20 Tools and Ideas For Using Primary Sources With Technology! Oh, Those Amazing Web 2.0 Tools

Web 2.0 Tools Meet Primary Sources. Two Geeky Teachers share ideas for Using Technology to Highlight Primary Sources in the Classroom.

Well we started with 10 ideas and once we multiplied it with primary sources we loved, and great tools to use, we ended up with over 250 ideas for using primary sources in the classroom! History, Art, Historic Preservation, Science...it's all there!

We are thrilled to be presenting at the National Council for Social Studies (#NCSS17) and even happier that we can share our love of primary sources and technology with participants and friends at the conference in San Francisco.

We are deeply proud to be part of the team from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Regional Center in Colorado who are presenting in San Francisco and will be tweeting out resources this week (and next) to showcase ideas on how to merge Web 2.0 and Social Media tools with the rich collections and digital resources from the Library of Congress.

If you don't know about the Library of Congress TPS program check out their links here: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/tps/

Here's a list of great tools and ideas! Check some of them out and bring non-fiction, primary sources, critical thinking, and 21st century skills into your classroom!Check out the links below for social studies, literacy, student engagement, science, math, art, architecture, and historic preservation ideas using primary sources from the Library of Congress (LOC.gov )

 

Adobe Animoto

Blabberize

Campayn

Easel.ly

Edpuzzle

Flipgrid Flipboard

GSuite

I-nigma

Instagram

Jigsaw Planet

Kahoot

Livebinder

Minecraft

Nearpod Padlet

Peardeck

Picmonkey

Pinterest

Popplet

Quizzlet

SMORE

Symbaloo

Twitter

Vocaroo

WeVideo

Social Studies and Technology: Get a Little Geeky With State History and Use Five Quick Tools to Extend Learning in the Four Core Areas

What happens when you brainstorm with teachers on HOW to use a tool with Social Studies? You gain a list of useful ideas from the basics of Blooms right up the latter to higher level thinking. Take a look at what Colorado teachers accessed during a recent workshop at History Colorado, our state history museum. (E: Economics, C: Civics, G: Geography, H: History )

Tool 1: Check out a simple newspaper template for online content creation.

Link: http://newspapertemplate.net/

E: Create a business or money section of the newspaper to encourage students to look beyond the front page and learn about the economics of their state.

C: How about creating an editorial page to debate a question and publish opinions and polls?

G: Think about a small town newspaper and have students research the different types of newspapers in our 

      communities in the state, and then create several types based on region and place.

H: Dig into the Colorado Online Historic Newspaper Collections and have students create their own based on an event in Colorado history.

Tool 2: Collect and annotate resources from the web and share the collection as an inquiry starting point for students.

Link: Been: https://edshelf.com/tool/been

E: Pull articles and links from key areas in the world that illuminate a shared economic challenge and annotate them online.

C: Collect resources and annotate with essential questions to start the inquiry process.

G: Annotate maps from global sources online so students can evaluate point of view and perspective.

H: Collect primary sources on a topic and have students annotate them with questions as the beginning of a lesson.

Tool 3: Have students create a visual collection of resources for each other to support their inquiry activities.

Link: InstaGrok: https://edshelf.com/tool/instagrok

E: Give students a collection of resources and have them sort, review, and connect them to each other and a topic of study.

C: Have students use this visual tool to track the process of a bill becoming a law connecting resources from the web to the visual resource.

G: Have students create a visual map with this tool to understand human interaction with a region.

H: Have students use this tool as a base for collecting research and connecting thematic ideas to a larger thesis.

Tool 4: Have students create an image that talks to give a twist to a presentation.

Links: Chatterbox Kids:  http://tinyurl.com/p772xet  Blabberize:http://blabberize.com/

E: Have students create a speech about the state of the economy and their solutions to the challenges we face as a citizenry.

C: Have students create position statements for a debate on a key topic and record their statement for review/use in the classroom.

G: Have a country “talk” about its view for the future of the environmental challenges it faces.

H: Have students bring a textual primary source alive through an audio narrative.

Tool 5: Have students create a timeline of activities/primary sources for research and presentations.

Links:  Timetoast: www.timetoast.com

E: Students can use Timetoast to trace a stock/company activity.

C: Students can use this tool to share the history of a bill or law.

G: Using Timetoast students can show the changes in a regional landscape/cultural landscape.

H: Using this tool,  students can collect and annotate primary sources to support a research paper or thesis.