iPads in a Social Studies Classroom

iPads in a Social Studies Classroom 

• GTKY Activity 
• PicCollage     (also an Android App) 
• Include at least 3 Photos, Name, Location and Grade Level, Availability of Tech

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary describing political, social, or economic aspects of history/social science.

• Vocab Development
• Quizlet     Website    iOS app      Android App 
• Built in Dictionary on iPad
• Venn Diagram

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.9 Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.
• Aggregating Resources
• Saving PDFs, Photos,  and Annotating
• Educreations
• PaperPort Notes 
• iBooks
• Flipboard      (Also an Android App) 
• Following Current Events from News Sources (CNN, BBC World)
• Following trending hashtags
• For teachers:
• #sschat
• #historyteacher
• #histedchat
• Finding Resources 
• Library of Congress Classroom Materials 
• Primary Sources found on the Web

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.1 Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.
• OSLIS   specifically the Citation Maker 
• EasyBib
• Copyright and  Creative Credit Lessons from Common Sense Media

LUNCH  

• Assessing
• Google Forms  
• Edmodo Quizzes
• Infuse Learning
• Socrative  (Teacher)   (Student)
• Projects (below)

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.7 Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7 Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem.
• Haiku Deck (also a website)
• ThingLink  (also a website)
• Videolicious 

Additional Resources

• Apps for Social Studies 

Word Clouds on the iPad?

I've always enjoyed doing word clouds with my students.  

A few of my favorite uses were to hang a name cloud outside my door at the beginning of the year with all of our students' names or have my students create a word cloud about their experience at Outdoor School, in the shape of their mascot!

There are many great sites online to make word clouds, but most require flash, java, or other add-ons that make those sites incompatible with the iPads and iPods. 

Here are some app options to explore:

WordSalad (Free Version with option to pay $0.99 to get rid of ads and watermark)

Core Features:

-Import any text from iOS clipboard with a single tap  (create your own by making a list in your Notes app or any other word doc app that allows for copy/paste) 
-Customize with 8  fonts-Color with 8 color palettes -Feeling creative? WordSalad gives you 5 layouts to position your words-Save your salads to camera roll for later reuse and export them to pdf

Cloudart ($0.99) iPad Only 

Core Features: 

-no ads or watermarks

-23 fonts, 7 layout styles, and 19 color palettes

-Share by email, pdf, save in app, or save to camera roll

-tap on the word cloud to add more words

-create straight from a webpage by pasting in the address

Need ideas for word clouds in the classroom? 

• Take a news article, blog post, famous song, or short story and create an easy visual of key themes or points being made.  
• Cut and paste reflections to a piece of work from all students and see what the common words were
• Collecting Data  (input a list of what students ate for a week and see what they ate the most!)
• Beginning of the Year Ice Breaker "About Me" Activity 
• End of the Year "Highlights" Activity 
• and ....

For more word cloud resources, check out these sites:

WordSift - Play with Words! from Digital Drifting 

I'm Loving the New Flipboard Update!

One of the most used apps on my iPad is Flipboard.  If you haven't tried flipboard yet, you are missing out!  

Flipboard is described as being your personal magazine.  I think of it more as a curation tool to pull all my favorite blog feeds, twitter hashtags, and social media sites into one place.  In the picture below you can see some of the twitter hashtags that I subscribe to.  

But the best part of this app?  The interface, I can flip through it like a magazine, reading brief snippets and tapping on articles I want to read.  

Great place to collect information in one place!

 I used this app ALL the time, and if I found something great I might send it out to twitter or email it myself for later reference (or to anyone else I thought it would be useful for).  A few extra steps, but it was such a great professional tool to find useful information, it was worth it.  

But now with the newest update to Flipboard, keeping all the articles that I really like in one place for later reference just came easier.  

To me, it's like Pinterest - only instead of boards, I can add articles, videos, pics, etc to my own "magazine" that I can name as I please.  

On the right, you can see now that I have my "subscriptions" and now I also have my "magazines".

    To add an article to a "magazine" of your choosing, simply choose the + button in the lower right hand corner.  From here you can "flip it" into a pre-existing magazine or create a new one.  On the right you can see that I have a few magazines created, Writing, iPads in Education, and Digital Citizenship.    

Do understand that by default all your created magazines are public, though you can switch them to private when you are setting up the magazine.  

So here is one of my magazines (above).  I gave it the name "EdTech Thoughts" and put articles that I was finding on anything around the theory, future, expectations, or opinions on Educational Technology. 

I can add this magazine now to my Cover Page (the page you see when you are on the Home of the app) by choosing the "Subscribe" at the top left corner of the magazine.   

I can also share my magazine with others, similar to Pinterest or ScoopIt.  I can email a link to someone, tweet it, or post it to facebook so other people are able to subscribe to anything I add to that magazine.  

You can view my EdTech Thoughts magazine at this link (you will need Flipboard on your iPad to view).

Flipboard also added a bookmarklet that you can install on the iPad or iPhone Chrome Browser so you can "flip" anything to your Flipboard app to curate yourself!  

Have Fun Flipping!