Category: 3rd Grade Social Studies

Google Expeditions

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The content for both VR and AR has grown exponentially in the past year, and Google Expeditions is a fantastic resource for students and teachers to gain a broader perspective about a range of topics. For teachers in a classroom, it is very easy to control all student iPads at once while guiding a tour. But even in the absence of a classroom experience, students can independently take advantage of this platform in a variety of ways. You can print off AR “markers” which act as a trigger to show a model in augmented reality, or simply move your device around a specified area until the model appears. For VR, you don’t actually need a VR headset to explore in a meaningful way. The VR content (which is a larger catalog than AR currently) can be viewed by moving your device (tablet or phone) around and exploring the content as if it is all around you.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Google will be phasing out Expeditions and it will no longer be active as of June 2021. It is worth taking advantage of this platform while it exists though, and after it ceases to exist, check out Google Arts and Culture where many of the tours enjoyed in Expeditions will transfer over.

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Students don’t need to be just “consumers” of the content either. You can create your own VR tour in Google Tour Creator (or see that entry on this site to learn more) and upload it into Google Expeditions to view. Using the screen record feature on the computer, tablet, or phone, students can also record their voice while giving a tour of what they have learned or detailing features of an AR model while it appears projected right there in the room with them. There are lots of possibilities for app smashing (combining tech platforms) with this tool.

Rewordify

Rewordify is a great option for differentiating reading content so that different students get the same information while being delivered at their level. It is completely free and there are different avenues for use depending on what you are looking for. If you create a free account, you can take advantage of the more advanced features, but even just visiting the site allows you to plug in text and have it convert it to an easier reading level. For this reason, it can be as useful to younger students as it can older students.

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Padlet is still one of the more dynamic resources you will find today for teachers and students. We have a school subscription to the EDU version so your options for using it are not limited (though the free version is very strong). Padlet basically exists as a digital bulletin board that an entire class can access and collaborate together on at the same time. The most recent updated versions allow you to embed video, documents directly from Google Drive, audio, text, and and more. You can customize backgrounds, sort posts in a variety of ways, and can easily clone existing Padlets so many people can personalize their notes. As a note-taking tool, it is a fantastic option and you can customize fonts and features as you would in any other digital document. Students as young as third grade have had success using it, though obviously the older the grade level, the broader the possibilities. Check out some of our own student and teacher examples below!

CLICK HERE to see how 3rd grade student group used Padlet for taking notes:

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CLICK HERE to explore a 4th grade note-taking Padlet

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CLICK HERE to explore how 3rd grade teachers have used Padlet to present a lesson:

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Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality is perhaps even more powerful than VR in an education setting because every student can have the same experience at the same time. It can easily be added into an existing lesson and be experienced concurrently with class lecture, group work, research, and more.

Imagine frog dissection without the smell! Students can look at the human body and dive into layers of a cell. If you have a topic you teach, there is an augmented reality visual experience you can draw on to reinforce learning. There are also numerous ways for students to take advantage of existing material, add to it, and incorporate it into their own project to showcase their learning.

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Virtual Reality

VR has long been considered an extension of the video game industry and the assumption is that it is purely entertainment (or worse, excess screentime strapped to your face). However, the educational ramifications of putting students into space, geographically anywhere on the planet including in the oceans, in the midst of a battle fought long ago etc… are pretty powerful. Even as a short intro to a larger lesson, VR is a fantastic way to engage students and give them a more visceral learning experience to complement other more traditional components of teaching a unit.

Schools that have headsets, and can take advantage of apps like Discovery VR and Google Expeditions to instantly take students anywhere. Screen Shot 2018-08-23 at 10.41.57 AMScreen Shot 2018-08-23 at 10.41.37 AM

Additionally, we have a top of the line virtual reality headset and equipment that lives in the tech training room. Although only one student at a time can actually navigate with the headset, classmates can watch on the big screen while they await their turn working on another “learning station”.

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Apple CLIPS

CLIPS is a relatively new app (also a site) that was released late last year. It is a FANTASTIC alternative to iMovie, especially for our lower school students as it allows for an engaging, visual project but can be condensed into a one-off lesson. It is simple in its layout and can be used in a variety of ways. From narrating and animating a story or poem, to labeling parts of the ecosystem, to breaking down the cause and effect of a moment in history, it is all very easy and engaging for our students. It can also be a powerful tool for our youngest learners because of its ability to show the words you speak in “real time”. The possibilities for students to be able to narrate and illustrate their own books with words that fly out on the screen in any style they choose is really exciting. Clips is available on all school iPads (including the Library if students would like to check one out for a project).

