Seesaw & Schoology in Barrington 220

The recent extended distance learning experience has revealed opportunities to improve our District’s user experience when it comes to accessing digital learning materials. Currently, families with multiple students at different grade levels access a wide variety of platforms in order to gather materials, submit evidence of learning, and communicate with teachers. 

Feedback from recent parent and student surveys suggested that this contributed to student and parent frustration, occasional breakdowns in communication, and in some cases, assignments being missed or forgotten. A more universal approach to digital learning management improves these areas for our families.

In 2016, Schoology was adopted as the primary Learning Management System for K–12 teachers in the district. Starting in the 2020–21 school year, PK–Grade 3 teachers will use Seesaw and Grade 4–12 teachers will use Schoology as their primary launching point for digital learning management. This will create a single access point for digital learning materials at each grade level for all students and parents throughout the district. This move does not preclude teachers from continuing to use a variety of digital learning tools, this merely creates a clear and predictable starting point for students at a given grade level.

	Seesaw	Schoology
Grade Level	Grades Pre K–3	Grades 4–12
Purpose	Seesaw is a digital portfolio tool intended to give students a place to create, submit, and share their learning. The simplicity of SeeSaw provides an easy introduction into digital learning for our youngest students.	Schoology is a robust learning management system intended to serve as a digital classroom. Students can access resources, submit assignments, and receive grades and feedback.
Communication	Communication is among the teacher, student, and parent.	Communication is between the teacher and student.
Parent Interaction	After setting up an account, parents can view and comment on their students' work. They can receive notifications and announcements that pertain to their students.	After setting up an account, parents can “shadow” their student, seeing only what their student sees. They can receive notifications and reminders just like their student does. They cannot interact with the platform.
Gradebook	Seesaw allows the teacher to provide comments and feedback but is not a platform for grading student work.	Schoology has a fully functional gradebook that integrates with Infinite Campus.

A vast collection of training materials for both Schoology and Seesaw already exist that have been created by the product support teams for each platform and by our own Library Technology Assistants (LTAs) and District Technology Assistant. The Instructional Technology team provides ongoing training on these systems.

Seesaw Training and PD

Schoology Training and PD