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Plickers are a really fun tool for doing formative assessment. Essentially, each student is assigned a QR code that they hold up for answering multiple choice questions. The teacher then records their answers using their phone or iPad camera.

One way this could be used is for warm up assignments and review. The teacher might have a series of multiple choice questions that they can quickly assess the class on using this tool.

Another way you could use it would be for surveys. Plickers give some anonymity to the students when answering questions, so you might be able to get a more honest assessment of what students want without the pressure of them wanting to conform to their classmates.

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One feature of social studies that I find often gets ignored or done poorly is geography. Google Earth can be a great resource to help in that area. Just looking at a map may not help students connect to the material. But having an interactive map that allows you to actually see what a place looks like might help.

One way I might use this is in lectures. Instead of just pulling up a regular map, I might use Google Earth to show it's location and then zoom in to give a more in depth image of the place we are considering.

I also might just post this tool on my website as a resource for my students. On their own or while doing homework this can be a really great thing for kids to be able to access, as long as they know that it's there and how to use it.

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Explore the far reaches of the world, right in your browser.

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This is a great site for finding videos on a variety of different subjects, but I've found it has a wealth of resources for social studies. What's really nice about this website is that it doesn't only have categories within social studies for history and government, which tend to be the largest portions of social studies classes. It also has categories for geography and economics, which tend to be ignored by most social studies sites.

One use I could see for this is for supplementing my lesson plans and using in class. Videos, especially short ones, can be really impactful in the classroom, but it can be a challenge to find good ones for using in a classroom on Youtube. However, this has a bunch of really well done videos.

I could also see embedding some of these videos on a class website for study resources. We might not be able to use all of these videos in class, but as students study for tests they might be of benefit for some.

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PBS LearningMedia | Teaching Resources For Students And Teachers

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Inspire your students with thousands of free teaching resources including videos, lesson plans, and games aligned to state and national standards.

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Canva is a great creation tool. There are tons of templates for creating posters, graphics for posting on websites, etc.

One thing that I could see using this for is for signs and posters around your classroom. This allows you to make really great looking signs that are specific for what you're needing them for.

Another thing you could use this for is for creating graphics for putting on your classroom website. Students could also use this for creating their own posters and graphics for school projects and assignments.

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FlipGrid is an awesome tool where teachers and students can create videos for a discussion forum. The teacher can pose a prompt and students can respond with a short video. Other students can then respond to the videos of their classmates.

One way this could be used is as a homework assignment. Some students may feel more comfortable being able to share things with the class if they can practice it and record it from the comfort of their own homes. Students may also do better with a discussion forum if they able to speak instead of having to write.

Another thing I could see using this for is for updates and messages from the teacher to the class. The teacher could record themselves reinforcing concepts and ideas for students to look at as they study.

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This is kind of a resource to get to other resources. This is a huge library of different educational websites that are categorized under a variety of different topics.

One way this could be used is to give students resources for research projects. You might link them to a specific section on the website for their own resource.

Another way I could see if being used is by myself as a resource. There are a lot of great resources that I might consider presenting in class to my students. There are a ton of different primary sources and other documents that you can find which are categorized by group (children, women, etc.) and then by region.

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World History Matters » A Portal to World History Sites from the Center for History and New Media

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World History Matters is a portal to world history websites developed by the Center for History and New Media

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These are role playing games that let students experience different periods in American history. There are five different missions ranging from the American Revolution to the Great Depression. Each mission puts the student in the role of a specific person. One thing that I appreciate about these missions is that they give a variety of different perspectives, such as a slave, Native American, or an immigrant.

One way this could be used is as an activity during downtime or when students have completed their work. It's something fun and interactive but it's also educational.

Another way this could be used would be for an introduction to a time period. For the first day we spend on a unit they students might be given some time to play the games.

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Play Mission Us

1848 the antebellum era

Flight to Freedom

Teach mission us

Mission US includes extensive teaching materials for each mission. The educator guides feature:

What people are saying about Mission US

About mission us

Mission US is an award-winning educational media project that immerses young people in transformational moments from U.S. history.

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. To date, more than three million registered users across the country have played and learned from Mission US.

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

Go to about

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Play Mission Us 1848 the antebellum era Teach mission us Mission US includes extensive teaching materials for each mission. The educator guides feature: What people are saying about Mission US About mission us Mission US is an award-winning educational media project that immerses young people in transformational moments from U.S.

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Voices of Democracy houses a huge number of primary sources for social studies, categorized under a variety of different topics.

One way I could see using this is as a research tool for my students. They could have the link to this website as a source to find primary source documents.

