Site of the Week: Go SocialStudies Go

Go Social Studies Go! is an amazing resource for Social Studies teachers. This website has numerous different educational videos and explanations on topics ranging from global regions to U.S. history. Almost each resource has a written explanation and an accompanying video, which is extremely useful especially for teachers who are looking to differentiate their presentations of information. As our classes comprised of  heterogenous populations, we must make every attempt to curtail our lesson meet our students diverse needs, and this site provides quite a bit of assistance in accomplishing such a goal.

Site of the Week: Brain Pop

 Brain Pop is a wonderfully useful educational website for elementary and middle school teachers.  Two animated  characters, Tim and Moby teach the lessons through short scenarios.  Additionally the site has tutorials and webinars to allow teachers to become more familiar with the  site. This site can be integrated in lessons quite easily.  The website contains numerous printables and many other resources for teachers.The site catches students' attention through the creative use of animation. Despite cover such seemingly boring topics as as parts of speech, grammar,  and research methods, the students remain engaged thanks to the animated videos.  This is a must use for any elementary or middle school educator.

Site of the Week

History Site of the Week

50states.com is a very useful Social Studies website. Not only is the site accessible for students, but it provides a lot of information from which educators can create interactive and challenging lessons. The website is easy to navigate and provides comprehensive information about states. From fun facts to city guides, this website has it all! I would highly recommend it to any elementary, middle, or high school teacher. This website is not only useful to a teacher who is covering geography, this website can be used for anything. If an educator is looking for a way to give students additional enrichment about an area or region, they need only send them to this website. 

A potential drawback to this website is it’s lack of video resources. It does not provide any kind of links to information videos like those found on the History channel’s website. Perhaps the web masters can team up with history.com to include pertinent clips from “How the States Got their Shapes”. 

Site of the Week

Site of the Week: Ad*Access   

Duke University’s Ad*Access is an extraordinarily useful website for Social Studies teachers at both the middle and high school levels. This niche website provides educators with a wealth of primary source materials to incorporate in their U.S. History classes. The website allows users free access to hundreds of advertisements from 1915 through 1955. Additionally, it provides the user with a timeline that charts majors events and fun facts from the aforementioned 40 year span of U.S. History. As the era in which the site focuses is a pivotal time in our nations history, this site is a must have for any Social Studies teacher’s cache. 

Despite it’s numerous wonderful qualities, Ad*Access does contain some drawbacks. The most notable being; it’s a niche website. What is meant by this statement is that the focus of the site is great for those teaching U.S. History II (Civil War-Modern Era). Unfortunately, for  History teachers working with World History, or U.S. History I (Exploration- The Civil War), the site has absolutely no redeeming value Additionally, for those teaching U.S. History II to the Primary and Middle Grades  the archives will be utterly useless as their students will be unable to analyze the material in great detail.

With each day that passes, another education professional, leading researcher, or government official comes up with a new way to enhance student learning. Check out what one school in New Jersey is doing to help their students. Thanks to NBC New York for their report!

Site of the Week

Site of the Week


Today's site of the day is History.com. Run by the History Channel, this website provides educators invaluable resources including; videos; documents, pictures, and interactive maps. Additionally, it contains numerous episodes of it's regularly scheduled television shows for you to watch at the end of a long day in the classroom.