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.
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.
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.
