Middle and High School Distance Learning Social Studies Resources (Mostly NOT Montana History)

Last week was OPI's second week of hosting "Remote Learning and Sharing Sessions". Bonner middle school teacher and 2019 TOY Dylan Huisken, Power 6-12 social studies teacher Merrick Parnell and I hosted the session on 6-12 Social Studies and will be coming together to host another virtual gathering on Tuesday, April 7, at 2:00 p.m. Find the link to join in at http://opi.mt.gov/Educators/Teaching-Learning/Online-Learning-Resources.

I hope you can join us. In the meantime, Dylan has been posting resources on his web site for his students to use--but who's to say your students can't use them too? Check out both the Distance Learning dropdown and the What We Are Studying Dropdown for links to websites, PowerPoints, videos, articles and more on topics from "prehistory" to ancient Rome to the American Revolution to the Civil War.

Merrick was gracious enough to also put together a list of sites and assignments he's been using to engage his students.

You can find more on OPI's Remote and Online Learning Resources page--including meeting notes for previous sessions (on social studies but also other topics) and a list of all the meetings scheduled for next week (including special meetings for Hutterite colony teachers, low-tech ideas, and using Google Classroom).

Other Ideas Worth Mentioning

Former Colorado TOY, techie, Teaching with Primary Sources guru, and middle school teacher Michele Pierson shared some of the resources she's been turning to. The one-page tutorials on Pear Deck and Screencastify and the free US history resources listed on the Colorado Department of Education webpage seemed particularly useful to me.



You've probably heard by now that Montana PBS is offering educational K-8 programming during school hours on its station. What you may not know is how many remarkable documentaries are available to stream on their website, including several that look good for government classes, including For This and Future Generations (about the 1972 Con Con) and Jailed for Their Words: When Free Speech Died in Wartime America (which I've seen) and Wild by Law and Nature, Back from the Brink: Montana's Wildlife Legacy, and Guns in the Big Sky (which I haven't).

Interested in becoming part of history?

MHS Archives has posted two surveys (one for adults and one for students) about living through this historical time. For COVID-19 diary assignments, check out these from the UC-Berkeley History-Social Science Project. They include high school, elementary school, and SPED versions among others.

Civic Online Reasoning 

I've touted this before but I think it's more important now than ever. Two very smart people recently shared with me the "good news" story of dolphins swimming in the Venice Canal. Sadly, it was yet another example of "fake news." It's true that water in the canal is cleaner now, without the tourists, but the dolphins video they saw was actually taken in southern Italy, not in Venice.

The Civic Online Reasoning curriculum will help your students (and you) learn how to avoid fake news while becoming more internet savvy (knowing that even the most savvy can get caught up sometimes). Even if you can't use the entire curriculum with your students, you might want to have them look at pieces, including videos from the ten episode "Crash Course" Video playlist on "Navigating Digital Information," created by the smart and entertaining John Greene.  (Accessing the curriculum requires registering for a free account. The John Greene videos can be accessed by anyone.)