Advantages of Integrating Technology
Integrating technology into teaching has become very common in classrooms in the 21st century. Technology-based strategies that have been incorporated into teaching social studies have helped us discover and understand the world and it's people better (Roblyer, 2016). One advantage of integrating technology into social studies instruction is having to ability to go on virtual field trips. Roblyer states that virtual field trips enables students to visit places online that they might not have the ability to experience in real life. There are an abundance of virtual field trips available on the internet. Teachers are able to search a topic that is relevant to what their class is learning about, and they can easily take their class on a virtual field trip to further explore. One of the many website that offers virtual field trips is Google Expeditions. This technology can be easily accessed!
Disadvantages of Integrating Technology
One disadvantage of integrating technology into teaching social studies is that technology materials are more focused on the content areas that students are tested on. Therefore, teachers are forced to search for inexpensive resources. Furthermore, since there is not as much emphasis and content for social studies as there are other topics, it is a challenge for teachers to meaningfully address social studies (Roblyer, 2016). While resources are difficult to find for social studies, some free websites that can be incorporated into social studies instruction to benefit the knowledge of students in social are website such as Time Toast and Glogster.
Specific Activities and Programs
Some specific program from the readings that would be useful in social studies instruction is Geospatial technologies such as Google Earth to view the world through data sets such as population, roads, and earthquake activity (Roblyer, 2016). This allows students to gain a new perspective of the world. An activity that would be useful in teaching social studies is digital storytelling. Through this, students can be assigned an important historical figure. Students can teach their classmates about this figure through digital storytelling by using images and audio. Students can "become" this character and record themselves doing things that this person would do in their everyday life. These activities would have to describe the figure in some way and explain how they are important to history. Students also gain a sense of the world around them by doing this.
Roblyer (2016)says Social Studies provides coordinated, systemic study drawing upon diciples as anthropology, archeology, economics, geography, history, law, philosophy, political science and many others (336). This relates to your Time Toast, I LOVE IT. It is so creative and fun, kids will love it! Great post Katie!
ReplyDeleteI love the virtual field trips and the excitement that it adds to learning about a new place, experts, and artifacts! (Roblyer, 2016) Roblyer also discusses the advantages of virtual field trip technology integrated into the lesson by allowing more students to attend the "field trip" and having access to the information. It's a win-win for everyone! Nice work, Katie!
ReplyDeleteI love your post Katie! Field trips are one of my favorite parts of being a teacher and it really is a shame we can only go on 2 or 3 a year, but with virtual field trips we can go any day! Technology provides powerful learning tools for engaging students (Robyler 2016). Students need to be engaged to actively learn, make connections, and put what they learn into context. Technology gives teachers the tools they need to provide the students with opportunities to be engaged during learning.
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