Tech Tidbits Monthly - March 2024

The Digital Library of Georgia is a GALILEO initiative based at the University of Georgia Libraries that collaborates with Georgia's Libraries, archives, museums, and other institutions of education and culture to provide access to key information resources on Georgia history, culture, and life. This is a great site to find primary resources including historical newspapers, photographs and maps. You can search by keyword, location, or time period.

The New Georgia Encyclopedia (NGE) is the nation’s first born-digital state encyclopedia. Since 2004 it has provided ready access to authoritative scholarship on a wide variety of topics. All of its entries are written and reviewed by scholars, fact-checked by reference librarians at the University of Georgia and updated regularly to reflect new information and recent developments.

The Georgia Historical Society is a trusted resource for teachers and students. The website is dedicated to provide quality resources for teaching and learning Georgia and American history.

The Smithsonian Learning Lab puts the treasures of the world's largest museum, education, and research complex within reach. The Lab is a free, interactive platform for discovering millions of authentic digital resources, creating content with online tools, and sharing in the Smithsonian's expansive community of knowledge and learning.

Empower students to be knowledgeable, curious, and civically engaged with 300+ FREE resources. iCivics offers curriculum units, lesson plans, videos, games, webquests and more.

DIG is a free repository of document-based curricula, inquiry-based lessons, and innovative assessments spanning everything from social studies to ELA to news and media literacy. There are 3 main sections on this site:

1. Reading Like a Historian - Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features a set of primary documents designed for groups of students with a range of reading skills.
2. Civic Online Reasoning - The COR curriculum provides free lessons and assessments that help you teach students to evaluate online information that affects them, their communities, and the world.
3. Beyond the Bubble - Explore over 140 easy-to-use assessments that measure students' historical thinking rather than recall of facts.

Model Diplomacy is a free simulation program that invites students, educators, and professionals from a variety of backgrounds to step into the roles of decision-makers on the U.S. National Security Council (NSC) or UN Security Council.

Zoom In’s online learning environment features 18 content-rich U.S. history units that supplement your regular instruction and help you use technology to support students’ mastery of both content and skills required by the new, higher standards:

• Reading documents closely and critically
• Identifying author's point of view and purpose
• Engaging in higher-order, text-based discussions
• Writing explanatory and argumentative essays grounded in evidence

Using trusted source materials from PBS, NPR and local public media stations, Thinkalong is a free program that helps students think critically about media, develop informed opinions, and practice respectful, civil discourse.

Through Nearpod VR field trips, we can take students around the world and create authentic, real-world learning experiences while boosting student engagement in learning and sparking curiosity! Give students the chance to interact with the content they are studying in a more meaningful way. This not only helps increase student engagement but also leads to higher student achievement.

DPS students and staff access Nearpod through Clever.

The U.S. Census Bureau and its Statistics in Schools program offer a number of tools that students can use to access data. Students can find city- or state-specific information about their birthplace, current place of residence, or ideal future hometown, for example. Using these tools, students and teachers can see data on housing, population, age, sex, race, ethnicity, geographic location, and much more.

It's really not boring. Trust us.😉

*Teacher Tool* - This tool is powered by ChatGPT which is currently NOT allowed for student use in DPS.

While history teachers can’t get Napoleon or Eleanor Roosevelt in class as a guest speaker, AI can help students “interact” with historical figures. In a presentation at ISTE 2023, edtech professor Maureen Yoder suggested that teachers check out Hello History—a ChatGPT-powered app that can let students carry out conversations with dozens of figures from around the world, from Cleopatra to Mahatma Gandhi.

The free account allows teachers 30 free uses - they call them "credits." If you run out of credits, teachers can go directly to ChatGPT and prompt it, “Please roleplay as [insert historical figure here] for the rest of our conversation.”

Feedback from a Historic Figure - Ask a question and let the students get feedback from a historic figure of your (or their choice). Students get to practice their critical thinking reflecting on what they learn from the feedback, and if the historical persons' personal opinion might affect the feedback they get.

Developed for use by middle school students in the classroom and beyond, Mission US is a deeply researched, award-winning educational media project with proven positive impact on history learning. Interactive narrative games immerse players in rich, historical settings and empower them to make choices that illuminate how ordinary people experienced the past. Educator’s guides provide a wealth of resources and activities that show the broader social, political, and economic context of events and perspectives in the games.

Students will need to create an account to play. If you have questions about account creation, please contact Instructional Technology.

Mission US is committed to teaching complicated and sensitive topics in American history. We recommend that teachers preview game content to make sure it is appropriate for their students.

First, read this Edutopia article about using StoryCorp to create living history projects.

Tools to help students create their recordings:

• Flip - Students access Flip through Clever
• Canva - Students access Canva through Clever. Video: How to record audio in Canva
• Audacity - Please contact your media specialist or a member of Instructional Technology for help setting this up.
• Bookcreator - The free Bookcreator account allows for 1 teacher library with up to 40 student books.

Inquiry-Based Tasks in Social Studies

Integrating Social Studies in Elementary School Lessons

Turning Students Into Bold Historical Thinkers

Game-Based Learning in Civics

Getting Started With PBL in Social Studies

3 Strategies to Support English Language Learners in Social Studies

Want to talk about something you've seen here? Would you like a specialist to come to your PLC? Contact your Media Specialist or a member of the Instructional Technology team.