How to Find and Create Primary Source Lessons With DocsTeach

DocsTeach has been one of my go-to tools for social studies teachers for many years. Despite that recommendation I've never made a video on how it works, until now. DocsTeach is a free service offered by the National Archives through which you can find primary source lesson activities and create your own activities by using one of thirteen online templates. In the following video I demonstrate how you can use DocsTeach to find primary source lesson activities and or create your own primary source lesson activities. All activities can be completed online even if your students don't have email addresses.

The Practical Ed Tech Podcast Episode #9

On Friday afternoon I recorded the latest episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast. In the episode I shared some news about the future of Free Technology for Teachers, gave a shout-out to Dr. Scott McLeod for this thought-provoking blog post about mobile devices in schools, shared a neat tool for distributing and collecting permission slips, and answered a bunch of questions from readers like you. You can listen to the episode here or on your favorite podcasting platform. The complete show notes are available in this Google Doc.



You can listen to all episodes of the podcast here or find them one of the following podcast networks:

• Google Podcasts
• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• RadioPublic
• Pocket Casts
• Breaker
• Overcast

The Week in Review - Social Studies, Search, and Computer Science

Good morning from Maine where summer is having one last hurrah! After temperatures in the 30's (Fahrenheit) earlier this week it's going to be sunny and 80 degrees today. I plan to get my kids outside to play and soak up the last rays of summer today. I hope that you also have time to get outside and play this weekend.

In the last episode of The Practical Ed Tech Podcast I shared the news that I have taken a job teaching computer science at a local high school. While I get my feet under me with the new courses the posting here will probably be a little slower than normal. But don't worry, I'll be back to full speed here before too long.

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. My Top Twelve Tools for Social Studies Teachers and Students
2. My Approach to Creating Search Practice Activities for Students
3. 5 Features of Google's Advanced Search Menu
4. Another Approach to Creating Search Challenges for Students
5. Ten Free Tools for Creating Mind Maps and Flowcharts - Updated for 2019-20
6. Practical Ed Tech Podcast #8 Featuring Dr. Beth Holland
7. SnackVids - Automatic Creation of Searchable Video Transcripts

Bring me to your school or conference. 
I'm already booking my 2020 workshop and conference schedule. This will be my tenth year of speaking at schools and conferences. Click here to learn how to bring me to your school or conference.

Thank You for Your Support!

• More than 400 of you have participated in a Practical Ed Tech webinar this year. Thank you!
• Book Creator is my favorite tool for making multimedia ebooks.  
• PrepFactory offers free, personalized SAT and ACT prep. 
• University of Maryland, Baltimore County has been supporting this blog for many years.

Other Places to Follow My Work

Besides FreeTech4Teachers.com and the daily email digest, there are other ways to keep up with what I'm publishing. 

• Practical Ed Tech Newsletter - This comes out once per week (Sunday night/ Monday morning) and includes my tip of the week and a summary of the week's most popular posts from FreeTech4Teachers.com.
• My YouTube Channel - More than 15,000 are subscribed to my YouTube channel for my regular series of tutorial videos including more than 300 Google tools tutorials. 
• Facebook - The FreeTech4Teachers.com Facebook page has nearly 450,000 followers. 
• Twitter - I've been Tweeting away for the last twelve years at twitter.com/rmbyrne
• Instagram - this is mostly pictures of my kids, my dogs, my bikes, my skis, and fly fishing.