Leave a Review Seesaw
A bit clunky. No use if you have two small kids.
The design is a bit clunky and it’s often quite hard to figure out what you need to do. My school uses this to communicate with me about what my 6 year old needs to do at home, class messages etc. It does the job. I also have a 4 year old who just started school, but I can’t be logged in twice. Or even switch easily between accounts. So my wife has my daughter’s account on her phone and I have my son’s. I’m sorry, I can’t be the only one who thinks this seems really stupid and a big pain? I guess if you get used to it, it’s ok. But overall it could be a lot slicker, and easier to find things. Why are there 3 tabs at the bottom, but a random Messages icon at the top? What’s the difference between Messages and Notifications? Why does Upload include photos, when Photos doesn’t include photos… it’s just the camera (label it “Camera”?)Show lessgnozu
Some good points but flawed, could be better
As a parent there are things I like about this app but there are a few big flaws:
1. You can only be logged into one child’s account at a time. School have set up accounts for both of my children. I have to log in and out of their accounts to be able to access the other, which is a pain because this means I miss notifications, plus the app doesn’t remember log in details. This would prevent me from recommending the app to others. Howeve,r if this was resolved so I could remain logged in to more than one account this would be a game changer and I would recommend it to others.
2. It isn’t possible to mark activities as done without uploading work/photos/comments etc. For
some of tasks set this isn’t necessary or they are optional and so they remain classified as To-Do. I would like to be able to mark them completed without having to artificially upload comments etc. this would be much tidier. Currently it feels very messy given the limited interface.Show lessCLLFrome
Notifications
The app itself isn't bad, but the notifications are an absolute pain.
You should have the option to only receive notifications when the teacher uploads something, at present it notifies of everything so whenever another parent 'likes' something you're tagged in, you get a notification. Turn off notifications, you miss what the school posts, turn on notification's and you're notified 30 plus times about the same post when each parent likes it. Painful.Show lessTopSod
Disappointed in the Updates
I have been using Seesaw as a teacher for 7 years and I love Seesaw! However, many of the updates this year are not user friendly for teachers or families. The update that I am having the most difficulty with is the new way teachers comment on student work on my phone. It is just a running line and there is no way to view it before it is posted. I know you can edit it after it’s posted but it makes the process inconvenient. In previous versions you could see your whole message and were able reread it before posting. This makes me not want to check Seesaw posts on my phone which puts me behind on checking my students’ work. I always have my phone with me but I don’t always have a computer. Whenever I have a free moment I would check it. I know many teachers who prefer to check their Seesaw on their phones. Can we please go back to the old version of commenting on student work? I want my students and families to see my feedback in a timely manner.Show lesshhmmttmm
Developer Response
Hi there! We are always looking to improve the experience for our users and really appreciate the feedback. We would be happy to look into this for you but we'll need some more information about what you are experiencing. Please contact us at https://help.seesaw.me/hc/en-us/requests/new with information about this experience, as well as any screenshots you have of this issue. Thank you! - Seesaw SupportA bit shonky
Seesaw is invaluable to help communication between school and home, but it's really confusing and the recent upgrade has made it so much worse.
The worst thing in the new version though is the horrible user experience when trying to look at a photo. Before we could look at the photo full-screen and zoom and pan around no bother. Now we have to look through a tiny frame, and zooming and panning is very limited.
Sort it out Seesaw!Show lessducasi
New Update
I’ve loved seesaw, I’ve used it to connect with my kids teachers for a few years now. I absolutely HATE the new update and everyone I’ve talked to about it does too. You can’t click and zoom in on pics, when you zoom in on the frame that’s there it’s next to impossible to move the picture around. I feel like I’m always searching to find messages. The message center looks and feels like complete chaos and it feels like it takes forever for things to load. If you don’t change it back at least fix the picture problem.Show lessKCL 6748
Terrible security and student privacy
Seesaw uses a single login credential (unique hash / ID) for students to log in if schools configure it to. If these are shared, as some generally naive teachers may do for every student to their entire class, they cannot be reset / regenerated by the student (or parent). The result is (as in our case) kids, even in 3rd grade, “hacking” or threatening to “hack” each other. Absolutely terrible. This is where your kids put their class work, comments, and private communications with their teachers. I am disappointed that my kids’ school uses it. When I log in as my child I see nothing in account settings that would allow me to change the login mode to email/password. This choice should not be teacher-controlled once accounts are given to students. Frankly this choice should not be available as it is inherently insecure. Schools, parents, students (etc) have a tendency to print spreadsheets of credentials and leave them sitting around.Show lessDheugjejdfjriggjsbf
Developer Response
Hi There! It sounds like your teachers are using Class Codes, which should be used in a supervised in-class setting. Please note that the 6 digit class codes expire after an hour but the QR codes should not be shared, since they don't expire. You may want to share this with your child's teacher as well. If you need a more secure way for your students to access their accounts, we have many options available that your teacher can set up for you! You can make a request to your teacher to use email/password logins or SSO features. You can also have a Home Learning Code, no matter what login method is used in the class. We also have a two-factor authorization feature available for added security. If you would like to learn more or share more feedback, please contact us at https://help.seesaw.me/hc/en-us/requests/new. Thanks! - Seesaw SupportUpdate is a downgrade!
I’m a teacher and the update is far less user friendly. I am unable to upload pdfs directly from my phone to the app, before we were given this option. Now I have to log on to a desktop/ laptop to do this, this is extremely inconvenient and frustrating as we were able to do this before on our phones within seconds, at any time of the day. Also there is still no option to upload word documents- this should have been addressed.
The message function is less user friendly and notifications of replies are not always showing up on the Home Screen. I had to send individual messages to each new parent so they could contact me back- previously an announcement would enable this. This was also time consuming.
Several of my colleagues have also commented on how much slower the app is running.
It’s so disappointing when an app that functions very well is changed for the worse!!Show lessSM100$
Text editing is so bad it offsets all the good
This would be a fine program - the messaging works ok, the work submission is ok, etc - but the text editing in text boxes awful beyond description. Clicking on a text box may open the keyboard but then clicking inside the text to change cursor position as often seems to close the keyboard as select a point. When it does move the cursor, it is often visually one or two characters from where the text entry or editing occurs. The standard ‘hold space then scroll cursor’ doesn’t work. Mostly fine, text editing it so ghastly that the experience of using the app is awful, very bad, no good.Show lessSijimo
Old version is better
As a student, I use Seesaw very frequently. There were ever-so-slight bugs in the previous version, which I didn’t mind. However, when this update came, my work became 2 times as hard. First off, before, when you swipe out of the app during an activity, when you come back it says: ‘You have unfinished work. Do you want to continue where you left off? Edit or Delete’. Now that function is removed. Because of this, I had to start over on my English Assessment. Furthermore, typing is more difficult. Copying and pasting is far more complicated now, and just trying to edit a text box is annoying. Sometimes the flashing line shows that you are editing a text box, but there is no keyboard. You can’t edit the text box because of that. Then you have to go to a different slide, and if the text box is not saved (it’s new) then it’s deleted. This is especially annoying if I’m typing a long paragraph and it gets deleted. My final problem the new way things work. I liked the old one. The messages look weird, the animation of entering a text box is ugly and it’s just overall worse. Please do something to fix AT LEAST ONE of the problems I listed, or I will steal your cookies.Show lessastromania man
