna figure out how! So this is definitely a five star app.

by Dayzines

I’m a Kindergarten teacher who is SO grateful for the this app app! 🥰 When the COVID shut down of my school happened 2 years ago, I was in a bit of a panic as to how I was supposed to teach kindergartners online and give them learning activities that would help them practice the skills I was trying to teach! I was introduced to this app which my school adopted as a mainstay to our remote learning. I love the easy access for both teachers & students, the fun & engaging learning activities and videos and I love the tracking system for completing the assignments. I also love the feature that allows teachers to leave comments, edit activities & make corrections for quick feedback to students and parents! I also love that the parents can see their child’s progress and receive/send messages too! 💕THANK YOU FOR CREATING the this app APP!

by #Unicorns Are Awesome🥳🤣🦄

Covid has really affected how we learn, we had already been using this app occasionally in class so it wasn’t a surprise that we used it for online school. I loved this app then and love it even more now! Teachers can send assignments to students individually, or send them to everyone. Seesaw is easy to use and for me, using it was a price of cake. I mean I am good at technology anyways.(outsmarted my parents 43 times but who’s counting?) 😂 No one in my class had much trouble with it and everyone loved it. Of course except the kids who hate school and did like no homework cause they were ‘busy’ but there’s always at least one of those kids in every class! Over all it’s an AMZING APP AND I RECOMMEND IT WEATHER YOU ARE DOING ONLINE OR IN PERSON SCHOOL!! Also I love you Mrs. Young and Mrs. Smith! I will miss you when I go t middle school next year! -Kara H from spring creek elementary 💚💙

by Not Picasso

I am an experienced teacher, and I’ve been using this app for years. It’s always been wonderful. It is the most helpful technological tool I’ve ever used by FAR! It’s always been fantastic, but they are always making improvements, and they respect teacher input. Since the pandemic, they have been incredible-dealing with an influx of new users and going above and beyond to meet ever increasing needs. I never want to stop using this app. It’s excellent for virtual teaching and face to face teaching. It’s got outstanding tools and features for teachers, AND it’s user friendly for teachers and students. I use it with Kindergarten students, and they get the hang of it so quickly. They love it. It’s engaging and fun, but it truly enhances and improves their learning. The people at this app truly want to do the best that they can for teachers and students. It is by far the best technology I’ve ever used in the classroom.

by Lmhoug

I have always loved this app, but when we suddenly got thrown into distance learning I had to think on my feet and use this app on a whole new level. this app did not disappoint! I was able to use it to assign activities to students on different levels, on different days at different times. I could provide feedback and interact with my students either through text or audio recordings. I even could record myself making changes to their assignments so they could see how to do their assignment. I also created a class blog so that my students could interact with each other while at home. This allowed them to post pictures or videos and comment on each other’s posts. I was still the moderator on all of those. I raved about it so much that my district has now purchased it for all of our elementary schools to use! I highly recommend it!!!!

by From An Tech Administrator

When you run into issues, you CAN NOT call them for support. You have to do it via email and it takes DAYS to get real issues resolved. I usually get ONE response a day from their support people. Case in point, I opened a ticket with them on a server error we keep getting on Sept. 27 (over a week ago) and I am no closer to getting this resolved (it is now October 5th), then when I opened the ticket. As a support person, I am used to calling in issues and getting it resolved either on that phone call, or shortly there after (maybe a day or two later). This has happened now mulitiple times since we became a this app For Schools building. The teachers who use this app, absolutely love it, and I understand why, but coming from a support perspective, my view of this app is quickly diminishing!!!!!!!!!!!

by Kelsie.Kilber

I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea to make students have to sign in and out of their “student account” every time they log in (instead of when they are ready to post) because it is the most INCONVENIENT thing ever. When I have multiple students doing an activity they need to go back and forth to the QR poster, sign out and sign in just to be able to post. We were able to hand off the iPad before. Horrible.

Also with the update, you are not able to go back and add drawing to your post once you have recorded. An example of this would be that we do fluency passages. The students record themselves reading, listen to their recording and rate how they read. Now after your record you can’t do anything else besides submit it.

Love this app. Hate this update. Please fix these things ASAP for teachers sanity.

by Kalissalll

This is our second year using this app. Parents love it!! It’s ‘instagram’ style feed allows for ease of use and visibility of pictures, announcements, and notes. I only with they could merge with remind for the benefit of importing a calendar and sending reminders automatically.

