More Resources and Hints for Teaching Online

OPI is hosting Open Office Hours March 23-26, where folks will be discussing and sharing distance learning resources for a variety of subjects and grade levels! Check out subject areas, times and simply click on the zoom link, or call in, to join the meeting! I'll be co-hosting three social studies sessions (one for K-5, one for 6-8, and one for 9-12) on March 24, so please come with ideas to share. These sessions are designed to provide teachers from across the state to brainstorm, share what's working, and ask fellow teachers for ideas and help!

OPI has also created a Online Learning website, where they are sharing information for teachers and students--including information about online privacy considerations.  

Here's what else I know:

A teacher contacted me to let me know that her school had blocked YouTube on the chrome books they lent students, so her students couldn't access the Montana Mosaic videos. About five minutes later, the Education Director at PBS contacted me about the resources they were making available on their site--among them Montana Mosaic!

Bite-size clips of other Montana history related videos are also available on PBS Learning Media (some with lesson plans), including

• C. M. Russell and the American West
• The Fort Peck Dam 
• Indian Relay
• Before There Were Parks
• The Bozeman Trail

Glasgow Middle School teacher Laurie Enebo had this to say about the Montana: Stories of the Land online tests:

I have always given the tests as open-book, but I have also required the page number where they found their answer(s) within the chapter. The students can narrow their search by using control F on their device while they are in the online textbook and typing in key words from the test questions. I provide the page numbers for my Sped students.

Elementary school teachers: I'm wondering if you can do anything with Songs from the Indian Reading Series (on YouTube) and the Indian Reading Series books themselves? (Or is computer and internet access too much of a problem?) Links to all are in this OPI Unit.

Billings elementary librarian Ruth Ferris is asking her fourth and fifth graders to keep diaries, writing one to four sentences a day, noting that this is a historic time, just as the 1918 flu epidemic was. She plans to share quotes from 1918 diaries with her students and provide daily prompts, both of which she will post on her blog for other teachers to use if they wish. Ruth has also gathered primary source resources on the 1918 flu epidemic in Montana, which she has posted to the TPS [Teaching With Primary Sources] Teachers Network. To access these you have to set up an account with TPS, but it is free. Among the resources she posted is a link to A Fluey Diary, which was written by an MSC (now MSU) student, during the 1918 flu, which I think is appropriate for high school students. If you have your students read this and come up with questions about it, would you share them with me so I can share them out? 

Speaking of flu, I liked this Library of Congress lesson plan and primary source set, "Pandemic and Civic Virtue: The Red Cross and the Influenza Epidemic of 1918."

Glenn Wiebe has suggestions on his blog of resources--both tips for online teaching and good websites (like Doc Teach from the National Archives that you can use.)

Keep your suggestions coming! This is a crazy time for all of us, and I'm eager to do whatever I can to support you as you support your students!