I followed Susan Pojer on Pinterest. Her board “Technology in the History/Social Studies Classroom” has 1,039 and pending and close to 500 followers for that specific board. Overall, her following on Pinterest is 8,703, with over 200 pins ranging from A.P history and home design. Pojer, based out of Chappaqua, NY is also author to the award winning website, www.historynet.com, which got the title of #6 on the Best History Web Sites page. Throughout following Pojer, I learned many different strategies for not only how to incorporate technology into my classroom, but how to make it applicable to my concentration, social studies, something I have always has trouble doing. I am going to share a couple of my favorite pins and posts from Pojer that I can imagine using in my own classroom someday that I have caught my eye over the past couple of weeks.
Pojer pined a website called Power My Learning. This website is designed to have interactive games for students related to that incapsulate whatever subject they are learning. Games, activities, exploration, and creative tools are all categorized by grade level and subject. I clicked on what grade I currently have and what I have been teaching them (sophomores, and the French Revolution) and there were 19 different activities that directly related to grade 10. The best part? These interactive games, videos, and apps(that are iPad compatible) are aligned with the Common Core! This was such a great website that I never would have stumbled upon on my own if it hadn’t been for Pojer.
Another great resource I found while following Pojer on Pinterest was a pin on creating a Youtube channel for the classroom. It discusses how you can take your class on an “interactive time machine” and I couldn’t agree more. I think students learn the best when they are shown something and given a visual, instead of just talking and discussing something. I have used videos, and all of them are from Youtube. I use it so frequently that I sometimes forget videos that I mean to show at a later time. By creating a Youtube channel, you can hand select videos you want your students to view, and now its all in own place, in chronological order, and the teacher has the power to delete or add videos that best fit whatever content you are learning. SO COOL!!
Another website I discovered was Time Maps. I have used this website before in my class, and they loved it. One student told me it really put things “into perspective for them” AKA very social studies teacher’s dream. Basically, the map changes over time, ranging from 4300 BC to 2005, and the countries change color when under a different rule or government, accompanied with a color code at the bottom of the screen. I have been looking for something along the lines of an interactive map, and I think if you screen shot the map, upload it to a lecture or presentation with a voice over explaining the difference, it would make for an engaging and pretty cool lesson.
Overall, through following Pojer, I have been introduced to TONS of resources that I never would have discovered on my own. In my free time, I love to scroll through her pins on Pinterest. I haven’t gotten the chance to look at her website, although I did give it a glance and it looks like it is filled with a remarkable amount of resources, surprise surprise.
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