With 40 students between my two classes, I wish there was a way to upload more than one picture at a time (similar to how Instagram lets you create a series) or create a collage of a few pics that represent students work on a certain activity.

Finally, we purchased the Plus feature to help us with our Illinois KIDS portfolio artifacts, unfortunately the ratings scale is set for you and you can’t change it. It lets you use 4 stars instead of the 6 levels we need.

Overall, a great basic app to help bring the experiences in the classroom home and vis versa, send announcements, and keep communication visual. Hoping for the silver bullet of apps to help meet the needs of busy teachers and bustling students!

by MollyBeccca

I gave this app 3 stars because, well, to me, this app is like “class instagram” I like how you can post things educational and that you can get in touch with your class mates on a device. But, I’d not do “teacher approvals.” It can take days to write a comment or days just to have a post be approved. Also, How come parent’s comments have to approved too? It makes no sense. It’s not like their going to post anything bad. Also, parents can’t post either it would be fun if they did. But still, just for the kids that want mothers and fathers to post on this app. I hope reading this response will have you with suggestions. This is just me though, I think this app is good though.

by Lo Schneider

Seesaw has been a wonderful component of family school communication. It helps me more frequently update families about happenings in the classroom, send informal notes, and document student work. It’s also helpful with very anxious parents who need fast feedback in the beginning of the year.

Thank you for adding pictures to announcements!! This is really helpful 👍🏻

I would like a couple issues fixed:

1. When you take a picture and are in for example the morning class you are not able to switch to the afternoon session without deleting the picture. This actually happens frequently and is annoying.

2. It is easy to forget about messages from parents in the inbox because once they are clicked on you aren’t really aware of them anymore. I think it would be helpful if the messages were sorted like an email format instead of by individual family members. This would make responding more efficient.

by Elem131

I love Seesaw! I use it daily to communicate with the family of a special needs student. It also helps me document what she is doing in real time, allowing me to take pictures of her working within the classroom and during social activities. The students uses the note tool to write to her parents about her day... it's wonderful. My only issue is that parents can not post themselves- I would like be for them to be able post pictures from home so we can use them as talking points for the student.

by Aidnduqodn

I have always had two problems with independent work in my first grade class: I can’t check up on them without having them hand in a worksheet, and I can’t always be there to give them directions again in case they forget, especially during centers. Seesaw solves both those problems!! I can be at home on my couch checking their independent center work, I can record and write directions so that children of all ability levels can understand what to do, and I can turn just about any assignment into an authentic assessment instantly! Could not love Seesaw more!!

by Groovy Cool

this app is fantastic for providing digital documentation of student work. Many of my students don't engage in paper pencil tasks, but in more hands-on activities geared toward their individual goals. this app allows me to post photos of them working, their successes and their joy of learning. It's a great way to share with parents who rarely know what their child does at school due the lack of "work" being sent home. I love that this app maintains student privacy by only allowing parents to view items in their child's portfolio. Thank you for such a great tool.

by Little Dutch Girl

Amazing app that allows students to be in charge of their own education. Love that they can add the pieces of evidence that show their learning and that they have the power to track their own growth.

Hopes for the future: that I could send private messages to my students that their parents couldn’t see. Reminders, etc. Also would like to post straight to the blog without it having to be a journal entry. Or that I could have my own student account to post just to mine and then add it to the blog.

by CT PreK Teacher

My students families and I have been benefiting from the this app app for 4+ years. For teachers, we can maximize its use as a documentation piece, connect with families and for important reminders. For families, you can get a glimpse of your child’s school day, refer back to the pictures over the year and use it as an additional means of communication with your child’s teacher. I highly recommend this app! P.S. make sure you have parents sign a permission slip prior to posting any photos of any child.

by ElemSLP

I first tried this app with a select group of students and quickly expanded to my whole caseload. I surveyed parents and 90% gave it 5 stars and the few others gave it 4. I’ve had a lot of positive feedback from parents in passing and at meetings, and it’s more confidential than the FB groups the classrooms have. The only thing I wish I could change is to easily track who I haven’t posted for recently without needing to go through each kid individually.

by Mrs. DeLaO67

this app is an amazing tool for students to show what they are learning. Students can add pictures, drawings, labels and videos explaining what they are learning. All student posts can be organized into folders or by student. Teachers can easily differentiate with this app because you can post an assignment or leveled text to selected students. Can be used for any grade level and subject. Parents can connect to their child’s journal and view. this app should be used in all classrooms.