You probably knew your future teaching-self would utilize technology in your classroom, but I don’t think anyone could imagine the pandemic of 2020. As I’m writing this, nobody really knows what returning to school in the fall will look like. What we do know is that we are going to need technology more than ever before. Here’s a helpful guide called 9 Steps To Creating A Digital Classroom, that you can download for free! I also know that you want to stick with one (maybe two) classroom app so your kiddos are not bouncing back and forth between programs. The hardest part is trying to figure out the difference between digital platforms so you can choose the best classroom apps to use.
What's the difference between each classroom app?
In this first part of my series of the best classroom apps, I’m going to disassemble four different classroom apps, Seesaw, ClassDojo, Remind, and Class Tag.
Seesaw Classroom App
I am a Seesaw teacher through and through. I recently became a Seesaw ambassador, which was a pretty big deal and gives you a premium version of the app. However, if you’re just learning how to use the Seesaw app, the free version has more than enough. In my opinion, this is the classroom app that will give you the most bang for your buck.
What does Seesaw for Teachers look like?
I also use Google Classroom, and the two are easily interchangeable. Google Slides with links directly link into Seesaw. If you want to know more about Seesaw, here’s a link to a post of 7 Seesaw App tips you might not already know. Kris Szajner also has a helpful YouTube channel dedicated to using platforms such as Seesaw for your classrooms. If you want to learn how to make engaging Seesaw activities, check out his tutorials here.
Seesaw Tutorial
I was honored to do a quick Seesaw tutorial for Kayse Morris (my teacherpreneur spirit-animal). You can watch it here to learn how to get started.
This is a great conversation that covers getting started and assigning tasks to students.
Seesaw is completely free.
Seesaw Plus has a free 60 day trial, and after that is $120 a year.
If your school adopts Seesaw for Schools, Seesaw Plus is included.
Here is a chart that shows you the breakdown of the advantages of both.
As a teacher, you can post videos everywhere! It can be a message to your students and their parents in the inbox or it can be for instructional purposes. You get a limit of 10 minutes, but you can upload files from other places such as YouTube or Screencastify.
Seesaw has a class blog feature as well. Anything you choose can be published onto the class blog, and your kiddos can comment on each other’s work. Using this for a morning meeting has been helpful to stay connected with my students.
What does Seesaw for Students look like?
When a student logs onto their Seesaw class app, they will see their journal, activities, inbox, and a blog if you choose to set one up. Your students will see their own work, any messages from you, and any activities you assign. They have the opportunity to add extra photos, videos, or notes. If they need to have directions repeated, they can replay your audio directions.
Students can also choose their own animal avatar or upload their own pictures. I allow all my students to choose the same animal if they choose. Last year I had six unicorns. It’s just a little thing that helps the kiddos take ownership of their journal.
I encourage my students to send me a message on notes anytime they wish. Do you remember being six years old and wanting to tell your teacher EVERYTHING? Here they still have the chance to tell me that they lost a tooth, or in this case, that they liked the Jack Johnson Recycle song I sent them for Earth Day.
Anything that a student posts must be approved by you, unless you turn that setting off. They can also “like” and post comments on their classmates’ work in your class blog, but you can choose to turn this feature off if that’s something you don’t want to encourage. I have this feature turned on for our distance learning, but I’ve had past years where the amount of “likes” one received or didn’t receive became a problem.
If you make a Seesaw class blog, you can add their activities directly to the blog with one click. This has been a lifesaver for maintaining our classroom community.
Teaching Your Students How To Use Seesaw
You will need to teach your students how to use the app, even if some of them have used it before. It’s important that they learn how you expect them to utilize the tools, as well as how to be responsible. I made a Seesaw Scavenger Hunt which I’m sharing with you for FREE! This is a list of the components that your kiddos will learn on Seesaw to prepare them for any lessons or activities you’ll assign. Click on the picture to grab it today!
What does Seesaw for parents look like?
It is easy to connect a parent to their Seesaw family app with an email link or a QR code. Once they’re connected, they will see their children’s posts AFTER you approve them. They will only see their own children’s journal, and not their classmates. (Bonus cameo of my dog, Mollie as an example).
