Technology in Social Studies
Let's face it, technology is everywhere around us. Many schools today have migrated and moved some of the activities on the technical side so students can access their lessons from everywhere. Some teachers write the social studies or blogs so every student can read them. Some of them unite in groups on FaceBook, MySpace etc. There are many, many ways for your teachings of social studies for kids to become remotely available. Here I am going to help you find the ways to do this.
1. Join Blogspot so you can have a public blog. Everyone of your students will be able to read your posts and leave comments on them.
2. If you want some more sophisticated way of blogging, try and get your own hosting, domain and install WordPress. You can do almost anything with this tool, insert add ons, change templates, and many, many more.
3. I've discovered one very good web 2.0 service called Ecto. It actually allows you to have 'virtual classroom' for groups of students. Here's how they describe it: Ecto is a hosted, open networked Personal Learning Environment. Use Ecto to transform learning into an interactive, collaborative, and student centered activity. Ecto is the only learning management system built from the ground up on the principals and architecture of social software.
I only told you some of the services, in fact there are LOTS of opportunities out there that allow you to communicate with your students in a way they can reach you at home.
So good luck with your social studies teachings!
I am ex. social studies teacher who dedicated his work writing articles for the current teachers how to become more effective in teaching students on your social studies class.
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