S'Cool Tools of the Week: iCivics Lesson Plans, US News Map, Classtag

S'Cool Tools

S'Cool Tools of the Week: iCivics Lesson Plans, US News Map, Classtag

Apr 4, 2016

TOO COOL (PERFECT FOR SCHOOL): We've got our favorite edtech teacher and administrator tools for the week right here, as highlighted in our Instruct newsletter. By the way—got a favorite S’Cool Tool you like to use? We would love to hear and share your recommendations! If you’ve got a tool that makes you or your students sing from the proverbial mountaintops, fill out this form to let us know. It might just get featured! Note: If we have not appended a privacy flag to a tool’s description, it does not collect personally identifiable information. If a tool collects personal information, parents or educators should create an account for users under 13.

Free!--iCivics Lesson Plans—iCivics may have made the aforementioned election game, but that’s not all the nonprofit offers. iCivics’ suite of free lesson plans and curriculum units cover topics like the Constitution, often offering specific iCivics games as complements. Each lesson is part of a larger unit; a total of 19 bundles of lesson plans include “Civil Rights,” “The Judicial Branch” and “Foundations of Government.” Privacy flag: To download lessons from iCivics, teachers must register by providing their email addresses, school names and school zip codes.

Free!US News Map—A geotagged, searchable archive of American news stories from 1836 to 1925. Search for key terms and phrases to see a heatmap of how often those terms appeared in news stories throughout the states. To delve deeper, students can click on the map and examine the specific newspapers from the time period that mention the terms.

Free!Classtag—A teacher’s scheduling tool for school events and parent-teacher conferences. Teachers can set up a calendar that allows parents to choose meeting times, and teachers can also publicize information about an upcoming event (time, place, number of volunteers needed, etc). In addition to these core features, teachers can make requests for donations or volunteers. Privacy flag: To use Classtag’s scheduling features with parents, teachers must enter the email addresses of parents. Classtag asks that teachers register with their email addresses and the subjects they teach.

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