1. Monitor What Your Students are Doing
With DBQ Online, you can view and comment on students’ work anytime. All of the work your students complete saves automatically. This is great for students because they won’t lose their work, and it’s great for you because you’ll always be able to see their latest annotations, document analysis sheets, essays, and more.
2. Differentiate Assignments for Every Student
You might find that some students might be grasping DBQs quickly, while others might need more scaffolding. To provide different versions for different students, once you’re done creating an assignment, select “Yes” on Specify Students Who Receive the Assignment. Here, you’ll be able to select which students receive this version.
3. Teach Vocabulary with Ease
The bolded vocabulary terms in our Background Essays can be clicked to reveal a short definition of the term. Since DBQ Online is a web-based platform, students can also highlight and Right-Click any word on any page and select “Search Google for __”.
4. Play Audio Read-Alouds
One of our teachers’ favorite features! For all of our Background Essays and Documents with heavy text, there is an “Audio Read-Aloud” option. For many of our primary source documents, we hired voice actors to bring these documents to life. Audio read-aloud is also available in Spanish.
5. Highlight Essays and Documents
With DBQ Online, you can highlight the text in different colors! Teachers and students can use the freehand draw tool or the underline tool to mark up Documents or the Background Essay. With nine different colors to choose from, students can highlight thematically for pros and cons; social, political, and economic factors; setting, characterization, and plot; or whatever!
6. Expand Maps and Pictures with a Click
Do you ever look at a map on the page and think, “Why is that font so small?” With DBQ Online, every map and image can be expanded to a full-screen view. Goodbye, eye strains; hello, color images and readable fonts. What’s more, your students can circle, draw arrows and lines, or block parts of an image using our shape annotation tools. Similar to the highlighting tool, they can also color-code these annotation tools to match their buckets.
7. Preload Instructions
Instructor Markup- Previously, to share your annotations and instructions with the class, you might have had to share your screen through the class projector. Now, using all of the above annotation tools, you can prep students’ assignments with instructions before you even send them their way. BONUS - you can even add voice directions! When your students open their assignments, they’ll see a sticky note right by their document with the instructions you’ve attached.
