“Beep, beep, beep”, the small black box chirps. The student rolls over in her bed and picks up the box. With a swipe of a finger she reviews events in the lives of her favorite celebrities. She taps to read more about events that capture her attention. She scrolls through a list of opinions of readers from around the world. She sends a link to the article to her friends to get their opinions. She clicks a few more links to learn more about the background of some particularly shocking developments. The device chirps again and she gets out of bed to start her day.
21st century students who have access to the internet have access to the world. They can know about an event that occurred on the other side of the world minutes after it happened. They can interact with people from all over the world. The challenge for social studies teachers is to guide students to use the opportunities that technology provide in productive ways that help them achieve meaningful learning in social studies classrooms. Carefully Integrating technology into social studies classrooms is an effective way to create meaningful learning activities for students.
Technology gives students opportunities to consume and curate social studies content from diverse sources. Classroom teachers, curriculum directors, and textbook authors are frequently influenced by their own biases as they determine what to include in any given social studies lesson. Using a variety of internet resources, teachers can give students access to articles that represent multiple perspectives on a given issue. These resources need not always be print-based and may include interactive webpages, video or audio files, photographs, and maps. Students can read original interviews, watch footage of historical events, analyze historical photographs, and listen to historical speeches in the original voices. Teachers could implement Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences by allowing students to focus more on activities that compliment their innate abilities.
Technology gives social studies students opportunity to collaborate with their peers and with people in different places who represent diverse perspectives. Students can use digital communication tools to contribute to group projects or class discussions from home. These tools also allow students to communicate with students, teachers, or professionals in other regions of their country or the world. Students can engage in conversations with individuals who think differently about events because of where they live.
Technology gives social studies students opportunities to synthesize their learning into meaningful projects that can be shared with classmates and broader online audiences. Projects that ask students to evaluate and synthesize information into new forms elevate their level of thinking to the highest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Technology gives students opportunities to create such projects in ways that are engaging and creative. According to the NCSS, social studies curriculum should be meaningful. Projects gain meaning when students can publish them to be viewed by a broader audience. Teachers can use technology to provide places for students to publish to appropriate audiences.
Research supports integration of technology into social studies classrooms. The MITTEN project found that, “The planned integration of technology positively affected student learning in K-12 classrooms by increasing the level of student interest. The use of electronic resources also improved the quality of the research conducted by both students and teachers” (Taylor, 2006, p.16). However, researchers have also found that, “The importance of keeping learning outcomes, targeted by classroom technology projects, simple and focused should be given emphasis in teacher education and school practice.” (Debele, 2012, p. 297) Teachers must create activities that integrate technology in the social studies classroom while making sure that those projects are carefully designed to meet simple and focused learning outcomes. This will allow teachers to harness the potential of technology while limiting the potential for technology to lead students off course. Learning goals should be clearly presented to the students so that they can be free to maximize the potential of the technology to help them meet those learning goals.
References
Debele, M., & Plevyak, L. (2012). Conditions for Successful Use of Technology in Social Studies Classrooms. Computers In The Schools, 29(3), 285-299. doi:10.1080/07380569.2012.703602
Taylor, J., & Duran, M. (2006). Teaching Social Studies with Technology: New Research on Collaborative Approaches. History Teacher, 40(1), 9-25.
Emily Pensinger 