I usually get a high percentage of parents downloading the Seesaw family app. The QR code is ready to go for Back to School night and I really push the importance of logging on.
Parents have told me time and time again how much they love the Seesaw app because they can see their kiddo’s work in the classroom. It’s also helpful to be able to communicate with me on the same classroom app, rather than leaving Seesaw to contact me using e-mail or another platform.
However, the Seesaw inbox is where I found the only drawback. When you post an announcement to the whole class, it goes into the same feed as private messages. This can be confusing at times because they’re all lumped together. Later, I’ll show you how ClassDojo does a better job of separating the two.
Seesaw Overview
- Student Portfolios: Students can draw, type, take audio and video recordings. Teachers can upload activities, and students will complete them. Activities can be tailored to fit your exact curriculum. There are multimedia options, such as drawing, video, photos, and notetaking.
- Teacher uses: Activities can be customized and organized into folders.
- Parent communication: Parents can communicate with you and their children on the Seesaw Family app. They can see the work that their students complete in class. They can comment on their child’s work, which the students love.
- Ease of Use: Basically if you can use Facebook, you can use Seesaw. The help website provides a useful search bar, and usually comes up with an answer right away.
Overall, for all the things you need for a classroom app, Seesaw does it all. There are others you can use, but since Seesaw is so easy to use with so many different components, I stick with it for simplicity.
- PROS: You can upload any template you wish for students to respond digitally.
- CONS: There isn’t a classroom management feature. (See ClassDojo)
ClassDojo Classroom App
This classroom app started as a behavior tracker for classroom management, but has recently added a student portfolio portion as well. There is a social-emotional feature, and a lot of really cool videos on growth-mindset, empathy, and student mindfulness. There are little monster avatars, which are super adorable, and there are posters and materials that match the monster theme for display in your classroom.
What does ClassDojo for teachers look like?
Once you enter your students into your account, you can customize your behaviors and assign or remove points. I would be wary of using this as negative reinforcement. The research shows that it doesn’t improve behavior in the long run. I would only remove points for missing homework, but not for behavior.
Just like Seesaw, you can assign an activity in a student’s portfolio. The tools are photos, videos, drawing, and a journal. You are limited to a blank template, however. Videos cannot be uploaded, and instructions cannot be recorded. However, I really like the communication aspect of ClassDojo. You can send private messages to students as well as making class stories.
Imagine it’s instagram for your classroom. I like this part better than Seesaw, as they’re separate and the messages and pictures you might want to show everyone aren’t mixed together.
What does ClassDojo for students look like?
Students have the chance to create their own monster avatar. They are actually really cute. Within their journal, they will see both their reports and any activities that you have created.
What does ClassDojo for parents look like?
Parents can see their children’s reports and activities as well as communicate with you. There is a direct message feature separate from a “class story”. This works better than the Seesaw messages.
The communication in ClassDojo is much more user friendly. Think about your Facebook account where you can see a feed of posts, but also have a private inbox. (Bonus cameo of my cat, Roo as an example).
ClassDojo Classroom App Overview
- Student portfolios: Basically the same with Seesaw, but you cannot upload your own activities. This is the main reason I prefer Seesaw. ClassDojo has the students starting from a blank page only. You can add written directions to their portfolio, but not a template, and no audio directions. If you’re not ready to upload templates, then this shouldn’t be a problem for you.
- Parent Communication/Class Blog: Parents can see their children’s activities and behavior reports on their ClassDojo app.
- Classroom management feature: There is a neat points system. You can customize your account for both positive and negative points. However, I would caution using thisas your only behavior tool. Imagine you are a struggling student who gets points taken away, and the student next to you has 100 points and gets to help in the library. Is that going to help them be confident in class? I used my negative points primarily for missing baggie books.
- Ease of use: Just like Seesaw, this classroom app is simple to use. Parents have all of it within one app, and students can move through their portfolio easily.
- PROS: The social emotional portion is great, and the portfolio, blog, and parent communication is all in one app.
