Kirsten 0:00
This is the social studies teacher podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm curious to know if you southern teach an educator and mom who is passionate about all things, social studies, I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.
Hi, everyone, welcome to another episode of the social studies teacher podcast. This episode is all about three technology tools that you can utilize in your social studies instruction for upper elementary, it's fun, it's engaging, it's everything you want students to be focusing on all the time if they could, but it also gets them super hyped up. So you kind of have to like spread it out a little bit, spread the love. So I'm going to share with you three different technological apps that are really, really great to use with upper elementary students, and even, you know, really any grade level, but I'm focusing of course, specifically on upper elementary.
All right, technology tool number one is Nearpod. Nearpod is an interactive platform that blends presentation, collaboration and assessment features to create captivating lessons, it's everything combined. Imagine taking your students on a virtual field trip to historic sites, or diving into 3d models of significant events. Nearpod can make this possible. And you can create a free account, this is completely free. You can search a variety of topics and assign it to students. This is something that students can complete, asynchronously independently on their own. Or they can do it as a whole group. And the cool thing is that when you advance the slide, after they join the you know, they join with a specific code. Once you advance the slide, their screen also goes to the same slide. So everybody's on the same page. They're interacting with the different elements together. Another really cool feature is let's say there's like a specific question in the middle of the Nearpod lesson. And each individual student has the opportunity to share their answers or draw their answers or write their answer, and they can submit it and you can show the answers or you can hide you know, you can there's different features if you want to protect, you know, privacy and all of that. So there's a really great way to kind of be interactive and collaborative If while you're reviewing or going through a specific social studies concept, you can utilize the interactive maps and quizzes to have students gain gauge their comprehension or understanding in real time. So it increases participation and engagement. And a really fun game that my students really loved was the time to climb games. It's where they get to pick a character, and they're answering these quiz questions. And the faster the answer, the faster they go up to the top of the mountain. It's a very simple concept, but you could imagine the students get really into it, they get really competitive. So Nearpod, I would recommend multiple times over. This is really great. If you're introducing a topic or you're reviewing a topic, if you happen to find a specific topic that aligns with what you're talking about in class, this is a really great way to increase engagement change things up.
The second technology tool is Kahoot. So this is a game based learning tool that infuses fun and a little bit of competition into the learning process. You can create or find quizzes and trivia games centered around different social studies concepts, so like historical time periods, or certain concepts, timelines, geography to reinforce understanding, you can even have students if you have the capability to make their own Kahoot quizzes. So that's something that's really fun as a project idea. And you can also assign this as a whole group have students complete it together, where they joined through a code on their device, or you can assign it asynchronously. And you can set an expiration date of when they need to complete that so they can work on it as a whole group as a class or independently. I always liked to find Kahoot games related to social studies and just not even related just for fun, because it's just a really great way to get students active and excited about, you know, showing what they know, it's something that I would have totally loved to doing as a kid.
The third technology tool that I think is really, really cool is called seesaw. This is a what you would probably call a digital portfolio. So you can encourage students to show their understanding of social studies topics through different presentations or assignments. There's different seesaw activities that you can search for on seesaw. Or you can just create your own and assign it to your students, you can also have the capability to send parents an email link to join so that they can actively engage in their own child's learning, by commenting on projects or just kind of, it's a way to communicate with the parents as well. So this is really great. If you're looking for some type of overall platform where you can, you know, you can upload images and have students respond to those images or prompts. You can have students utilize the platform to research cultural celebrations and present their findings through seesaw they there's a whole bunch of different tools that are very student friendly, not just in upper elementary, but I'd even say primary grades as well.
I recommend all of these, it's just really great to combine. In your social studies classroom. If you want a full comprehensive, you know, 21st century technology based learning experience that caters to a variety of learning styles, you can have a lesson that starts with Nearpod content, followed by a Kahoot quiz, and then ending that unit with some type of seesaw project. These can work harmoniously together to transform boring or complex social studies topics into something more engaging and memorable. I've personally used all three of these tools with my upper elementary students with success. They loved it, it was super easy to you know, once you get the hang of things, and you get customized with it, it's really easy for students to get customized, to get accustomed to it as well. And it's really easy for students to get a hold of if you start early on in the year. So it's something that I highly recommend. You'll have your students asking, oh, when are we going to play the next scoot game? Are we going to do a Nearpod lesson today? It's something students in the past in my classes have really looked forward to and I hope your students look forward to these as well.
All right, well, I have some links to more blog posts that I have about Kahoot and seesaw if you want to go a little bit more in depth with that. But I hope you enjoyed this episode and I cannot wait to talk to you again next week. Thanks for listening to the social studies teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode for more teacher tips and strategies.