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Check out a student-created example below!

 

 

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BrainPop Jr.

This is both a site as well as an app that is on our students’ iPads. BrainPop Jr. could really live in any category on this tech resources site as it contains videos and interactive lessons across the academic spectrum. However, the resources surrounding social studies are particularly useful as it provides one more source of student-friendly information about a range of research topics. We have a school account so you can check your email for login username and password info.
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KAHOOT

Chances are, you are already familiar with Kahoot and are actively using it with your class for fun review sessions. If you are unfamiliar, it is a quiz making platform that has an interactive student/teacher interface. There are many ways to personalize it beyond its surface features. It is also worth noting that it is available on all library iPads as an app, which can be useful in groups or as a more mobile option when reviewing for a test.
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Click HERE for a video overview

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Teaching Tolerance

You are likely already familiar with this fantastic resource but may not have visited their website. There are tons of updated resources that pair well with teaching literature or social studies.
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FLIPQUIZ

FLIPQUIZ is a resource for making Jeopardy-style games. It doesn’t link you to student responses, in the same way, some of the other platforms like Kahoot or Quizlet do, but it is a good option to have on hand, particularly for students that want to use this as a component to a presented lesson.
Click HERE try out a live demo template
Click HERE for a video overview
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FLIPGRID

Flipgrid is a popular platform for sharing and valuing individual student voice. As the teacher, you “proctor” in a sense and students submit responses to lessons, homework, discussions, chapters, videos etc…
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Click HERE for a quick video overview.
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EDpuzzle

EDpuzzle is a program that lets you easily create lessons/mini-lessons and quizzes that incorporate video clips that you and/or students can annotate. It is a solid tool for both teacher designed and student created lessons.

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Fantasy Map Generator

This is a map making resource where students can create their own fantasy world. It is one way to incorporate coding into a project where you want students to create a utopia/distopia and establish a government or teach about the flow of a planet’s resources. However, students can also just edit within the map and options menus without coding if it makes more sense for your lesson. To take it a step further, students can first generate and re-name a map here, and then import it into another mapping program to mark up, or even beyond that, bring it into coSpaces to get a “virtual view”.
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Click HERE for a few additional helpful resources you can adapt from a project some of our students used to create their own.
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Google Tour Builder

Google Tour Builder continues to become more powerful in its ability to create interactive maps and presentations, blending a multimedia map-making platform within Google Earth. Virtual reality is at the forefront of some of the biggest additions to the latest version. NOTE: The Tour Builder platform will be discontinued and merged into Google Arts and Culture in June 2021

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NewseumED

The Newseum has a really robust education branch that contains a huge volume of maps, primary sources and more. It also is a fantastic resource for teaching students about how to evaluate news and quality of information.
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Tiki-Toki Digital Timelines

This site is a powerful way to help students gain perspective of time and space. There are multiple views that you can toggle between and many students can collaborate to create a master timeline
Click HERE to check out a timeline created by 4th graders during their study of explorers.
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2D View
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3D View
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ThingLink

ThingLink is another option for independent student projects, or unit wrap-ups for students to show what they have learned. Click HERE to examine the picture below to see how one could embed info into an animated gif. There are unlimited possibilities for using this platform either in teaching, student learning, assessment, and lesson enhancement.
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CoSpaces

CoSpaces could actually live anywhere on this menu as it is more a platform whereScreen Shot 2018-08-07 at 10.32.32 PM can create a 3-D world embedding any content they wish. One particularly powerful possibility is having students create a virtual museum, either collectively or individually.
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Students wishing to code may do so as it can use drag and drop for the non-coder, block-based coding for the novice coder, and java for the advanced coder. As a cherry on top, students can explore their world, museum, etc… using a virtual reality headset. 
 
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Wonderopolis

Wonderopolis is a great site for students to explore independently, or as a class “warm-up” as it rotates a new thought-provoking question a day. There is a ton of information, videos, etc… on a huge range of topics.
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