- CONS: You cannot upload your own template or record your own instructions on student activities.
ClassDojo Update
As of June 18, 2020, ClassDojo announced that you can upload worksheets onto the app and students can complete them online! This is just rolling out, so I don’t know what it will look like yet, but this is good news for the ClassDojo fans!
Remind Classroom app
The primary function of remind is parent communication. Students can join as well, and it can serve as a group text for information and updates.
I don’t use it for my first grade class, but I’ve used it when I coached Girls on the Run. My own kids have it with their high school teachers and coaches. No more excuses about “I didn’t know”
- Ease of Use: Once it’s set up, it’s easy, and the app is simple to navigate. You can either get notifications through the app, through text, or through email.
- Parent Percentage: I had 100% parent participation when I used this as a coach. Once you enter in the parent’s phone numbers, you can flood them with reminders to join.
- PROS: Instant communication. One year, there were bad storm fronts moving in the morning of the Girls on the Run race. I was able to instantly give all the parents updates. I don’t know how I could have managed without Remind that morning.
- CONS: It’s communication only. No student portfolio, so if you choose this you’ll need another classroom app for student work.
Class Tag Classroom App
This is a new program that I haven’t used yet, so I can only give you an overview of what I see on the surface, but it looks pretty cool!
Class Tag is similar to Remind in that it’s a communication platform directly to parents. The difference between Remind and Class Tag is that there are more ways to communicate with parents.
For example, on Class Tag you can send a file to parents to sign up for something (field trip, parent teacher conferences etc) and they can sign up ON the app. You don’t have to mess with notes or phone calls back and forth from home. Class Tag also has a blog for classroom pictures and updates.
It looks interesting enough to try, I may give it a shot this year just to see what it’s all about. I especially like the idea of using it for parent teacher conferences. If you use Class Tag, and can clarify how it works, put it in a post below and I can update this!
- PROS: Looks like this classroom app has everything you would need to communicate with parents.
- CONS: No student portfolios.
Biggest tip I can give: Whatever classroom app you use, make sure it works for your needs and the needs of your students and families. Pick the ONE thing that you’re going to use it for the most, and find the classroom app that does it best. For example my ONE thing using student templates for their portfolios. Seesaw does it best. So the rest of the features work just fine for me.
One last thing...
We’re navigating through some new and difficult waters. At this moment, we don’t know what our upcoming year will look like.
So whether you are a total tech newbie, or a savvy tech savant, this guide to creating a digital classroom is going to help you navigate through some of the new changes in education. With 9 essential tips to get you started, 5 tutorial videos, and 4 workbook pages, this is going to start you on your way to becoming confident with technology.
30 Responses
Thank you!! I teach Pre-K in a Google district, and I’m considering my digital options. I was a long-time user of Remind—and LOVED it—but my district no longer allows it.
I switched to ClassTag, and will be changing at the end of this year. It is similar to Remind, but it’s full of ads that just clutter up the “feed”. I’m currently trying to decide between Dojo and Seesaw…
Hi! You can easily turn off the ads in the settings!
How do we turn them off?
I used Class Dojo last year. I LOVED the classroom management part of it. Students who were on task, working hard, participating well, etc. would get points. Those points would be redeemable for a Treasure Box trip or something else. I also used it to track behavior. It works brilliantly if the student has a BIP or behavior goals. I only had them lose points over something big…like throwing a desk or physical aggression. The other behavior I tracked, like talking in class, noncompliance, I had at 0 points. The sound when you press it though is different and they recognize they received a mark for their behavior. The students become much more responsible for their behavior by asking to see the “chart.” Class Dojo will put the behavior stats in a pie chart for any date, or range of dates, you ask it to. The students would ask me to see it and would really straighten up if they saw they were sliding backward. If set this way, the parents can also know immediately. I found this helpful. There were a few times when a student’s behavior was not up to par and a parent messaged me through the app with “I forgot to mention he didn’t get any sleep last night.” or something else that would explain it.
I would love the feature of being able to add my own templates into their portfolio’s to make for easy grading, recovery, saving paper, and parent view.
