7 virtual resources and a few iCivics distance learning suggestions

(An earlier version highlighted NARA in the title rather than iCivics. Not sure what I was thinking, I corrected it March 27.  Sorry iCivics. You’re doing awesome stuff!)

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The new normal is fast becoming the normal normal. But it’s always nice to hear what others are doing and using.

And I love Jenifer Hitchcock’s suggestions about structuring our normal normal distance learning instruction. It’s part of a handy toolkit that she and other folks over at iCivics have put together. I’ve summarized Jenifer’s list but you need to head over and check it out all of the details as well as their Toolkit.

Further down, I’ve also posted 11 resources that are perfect for your distance learning normal normal. So if you’re already in a normal normal teaching situation, all of this is super useful.

But if you’re still in some sort of traditional face to face setting, skip Jenifer’s tips and bounce down to the resources – still useful for you because, well . . . they’re awesome sauce for any sort of learning environment.

Here’s a quick list of some of Jenifer’s suggestions: 

Fave Posts of 2019: Single-point rubrics and Google Keep make your life easier & your kids smarter

I know that most of you are still settled deep into holiday break mode. Getting up a little bit later than normal. Watching football. Eating too much. Catching up on your reading. Trying to decide if The Mandalorian is worth your time. Enjoying family and friends. Not really thinking about the back to school schedule that cranks up in January.

But if you need a break from all of that free time, we’ve got you covered. Between now and the second week in January, you’ll get a chance to re-live five of the most popular History Tech posts from 2019. Enjoy the reruns!

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We’ve all been there. You just finished putting together a great instructional lesson or unit. Kids are gonna love it. They’ll be working together. Doing research. Creating stuff, not just consuming it. The historical thinking will be off the charts.

Then you realize . . . you haven’t created the rubric yet.

You know that clear expectations and feedback are critically important to the learning process. You know that rubrics can help you in assessing what students know and are able to do. So you sit back down and eventually decide to use four scoring columns instead of five. Six rows of criteria instead of three. Clear descriptors. Nine point font all crammed into your matrix so that it fits on one page. Definitely tons of feedback gonna happen from this beauty.

But it’s worth it, right?

Mmm . . . using a great rubric

Did they just add tour creation to web-based Google Earth? Yes. Yes, they did.

Google tools. Good.

Maps. Good.

Google map tools. Awesome.

The move by Google to create a web-based version of Google Earth a few years ago made sense. They needed something that would work on mobile devices and Chromebooks. But as a huge lover of the Desktop Pro version of GE, the problem for me was that the web-based version lacked so many of Pro’s bells and whistles.

I loved the ability to create tours and Google LitTrips, to use Historical Imagery, to combine different layers of data tell amazing stories. Sure. There was Tour Builder and My Maps but my heart still belonged to Google Earth.

But apparently Google listened in on enough of my conversations to do something about my need for tour creation tools in the web-based version of GE. A few weeks ago, they finally added the ability to generate tours with some pretty sweet features.

(If you’re semi-new to the Google Earth world, there are multiple versions. There’s the original Pro version that you install directly onto your laptop or desktop, there’s the more recent web-based version that runs through the Chrome browser – including on Chromebooks, and there are mobile app versions that run on tablets and phones. We’re talking about the web-based Chrome version here. While you can view tours created on the Pro and web versions on mobile versions of GE, you’re still not able to create tours on the mobile versions. Clear as mud?)

These new features help you and students

Historypalooza 2019 – Google Arts and Culture is more than just a bazillion pretty pictures

It comes but once a year. The National Social Studies Supervisors Association and National Council for the Social Studies combined conference. For a history nerd, it’s the winter holiday break, the Final Four, and fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies all rolled into one event.

For three days, it’s about conversations that focus on social studies, tools, resources, evidence, and best practices. So what did I learn?

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Kelsey Pacer and Laura Israelsen are my people. They may be more nuts about Googley stuff than I am and love sharing their favorite tools and ideas. I sat in on part of their My Maps session earlier in the week and this afternoon, they’re sharing some great ideas for using Google Arts and Culture.

If you never had the chance to visit Arts and Culture, you really need to set time aside to do some serious exploring. The site is dedicated to

Historypalooza 2019 – Using amazing Google tools to create an amazing race

It comes but once a year. The National Social Studies Supervisors Association and National Council for the Social Studies combined conference. For a history nerd, it’s the winter holiday break, the Final Four, and fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies all rolled into one event.

For three days, it’s about conversations that focus on social studies, tools, resources, evidence, and best practices. So what did I learn?

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We all know how much I love the Googles. So today I’m gonna focus a bit on Google sessions and using Google to create social studies centric activities. Brooke from FriED is walking us through some strategies organized around the Amazing Race.

Brooke started by sharing her vision of what she called Challenge Based Learning using Google G Suite tools. I agree – our job is not to give kids the answers. Our job is to give our kids problems to solve. She used a combination of different G Suite tools to lead us on a Digital Breakout / Scavenger Hunt / Google Tools Tutorials to highlight what this can look like in the classroom.

Get access to what we did during the session. And then head over to view a 20 minute explainer video that outlines the step by step instructions for making your own classroom specific Amazing race.

 

Historypalooza 2019 – So many social studies resources. How many? So many.

It comes but once a year. The National Social Studies Supervisors Association and National Council for the Social Studies combined conference. For a history nerd, it’s the winter holiday break, the Final Four, and fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies all rolled into one event.

For three days, it’s about conversations that focus on social studies, tools, resources, evidence, and best practices. So what did I learn?

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It’s Saturday morning. Actually found a Diet Pepsi in Texas and a bagel so it’s already a great day.

I was looking for an “easy” session that doesn’t require a ton of thinking while I’m waiting for the caffeine and carbs kick in. Social Studies Resource Smackdown should fit those prerequisites. Melissa and Rebecca from New York are leading a session where we’re sharing our fave social studies tools, materials, and resources.

All of the stuff has been added to a Google Doc list that is getting longer every minute. Head over to access the list. Easy peasy.