Resource Blog #2: Interactive Social Studies

Interactive Sites for Education

https://bit.ly/1gqFxJB

For this resource blog, I focused on Social Studies and how students can have alternatives to reading the textbook. This online resource links to multiple different interactive sites; sites that are all organized by topic or time period. I believe interactive electronics will be the pinnacle of the classrooms that we will be teaching in. Most students will own, or the school will provide some form of electronics. If anything, there is the possibility of going to the local library and using the computers there. This site allows teachers access to 35 broad middle school topics; within each of those topics, multiple interactive online resources. When students are engaged, they are more likely to recall and remember the material being presented. For example, some interactive sources have students clicking on different parts of a map to explain the chronological order of a certain battle or war. The action of the student clicking is helping them feel as though they are choosing to read the presented material rather than “read pages 383-401 for homework tonight”, when in reality most students skim if read at all. I know going to the computer lab or library was always an exciting day in middle school. It is a simple yet effective way to get students out of the classroom yet still in a controlled “classroom like” setting. 

WC: 223