It’s been a HUGE help with our current distance learning quarantine. I’ve been able to post videos of myself and my animals for the students to see me at home working, post when we have zoom meetings, where they can get food if needed, virtual field trips, etc. I currently have 100% parent participation but before quarantine it was “almost” 100%. Ha, ha!
They are adding a worksheet component. I’m a long time Dojo lover and the kids, kindergarteners, are able to use it to upload work to show me and their families. You can also record your instructions for your assignments and post them to the class story. It’s great for parent communication and simple to use. Time delayed messages as an option as well. You can also create an events calendar with reminders. It’s awesome! Instant feedback on their work too!
We are solely a Google Classroom district with policy in place excluding these platforms. When digital learning had to start, all bets were off and teachers scrambled to learn other platforms that work. I worked with Classdojo a little but I hadn’t head of SeeSaw until very recently. Thanks for your very clear explanation – it sounds like it would be worth investigating if we’re still remote learning in September.
I have used class dojo and remind, both awesome platforms for sharing information with parents. I am newer to seesaw, but am loving the ease of use so far. For the few students who are reading and working independently it has been a game changer. Especially during our distance learning model. Thank you for breaking it down!
Thank you for in-depth overview of a variety of apps to is to increase parent communication. I attempted to use Class Dojo the fourth quarter; however, we left our classroom 3 weeks in. I love the idea of connecting what is happening in the classroom to home ☕️
Many of our students use Remind for sports and clubs. I think it would be beneficial to use Remind along with Google Classrom. It’s difficult to get students to check their emails, but I think they would see messages sent from Remind.
Is there a way to post links to Seesaw activities on Class Dojo? So that when the kids click the link, they can complete the activity for Seesaw but still use Dojo for everything else? I would then just check their work on Seesaw (mostly for the worksheet aspect like with math).
Hi Lisa, At the time, you can’t post a student link from Class Dojo to Seesaw. I wish there was a way to connect the two.
I used ClassTag this past year in my 5th grade classroom. I LOVE giving parents the option to sign up for conferences online. I didn’t have all of my students’ parents connected, so I did this in conjuncture with paper notes and forms–ClassTag only made that process easier.
It’s also a great way to send parents a list of school supplies needed for class. You send out what you need, and as parents buy the items, they check them off of the list so other parents can see what else is left. It helped ensure I got exactly what the kids needed, and not just 28 packs of pencils (which we all know…I still would have gratefully used.)
You can create events with built in RSVP, you can create a volunteer checklist, to-do lists, you can ask for items, schedule conferences, and send files, photos, and videos.
There is a blog-like “Announcement” section which is completely separate from private messages to and from parents.
Unfortunately, there is not a student portfolio section, nor any way to message with students. This does give parents the option to get any messages or updates via text or email. I’m not sure, however, if parents can respond via text. I believe that if your message is long or has attachements, it will send parents a text with a link to your announcement or message.
Overall, there are definitely quite a few advantages to using ClassTag, but it is definitely a communication app rather than a portfolio or student work based app. If you need a way to communicate with parents on a deeper level with cool interactive features–check it out! If you’re looking for a one-stop shop app for students and parents to be connected alike, this isn’t the one for you.
THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR POST!
Class Tag has now added student “backpack” (portfolio) where teachers and coteachers can upload individual files to all students or only certain students including medical forms etc. You can add many teachers as coteachers which is awesome if you have sped specialists for pushins and a partner teacher even group teachers. As a school wife function principals can peek into all teachers posts to see what students are working on. They have also enabled YouTube videos right in messages and posts.
I needed this breakdown! I’ve only used ClassDojo in the past but am hoping to try out Seesaw and maybe others in the upcoming months. Thanks a lot!
Our school has used Class Dojo for a few years, and have found the school story to be a great way to communicate with families throughout the entire school. Does seesaw have a feature like this?
Hi Lindsay, this is the one thing I wish Seesaw has. We can send a group message to all the families, but it goes directly into their inbox with all the other messages. So the feed can get a little messy. Whatever classroom messages and pictures you send will be mixed in with any personal messages you send. So it gets confusing to see if this was just for me, or for the whole group.
