SesameIO is a new, free service out of Canada that is designed to help teachers manage planning and assessment within the classroom. It has a wonderful, easy to use interface, and is an excellent program for keeping track of short-term and long-term planning in the classroom. Let's check it out!
As excited as you are to jump into this review, let's watch a quick introductory video from the SesameIO team to get an idea of what their service is all about...
Hello from Sesame IO! from Sesame IO on Vimeo.
As you can see, SesameIO is not only great for creating daily lesson plans and long-term unit plans, but also for creating assessments (via rubrics and checklists), collecting student artifacts, and looking at the overall progress and development of students in your class.
Now that you've got a general overview of the site, let's take a look at how to setup a digital classroom. When you first arrive at SesameIO, you'll need to sign up for a free account. From then on, you'll be provided with helpful prompts on what to do next (but we'll go through it here too!)
Start by creating your subject!
You'll first be asked to create your subject. During this step you will also be able to link your class to a particular Common Core standard or Ontario standard (if your standards aren't available, you can add them in later).
Setting up your Subject
So, you've got your subject ready to go, but something is still missing... The students! Type in (or copy and paste) the names of your students to enter them into your system. You can also include their email addresses for added connectivity if you would like to.
Adding your Students
One thing that I love about SesameIO is that if you're having trouble on any of these steps, they offer you the option of a step-by-step tutorial (some with videos) to help you through the process.
Now that you've got your subject and students all setup, it's up to you what you want to do next. You can create daily lesson plans, or long-term unit plans. You can create assessments with rubrics and checklists. Or you can start collecting student artifacts and making notes about student progress.
Where would you like to begin?
On the "Calendar" page you can setup your unit plans and get a visual idea of when and where you'll be teaching particular topics. As with the other pages, they have tutorials to help you along if you need some extra assistance.
Calendar tutorial from Sesame IO on Vimeo.
As for the "Plans" page, from here you can create individual lesson plans. You can link your plans to your content-area standards, upload artifacts and attachments, insert videos, pictures, links, and basically anything else you would ever need for a lesson plan.
Creating a Lesson Plan
Finally, from the Assessments page you can create rubrics (using their built-in assessment criteria) or upload your own to use. You can also create checklists, if you prefer that method of assessment. Additionally, once your assessments are created, you can fill them out to record student achievement and see individual student reports.
Creating a Rubric
Assessing your Students
And, last but not least, one of the other features I really like is that you can create individual notes about students (on the "Students" page). These can be general notes about anything you'd like, and you can also upload artifacts in support of the notes as well.
Creating a Student Note
And there you have it! SesameIO is an excellent, free resource that teachers can use to plan lessons and manage assessments. It has an incredibly simple interface with lots of built-in help and assistance. Plus, it works on mobile devices and tablets, which makes collecting evidence in the classroom even easier. If you're looking for a system to digitally organize your classroom and help you collect more evidence on student work and progress, I highly recommend trying SesameIO.
And, if you like what you've seen with SesameIO, you should check out SesameSnap as well. It's an incredibly easy tool to capture, share, and record student work in the classroom. Here's an introductory video with more information...
Introducing Sesame Snap from Sesame IO on Vimeo.
The opinions expressed in this review are my own. I was not compensated for reviewing this application
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