I also could use this for my own use in creating lesson plans. The website has different curriculum units set up with a bunch of different documents. It might not give me everything I need for lesson planning, but it does give a good start.

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Voices of Democracy features a growing collection of curriculum units focusing on significant speeches in U.S. history. Those units, which are designed for college-level teachers and students, include a link to lesson plans for teaching the speech at the high school or middle school level. VOD's curriculum units are organized by Theme, Chronological Period, Speaker, and Author.

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Voices of Democracy features a growing collection of curriculum units focusing on significant speeches in U.S. history. Those units, which are designed for college-level teachers and students, include a link to lesson plans for teaching the speech at the high school or middle school level.

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This is a resource on the classtools.net website. It allows students to make what is essentially a fake Facebook profile for a character.

I could see using this for having students display information about a historical figure that they've researched. It could be an interesting alternative to doing a poster or an essay.

Another way I might use this is to create my own group of profiles for historical figures that students could explore to learn more about.

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Fakebook - create a fictional social medial profile

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Create a spoof social media profile for a person, theme, place or object being studied

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This is another great resource for non-fiction pieces and current events stories. What is unique about Newsela is that students can adjust the reading level of each article.

This would be a great tool for current events again. Once you've chosen an article that you want to discuss, you can have students find the article in the appropriate reading level for when they're discussing it or writing about it for reference.

Another great thing is they have a lot of articles of historical events and topics. This is another case where students could be assigned an article but would have the opportunity to chose the right reading level for them.

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EuroNews is a great website for selecting current events topics. It gives news stories from all over the world, not just the US. By selecting news stories from a website such as this, you can help your students gain a much more global perspective.

One way I would definitely use it would be for selecting current events topics. In my placement we take the first part of class on Fridays to talk about a selected news story, and that's something I think I'd like to continue in my own practice.

Another way this might be used is as a resource for students to research current events. You might have an assignment where students can pick an article that appeals to them and write a paragraph on it. This would be a great suggested resource.

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Latest breaking news available as free video on demand | Euronews

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Latest breaking news available as free video on demand. Stay informed on European and world news about economy, politics, diplomacy… with Euronews.

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Socrative is a great interactive tool for polls, quizzes, review, etc. One of the features is space race where kids get to work as a team to answer questions and a competitive game format, but don't know who else is on their team.

One way I personally would use this is for test review, especially the space race feature. I could definitely see how students of all ages would get really into that kind of a review game and how that would add to their study skills.

Another way I would use it would be to do assesssment with things such as exit tickets, polls, or quick quizzes. These can even be anonymous. I wouldn't necessarily assign a grade to those kinds of activities but would use them for the purpose of checking for understanding.

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This is a great interactive website that was created by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. It teaches different area of civics and shows how the work in real life through a variety of games. Some of the different things on there include running a campaign, immigration and running a law firm.

One way that I could see these games being used is to teach specific areas of civics. The games take abstract concepts and put them into real life situations. So you might teach a lesson on how immigration works and then have the students spend some of the time in the class period playing that game.

Another way I might use this is to have early finishers go on this website and play the games. I think that's a great option because they're continuing to learn but they get to work on something in my content area.

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At iCivics, we encourage educators to look globally when teaching students about elections. Seeing how things are done differently elsewhere may provide insight into our systems. In this blog post, we explore France - Gabriel Neher's home nation.

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Class Dojo is a great tool for classroom management and for parent communication. Students each have their own account and can personalize their avatars. The teacher can track things on the website such as student behavior, progress, attendance, etc. This can be both things they need to work on and positive feedback. Parents can also be linked to this to see their student's progress and how teacher feedback on behavior and teachers can use it as a tool for communication with parents. It has a game type of feel to it. Students are trying to earn points in a way, which can translate into some kind of digital or real life prize.

One way that it can be used is for classroom management. Good behavior, which could be something like showing up on time or turning in your assignments, can correspond to a number of points. Students could turn in those points to shop at a "classroom store," basically a prize box where students can "purchase" different small items for different prices.

Another feature is that you can communicate with parents very quickly. This is great because parents can see every day how their students are actually doing at school and you can increase parent involvement, especially at the middle school level when that tends to drop off.

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This is an online flashcard and study tool for tests. Teachers can create a set of flashcards for their students and link it to their Google Classroom. The great thing about Quizlet is that when you study it gives students a variety of different study methods and keeps track of which ones you get right and which ones you get wrong, giving you terms you need to work on more often.

The main point of Quizlet is for studying for tests. One way that I might use Quizlet in my own class is to create a list of events and people with descriptors to help my students study before a unit test.

Another way I might use it is to help students learn key vocab at the beginning of a unit, especially with ELL students.