To avoid it (or try to), I’d address each message with “Dear Families”…. or “Dear Mr. and Mrs….” Which helped a bit.
Thanks for reaching out! Have a good one!
Rachael
We need someone to design a mash up of all of these apps and have them attached to Google Classroom. Is that too big of a dream 🙂
No kidding! And while they’re add it… add a digital teacher planner?
I’m a kindergarten teacher and I have used ClassDojo for 4 years. Classdojo is my absolute favorite. I love that they added video recording and also live link and file sharing. During school shut down I was able to video record a quick 8 minute phonic lesson and
attach web links (Ex:YouTube videos, boom cards) under my video to better support my quick lesson. I was also able to share events such as zoom meeting with zoom link for easy access. My parents love using classdojo.
I love ClassDojo!
I use Google Classroom with my first graders, but making the curriculum user friendly is a painstaking process. It seems that Seesaw works seamlessly with Google Classroom. Does Class Dojo also work with Google Classroom? I’ve been using Class Dojo as a texting tool for several years, but I may employ Seesaw as a learning platform if it is the only one that is compatible with Google Classroom. Thanks!
I also would like to know which one (Seesaw or Dojo) works best with Google Classroom. Great question.
Hi Jean, Seesaw will now connect an activity right into Google Classroom, but ClassDojo won’t. I would think that Seesaw would be the best option if you’re using GC. I hope that helps.
Hi Jennifer, ClassDojo doesn’t provide links for Google Classroom. I wish it did. I really like their messaging options. Seesaw now will link an activity right into Google Classroom and so the students just have to click on the link and they’re right into their activity!
Our whole school district uses Dojo but there’s a really low engagement rate. Teachers has a choice of Google or Teams for virtual classes last year. Some teachers used SeeSaw for some work. I had no idea it was used the way you described. I’m really curious to see what the technology plan is this year.
I was telling my friend about the tool our PTO is switching to this year. She mentioned Classtag and I had to Google. Google suggested I search for Classtag vs Remind. I know my school used to use Remind before I was there so I figured I’d look up both.
This is the first article I clicked Since you covered so much, it’s the last link as well. Lol
Anyway, all that is to say, we’re using Konstella this year. It will be great if our teachers and admin use it too, but it’s mainly for our PTO, PTO used Slack last year which was way better than email but it want for communication to all parents/caregivers. We already started setting it up. A++ would recommend. My two cents: I think you should add it to your roundup in a 2021 update. But I know that makes me sound like I work for them.
I also used See Saw AND Remind last year. We had Schoology, but my first graders couldn’t use it, so I just went with See Saw as I’d used it the first shut down and was familiar with it.
My question – since you only use See Saw, how are you communicating with your parents? Via their students’ comment section (on their work?) I would use the announcement area, but couldn’t find anything like Remind to send (and receive) texts to parents, that they could answer back and it come to my phone. Does See Saw have those kind of capabilities? I’d love to just use one app if it were possible.
This is the ONE drawback, because I really liked remind for parent communication, and Seesaw can do it, but it’s just not as user friendly. I stuck with Seesaw, and you can send them private messages if they download the family app. But if you send an announcement to everyone, it also goes straight to their inbox and looks like a private message. To get around that, I made sure to write “Busy Bee Class Announcement” at the beginning of the announcement and Dear Ms. __, for private messages. It works once you get used to it. I hope that helps!
Hi ALL,
I am a Seesaw user and fan, but I believe that ClassTag may be the app to switch to this year because it integrates with Google + unlike in post above it DOES have student portfolio option. I love the 6 tools that are easy in Seesaw so I’m def. pro Seesaw. I used Seesaw with my online Firsties all last year during COVID. Let me know if anyone is anti-Class Tag and I will gladly hear your feedback. I just downloaded it and added a school supply list and I like how it gives parents option to receive email or text (gives parents control). Some parents are techy and others are not and some are phone people, others computer people and some both lol.
I just had a parent unsubscribe from ClassTag because it was sending her too many advertisements.