Sadly, in the era of No Child Left Behind, the teaching of Social Studies became an afterthought. Since in most states it wasn’t tested like Language Arts and Math were, it got short shrift in school schedules. Indeed, in many districts, it was subsumed into other subjects and wasn’t taught as a discrete subject at all.
But Social Studies, which includes the topics of history, geography, civics, and economics, is hugely important. Without an informed citizenry, a country cannot function effectively. And for English Language Learners, many of whom are immigrants, learning about the history and culture of their new country is crucial to successfully adjusting to their new life. Even for first-generation and other ELLs, it’s important to learn about the origins, concepts, and customs of the country they live in.
Social Studies was my favorite subject both as a student and a teacher. I loved teaching about U.S. American culture when I worked at universities in Asia and about U.S. and world history and geography when I taught ELLs in Massachusetts. My ESL Social Studies courses for middle schoolers were the classes I most enjoyed teaching and it’s why the majority of resources in my TpT store have a Social Studies focus.
So I am very pleased to announce that Laurah, my co-host from Tools for Teachers by Laurah J, and I will be discussing Tech Tools for Teaching Social Studies for the October #ELLEdTech chat, which is this coming Sunday, October 21st. The focus will be on social studies in general, such as geography and history; we’ll leave civics and economics for future chats. As usual, the chat will start at 4:00pm Pacific, 7:00pm
Eastern, and 11:00pm UTC time. Below are the details.
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| Join us — All educators are welcome! Source: The ESL Nexus |
Schedule and Questions
7:00 = Introduction: Tell us your name, location, level/grade and subject taught. #ELLEdTech
7:05 = Q1: What tech tools do you use to help your students learn Social Studies, Geography or History? #ELLEdTech
7:13 = Q2: How do these tools help students learn about Social Studies, Geography or History? #ELLEdTech
7:21 = Q3: What are the advantages & benefits of using these tech tools for teaching about Social Studies, Geography or History? #ELLEdTech
7:29 = Q4: Are there any cons or drawbacks teachers or students might have when using these tools? #ELLEdTech
7:37 = Q5: What advice do you have for teachers who want to use technology to help ELLs learn Social Studies, Geography or History? #ELLEdTech
Starting at 7:05, @ESOL_Odyssey or @The_ESL_Nexus will post questions
every 8 minutes using Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. to identify the questions and the
hashtag #ELLEdTech.
to shorten your link so it can be included in your tweet. Just click
one of those links, paste the longer link in the app’s box to shorten it
for Twitter, then paste the shortened link into your tweet. If you
have relevant images, we encourage you to post them, too.
Make sure your twitter feed is set to “public.” (And do remember that
Twitter is completely public; that means anyone–students, parents,
administrators–may see what you tweet.)
welcome to let your teacher friends who might be interested in
joining us know about this Twitter chat. We look forward to chatting with you on Sunday!
