Seesaw’s Commitment to the Responsible Use of AI in Elementary Classrooms
Seesaw’s Commitment to the Responsible Use of AI in Elementary Classrooms
Empowering Teachers to Evaluate, Differentiate and Communicate Efficiently
“As a company dedicated to supporting the unique needs of young learners, we are committed to implementing AI in a thoughtful, responsible manner that prioritizes the safety, well-being, and developmental needs of our students. We are working closely with schools and educators to harness the power of this technology to create more inclusive, joyful learning environments that foster growth and a love for learning.”
Matthew Given Chief Executive Officer, Seesaw
Introduction
Seesaw was founded to support the unique needs of early learners with a platform that gives teachers tools to support their diverse classrooms, empowers students to showcase their learning in a variety of ways, and engages families in their child’s learning process. Over the past decade, Seesaw has grown into a global Learning Experience Platform that is trusted and loved by 25 million educators, students, and families and in over 150 countries. At the heart of our philosophy is the commitment to supporting joyful and connected learning experiences for our youngest learners.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is now a prominent part of education, we recognize the potential benefits and risks of integrating this emerging technology into elementary classrooms. It is essential for edtech companies – especially those serving our youngest learners – to approach the use of AI in elementary education with thoughtfulness, transparency, and a commitment to protecting the privacy of students.
Seesaw is committed to the responsible use of AI in its products and services. The purpose of this report is to articulate Seesaw’s approach to AI in elementary education, focusing on three essential principles that are fundamental to every aspect of our work:
1
Provide transparency on how AI will be incorporated into the Seesaw platform:
Seesaw will continue to clearly communicate where we integrate AI into its products, emphasizing the ways in which AI will be used to empower educators and enhance student learning experiences.
2
Ensure the safety and age-appropriateness of AI features for elementary students:
In partnership with educators, Seesaw will carefully evaluate the risks and benefits of AI for young learners, implementing only those features that are safe, developmentally appropriate, and conducive to student learning. We will continue to maintain the highest standards when it comes to student safety and privacy.
3
Empower educators and keep a human in the loop:
We are building AI to support – rather than replace – the critical role of teachers. We also believe adults are key to Seesaw and are committed to keeping an adult in the loop whenever AI is used, ensuring that students’ experiences remain safe, equitable, and guided by human judgment.
Seesaw’s AI Philosophy and Product Principles
Seesaw’s ethos has always been centered around strengthening and expanding the learning loop between administrators, teachers, students, and families. Our AI-powered products align with this philosophy, aiming to make teaching and learning more joyful, inclusive, and connected for the entire school community.
As with all products we develop at Seesaw, the use of AI technologies must directly and purposefully address the needs of elementary learners, educators, or families. Critically, our AI tools adhere to our existing industry-leading safety, security, and privacy practices.
AI is not going to replace human teachers or family members. We believe that AI’s potential lies in giving educators more time to do what they do best – support their students’ diverse learning needs. By empowering educators with AI-enhanced tools and resources, Seesaw supports their efforts in creating engaging and effective learning environments. In practice, this includes the following:
Adult in the Loop:
When AI is used, there is an adult in the loop to ensure students’ experience in Seesaw is safe and equitable. Students do not have access to generative AI features, like Chatbots or text generators.
Human Edit or Override:
Educators have the opportunity to review and edit any content generated by AI (e.g., edit an assessment before it’s shared to students or override a grade generated from a machine voice transcription).
Safety, Privacy and Abuse Prevention:
All AI applications adhere to Seesaw’s industry-leading safety, privacy and abuse prevention policies.
Disclose Use of AI:
When AI is used, we disclose it in the product and our Help Center.
Consent:
We will not use your data for training our AI models without your consent.
“I think the most immediate benefit of AI is the time saving it can provide for teachers in their lesson planning. The examples I’ve seen around differentiation, scaffolding, question design, etc. are quite amazing! As far as the use by elementary students, I am more reluctant, but I think we will see some very exciting advancements in adaptive learning personalized to student needs, so I’m enthusiastic about that. Some of the image generators have interesting possibilities within lesson design as well.”
Justin Huntley Curriculum Administrator Technology, Eugene 4J School District
Practical Applications of Seesaw in AI
Seesaw will use AI to support educators and enhance the learning experience for elementary students. By integrating AI-powered features into its platform, Seesaw aims to create a more efficient, personalized, and engaging learning environment that caters to the unique needs of young learners and meets one of our core AI product principals:
1. Save teachers time
2. Build tools uniquely suited to elementary learning
3. Expand access for families and students
Translation between 100+ languages:
Seesaw uses machine translation powered by Google Translate to make messages, text comments, text captions, and notes accessible in over 100 languages, promoting inclusivity and communication within the school community.
Question Assistant:
Our AI powered Question Assistant helps teachers spin up auto-graded formative assessments in seconds. Simply enter a search topic, select the grade, and choose from a variety of question types. With two modes - one for practice and one for assessmt students get real-time feedback and teachers can identify areas of need.
Reading Fluency Assessment:
This powerful tool gives teachers hours of time back. Students record themselve reading and our AI-powered assessment provides teachers with valuable data on accuracy, words correct per minute, and specific reading challeges. Teachers have the ability to override machine generated accuracy scores to ensure fair evalutions.
Read-with-Me Narrated Passages:
Guided reading with built in scaffolds. This tool narrates passages with word-level highlighting, supporting emerging readers and MLLs by reinforcing the connection between spoken and written language.
Seesaw Labs:
Early access to the latest Seesaw AI innovations. Begins in October ‘25 with more rolling out through 2025 and beyond!
Conclusion
By adhering to these commitments across every aspect of our work, we believe we can establish the gold standard for the safe, equitable and effective use of AI with young students. We understand that the most powerful educational technology is useless if it isn’t safe, and we still believe that the best learning experiences take place between students, educators and families. We welcome ongoing feedback and dialogue from educators, families, and the wider educational community as it continues to navigate the evolving landscape of AI in education.
Questions? Please contact us at districthelp@seesaw.me.
Experienced and Trusted Partner Worldwide: With over 12 years operating in EdTech and more than 25M users across the world, Seesaw is an experienced and trusted partner to support elementary schools with navigating this new age of AI. Not only do we have the size and scale to build AI in a safe, ethical, and secure way, we have well over a decade ensuring industry-leading privacy and security practices to safeguard student data.
