Finding Primary Sources in the World Digital Library

The World Digital Library is a resource that I started using back in 2009. At that time it was just a small collection of about 1,200 digitized primary source artifacts from libraries around the world. Today, the World Digital Library hosts more than 19,000 digitized primary source artifacts to view and download.

As you'll see in the video embedded below you can search the WDL by date, era, country, continent, topic, and type of resource. But my favorite way to explore the WDL is by browsing through the interactive maps that are available when you click on the globe icon in the site's header. The WDL aims to be accessible to as many people as possible by providing search tools and content descriptions in multiple languages.


Applications for Education
The World Digital Library can be a great resource for anyone that teaches history and or cultural studies. The wealth of image based resources along with the document based resources makes the WDL appropriate for use with most age groups.

How to Check the Accessibility of Your Google Slides

Yesterday afternoon I saw someone on Twitter ask if there is a way to evaluate the accessibility of a slide presentation. My answer was to try Grackle Slides. Grackle Slides is a Google Slides add-on that will evaluate the accessibility of your presentation and give you suggestions on how to improve the accessibility of your presentation. Watch the short video below to see how it works.



Grackle Slides is a companion to the Grackle Docs add-on for Google Documents that I featured last December. Watch my video about Grackle Docs as embedded below.

Alternatives to Google Forms

Earlier this week I answered an email from a reader who was looking for a way to collect "check-in" information from students but didn't want to use Google Forms. Here are the alternatives to Google Forms that I suggested she try.

JotForm
JotForm is a good tool for creating fillable PDFs and online forms for things like course registration, permission slips, and course evaluations. Last week I wrote a detailed overview of JotForm. I made a video that walks you through the features of JotForm from the perspective of a form creator and a form respondent.



Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms has a lot of the features that Google Forms offers. For those who work in schools that have Microsoft 365 accounts, Microsoft Forms provides a good way to create online surveys and quizzes. My short tutorials on Microsoft Forms can be seen here.



Formative
This might not seem obvious at first glance, but Formative could be a good tool to collect quiz and survey responses from students. In Formative you can create an activity in which students answer multiple choice and short answer questions. Formative also lets you create "show your work" questions in which students are given an online whiteboard to draw and type on. Here's my demo of how that works.

Using DocsTeach to Create Online Lessons - Free Webinar Next Week

DocsTeach is a favorite resource of mine for U.S. History teachers and students. I used it and it's predecessor fairly regularly when I was teaching U.S. History. DocsTeach provides an online space where you can create primary source based lessons for your students to complete online or offline. Last fall I published a detailed tutorial on how to create lessons with it. If you'd like some live instruction on how to use it, DocsTeach is hosting a series of free webinars in August.

On August 4th, 6th, 11th, and 13th at 2pm ET DocsTeach staff will host 20 minute webinars about how to use the features of DocsTeach for online instruction. Advanced registration is required in order to participate in the live webinars. Register here.

Five Things I'm Excited About for the New School Year

Yesterday morning I wrote about how I'm preparing for the worst for the new school year and my nervousness about the start of the school year. To balance that post, I think it's a good idea to think about and share what I am looking forward to about the start of the new school year.

Reconnecting with students. 
I'm fortunate to have a program in which students can stay with me for three years if they want to. Most of my students from last year are coming back. A couple of them have been emailing me throughout the summer to tell me about what they're tinkering with and or to ask questions and make suggestions for activities to do in the fall.

Raspberry Pi 4
One of those kids that has been emailing me all summer got an 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 this summer. He's off and running with it. I'm going to have spend some time in August trying to catch up to him before school starts. And if I don't catch up to him, that's okay because I'll readily admit that I have lots to learn and he can teach me.

Phidgets
I wrote about Phidgets yesterday. They're inexpensive sensors and micro-controllers that can be programmed in Java, Python, C#, or Swift. Setting them up is easy. Once set-up kids can tinker with the code to do all kinds of interesting things. You can get a free Phidgets starter kit by filling out a short request form on their education page.

Rebuilding a network
Due to the abrupt end to in-person classes and some miscommunication between the maintenance staff, myself, and administration the wireless and wired networks that were built in my classroom were unceremoniously dismantled before a proper schematic was made. So I'm looking at this as an opportunity to rebuild it better than before.

Seeing my colleagues
Even if we're masked and six+ apart from each other it will still be nice to see them face-to-face again. Other than my immediate family and a few socially distant conversations with neighbors, I haven't had any in-person social interactions since March 13th and I think it's making me a bit nutty.

Disclosure: Phidgets is currently an advertiser on this blog.