Mission US and Think Fast App

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR! If you check in to my blog often, thank you for following my posts this year. I hope they have helped you add technology to your classroom in a meaningful way. I have several new projects in the pipeline for the upcoming year, but I will continue to share my techKNOW with you as much as possible. Each time I take on something new, I just consider my classroom getting bigger. As I begin facilitating online courses through WVLearns, I hope to continue to share my love for connecting teachers with technology and opportunities with even more educators!

That being said...here's a great interactive website for social studies that you can use to engage your students when you come back from your winter break! Mission US has a video game vibe that sends you on a journey through history. Students get to "choose their own adventure" as they play one of two quests. "Crown or Colony" follows the trials of an apprentice in Boston around the time of the Revolutionary War. Students will learn about American Revolution events and landmarks as they help Nate make decisions about which side to join in the war. If you teach the American Revolution, introducing this to your students is a must!

"For Crown or Colony" is the original interactive created by Mission US. More recently they have added the second one, "Flight to Freedom!" This one centers around slave Lucy King and her path to freedom. It has the same choose your own adventure aspect as "For Crown or Colony," only students learn about life on a plantation and escape on the Underground Railroad.

In both games, students earn badges as an incentive for completing tasks and collect "smartwords" (vocabulary highlighted in each mission). To keep a log of your progress and to continue your games at another time, you and your students can create accounts (neither of which require you to submit an e-mail account). There are also educator guides for each mission as well.

Mission US also has a free app (both for iPad and Android) called Think Fast. It is basically two separate true and false quizzes that test you on the historical facts from "For Crown or Colony" and "Flight to Freedom." Since it's free, you have nothing to loose, and your students may enjoy racing against the clock to test their knowledge. Other that that...EH, there's not much to it! The Mission US website, however, it a fantastic way to put your students in the role of a historical figure!

http://www.mission-us.org/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mission-us-think-fast!-about/id566607316?mt=8

President's Day Websites

Since I love history and it's Valentine's Day, I thought I'd share two interactive websites on George Washington and Abraham Lincoln that I'm rather sweet on (the websites that is, not the presidents ; ). Hopefully you read this in time to incorporate it into your instruction before President's Day!

Discover the Real George Washington is the most awesome, comprehensive, interactive timeline ever! Developed by Mount Vernon and based on a traveling exhibit of his life, it basically brings the field trip to the classroom through cartoons, video, and pictures of Washington - all in a chronological, organized format. Students love learning about the truth behind the myths about George, his teeth (you even get to see how they made his dentures!), Martha, and his role in developing espionage strategies during the Revolutionary War - which, you will find, is incredibly cool. Your class will love it. It's a great site to show on an interactive whiteboard as a class, or have your students explore it in the computer lab. Students up through middle school would enjoy this website; although the reading and wording is above the primary grades, they would still enjoy the cartoons and some of the videos on the timeline.

Abraham Lincoln's Crossroads is for fifth grade and up. Unless you have already covered the Civil War in your classroom, you may want to wait to share this one with your class. That being said, this is my favorite website created by the National Constitution Center. President Lincoln "talks" you through the decisions he had to make during his political career. Students get to decide what they think Lincoln should do - and then find out the actual outcome. Along the way, other prominent historical figures are introduced, such as Stephen Douglas, Horace Greely, and Frederick Douglass, to name a few. It's takes a while to get through Lincoln's life, and there is a lot of reading involved. While you could introduce it in the classroom, students would probably get more out of it by going through it independently. The website a great way to review the major points in Lincoln's presidency and the Civil War. There is a broadband and a low-bandwith version of this website to choose from; it you want the animated, interactive version, choose the broadband.

Hope you elect these web resources as your February favorites!

http://discovergeorgewashington.org/

http://constitutioncenter.org/lincoln/#