Seesaw, a student driven digital portfolio tool has announced Seesaw Plus, a paid version that will come with advanced assessment tools.

After its first full school year, co-founder and former Google Product Manager (he helped build Google Calendar!) Carl Sjogreen announced that Seesaw is already being used in 200,000 classrooms in over 25,000 schools. That equates to 1 in 4 U.S. schools.

For those unfamiliar, Seesaw is an app available for free download that has won several reputable organizations’ votes for a best app of 2015. Compatible across many platforms, Seesaw allows teachers to capture, collect and review student work with incredible ease. And not only are teachers able to easily review student work: Seesaw allows families to be included in the learning process, as well.

"Seesaw’s immediate, visual updates actually get seen by parents, provide encouragement for students, and cross language barriers,” according to the app’s website. (Though teachers get the final say on new additions and comments before student work is shared with parents).

With the app’s new premium version, teachers also have access to assessment tools to best analyze students’ portfolios.

"Teachers are already using Seesaw for assessment because its an easy way to let students show what they know and collect it all in one place. These new tools -- bundled in a new product we're calling Seesaw Plus -- add the ability to organize assessments in powerful new ways,” said Sjogreen in an e-mail.

These new tools include tagging student posts with a certain set or skills and standards; teachers are able to assign a 1-4 rating to student work “and get a real-time understanding of how students are progressing towards key curriculum objectives.”

With this assessment option, teachers will also have access to privacy tools. Teachers can use private folders to store student work as well as make private notes that won’t be visible to students or parents.

The premium version, available to teachers for $120/year or in a Seesaw for Schools package, is part of Seesaw 4.0. Seesaw 4.0 also includes several updates to the product’s free version, including a notification center for centralized viewing and a generate PDF/ print folder to easily print or share an entire folder of student work.

For teachers interested in trying Seesaw’s premium version, a free 60 day trial is available.

Find out more about Seesaw here.

Nicole Gorman, Senior Education World Contributor

6/22/2016