We have shared a lot of “big picture” blogs with you lately, so we narrowed our focus to one content area this week. In coming weeks, we’ll focus on specific content areas, one at a time. In recent weeks, we’ve highlighted math, science, and elementary classrooms. This week, we focus on SOCIAL STUDIES. In the post below, you’ll find TOOLS, RESOURCES, and IDEAS related to SOCIAL STUDIES and EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY*.
TOOLS
Create free interactive timelines. Offering a Google single sign on, HSTRY is a free digital learning tool which promotes collaboration and engagement in the classroom. You can browse and utilize their library of timelines, or you and your students can create your own. Mrs. Wolfe has used this web tool with her 10th grade World Cultures II students, experiencing exciting results!
This is an interactive timeline that spans across 14 billion years of history, from the Big Bang to 2015. The site draws historical events from Wikipedia and self-updates daily with new recorded events. Users can view decades or eons, specific events or categories. It was created as an art/design final project.
TimeMap's World History Atlas is the most comprehensive history atlas available on the internet. Use it to visit any civilization, nation or empire and see the context, chronology, connections and big pictures of history. This history atlas makes history easy to visualise and navigate, through both time and place!
RESOURCES
Unlimited access to hundreds of leveled news articles and Common Core–aligned quizzes, with new articles every day. Every article at five (!) levels: Newsela makes it easy for an entire class to read the same content, but at a level that’s just right for each student.
Designed by Stanford History Education Group (SHEG), this resource "engages students in historical inquiry." The site provides lessons that "revolve around a central historical question and feature sets of primary documents designed for groups of students with diverse reading skills and abilities." It has resources for US History, World History, and Historical Thinking. From what I saw today, Read Like a Historian seems pretty customizable. It is interesting resource to build knowledge AND skills in students.
The Karpeles Library is the world's largest holding of important original manuscripts and documents. The website allows users to view and read these documents (for free). So what? Many original documents are written in elaborate cursive, which is difficult for many to read. So this archive gives users the digital "translation" alongside the original document. And many of them are interactive! This seems to be an accessible way for students to access primary sources. Content includes arts, political history, religion, war, literature, and science.
IDEAS
Mr. Shaffer’s and Mrs. Swartz’s 9th and 10th grade history classes created infographics and screencasts to share information on presidential candidates and campaign issues. This could be done at any level for any topic!
Features several ideas for integrating edtech in the social studies classroom. The first idea is about CoveritLive, a publishing tool that allows users to instantly publish their blog posts, which allows it to serve somewhat like a chat room. The teacher presents information, and students simultaneously live blog about the content. (Each comment needs approval, so internet safety is a feature.)
Watch how a social studies teacher incorporates into his classroom through traditional and digital literacy skills. (5:00 minute video with additional resources).
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* Please note, just because technology is new, doesn’t mean it’s always better. If traditional flashcards work for you and your students, keep using them! But if StudyBlue could work for you, ask some of your kids to give it a whirl.
