Civic Learning Made Easy

Thanks for listening to the Tech Tools for Teachers podcast, where each week we talk about a free piece or two of technology that you can use in your classroom. I'm your host, Shanna Martin. I'm a middle school teacher, technology instructional coach from my district,

and I'm our producer and husband, Fuzz Martin. And I'm here to form a more perfect podcast.

Cute. That one did work.

Uh, finding a pun about politics or civics is difficult to do. Remain, uh, tasteful and neutral. Neutral, yes.

But we did find some really cute jokes, so maybe we'll pull those out a little bit. Maybe because there's uh, all kinds of cute things.

Yes. Just doing my civic duty. Yeah. You to form 'em

more. Perfect.

Yes. Run as smoothly as a well-balanced government.

So we're here episode two 20. And we are talking a little bit about civics today and a few resources that I have, but also it's a unit that I'm in teaching right now for social studies. And while I'm going to go through, like I use these sites all of the time and I support my students and I go back and I look and I'm like, how many times have I actually talked the sites that I use on a regular basis? So I thought I would share a few. Today.

Great.

Yeah. It'll be kind of fun. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Here we are to end of October moving into November. We're almost done with first quarter. Wow. Like our year is cranking through

as long as October has felt. It's really quick that you got through that first semester. Yeah. Or God quarter already.

Yeah. It's crazy like time feels slow, like it moves very slowly but also very fast at the same time.

Yeah.

But it's all good. So icis is the first site I am going to talk about. What's interesting is I have talked about it before, a long time ago. I went back to kind of check to see, 'cause I've talked about it like back in episode 35 and then 52 and. The changes that have happened, this site has come so far. Yeah, like so far and is so useful. Whether you're a social studies teacher, history teacher, geography teacher, all good. But also younger grades, whether you have a specific social studies class or if you are just teaching community-based skills or understanding local government, like how, uh, local government's a part of your community or if you're looking at. Different history pieces, like there's just all different resources in this site that are so helpful. So if you go, you can find it several different ways. You can go to like icivics.org. It's technically the site is ed civics.org, so it's ed dot iic vs org and you'll find the things that you need for iCivics there. What I have found is that once you get into iCivics. You sign in as a teacher, so you create an account, it's all free. And then finding what you need. Sometimes they have so many really good resources, you have to search the topics that you want or kinda have an idea of what you're going through to go in. You are welcome to explore the site, but it helps just to kind of a little idea of what you wanna start with. And then it's divided up. So there's elementary school, so there's. If you go to the starting site, you can go to elementary, K five, start sorting through there, middle school, six, eight, and they go through high school, nine 12. You can also choose to search through educational resources. It will give you the breakdown by grade or by type. So if you have specific curriculum units that you're aligning with your standards, it's there. If you're looking for DB Qs. Do you know what a DB Q is?

I do not know what a DB Q is.

So document based question. Okay. Which you'll see a lot on, A CT and AP like, like setting up DB qs. Sure. I mean it goes on all the time, but you're prepping students for some of that. They have DB quests. So it's not only just the document and analyzing it, but it also walks you through certain sections, has a purpose for it, sets up lesson plans with it. And you can use it. I do a lot of times in group work because then they kind of brainstorm how to analyze it together. But it's a great way to analyze founding documents. There are games, lesson plans, specific WebQuests videos, simulations, and then like history detectives. So there's so many different ways you can then choose to learn about iCivics or civics, I should say. And whether this is a lot of US history. 'cause I know I have listeners from all over the place. There are other government resources in there too. So learning about different types of government, you'll find that in there as well. So you can sort by grade, you can sort by like your curriculum. They have professional development for both teachers and for school districts. And what I do as a teacher when I set this up, so there's specific units, like we are just doing founding documents of the United States right now in my class. So there's like investigation declaration and there's a whole game that they can play. But we were using the DBQ Quest to analyze documents. What's cool is every source then as you pull it up, so if I pull up. Something that I've starred also as a teacher, when you have an account, you can add things to favorites, and that's what I do. So that's how I can find it again, because a lot of times there's just so many things I'm like, where to start? So pulling up the resources, you can assign a thing directly into your Google classroom, which is very cool. You can just drop it in. It totally connects to everything. But if you pull up a unit, you can go through the overview, gives you all the information you need, materials. It is broken down by. Like teacher resources and student resources, it will give you some of them. Like the games also have a like a PowerPoint or slides presentation to give you the background and then set up the kids with the game. 'cause their games are not just like click and skip through. They have to read the information and actually apply it and then engage in it. It's almost like simulations. So there's a lot of different pieces to it, and I tell my kids like, this is not just click and go. You have to read and practice and think about it. And they work at a slower pace because it's engaging them in the actual process of what they're learning about the resources. Many of them come in both English and in Spanish, so you're able to support your students' needs, whatever they are. And you're able to go through, like click on, I'm clicking on student documents right now. It'll have some overview information to read. There'll be a sheet if you wanna do a print off in your classroom, or if you wanna just put it on a smart board or a board to engage in. You can write on it while you're there. And then students have their access to everything in front of them. And then it links to, some of them have Kahoot quizzes, some of them connect to Nearpod, and it connects to all different. Types of educational, um, tools that you already use in your classroom, and it works really, really well. Like they're pretty seamless with how you can just integrate it with the things that are already in your classroom with huge collections of resources. So that's really cool.

Yeah.

Are you digging through something right now?

Yeah, I was, I was just looking through a, a number of the, the different things that they have available and, uh, you were absolutely right Dave. Absolutely improve this website compared to where it was when we first did this. In episode, what, what, 20 or something like that.

Yeah, there's like, like 52 and so maybe like 30 something, but we

oh yeah. 35. 52. 69.

Yeah. Like they, there used to be like six games dollars, like 25. Like Yeah. And the, it's not just play a game and learn about it. It is, here are all the pieces. I do branches of power with my students. There's a slideshow we talk about, there's a great analogy with how US government works with sports. Mm-hmm. So you look at the players, the coach and the referee, and then how does that connect to government? Like it's just very user friendly and it's. Easy for students to connect to. It's made obviously for education, and then you have all of these resources you can pick and choose which works best for your classroom. Some students may need a printoff, some students may need, just the digital version. They also have them at different levels, which I appreciate, and not everything is leveled, but they'll have. Certain assignments, they'll have like a word box that might be appropriate for some students and others have just fill in the blank. So again, there's all kinds of resources for your students, and depending on what grade level they're at, it'll tell you it's like, this is great for six, eight and nine 12. Mm-hmm. Or this is great for K five. And so it's laid out really, really well. Yeah. And there's just so many. Yeah. It's definitely had upgrades from. Way back when. Mm-hmm. We first started talking about it.

Yeah. Good job. ICI X.

Yeah. It's just, it's just a great resource for teaching and for supporting students. And again, the kids really, their favorite game I think is to win the White House. They are like, I ran for president and this is what I did. And they have a really good time with it. So it's, it's interesting and it's, it's very engaging for students while being educational and giving lots and lots of. Great resources for teachers and align with, all of the standards. So it's a cool site. If you haven't used it in a while, I suggest you go back to it 'cause it's definitely has a lot of upgrades. And you'll find the scope and sequence right on the site. It'll walk you through everything that you need. So that's all laid out for you as well. Awesome. And yeah, there's just a lot of cool stuff. So it's ed icis.org. And it's just a cool resource and it's worth exploring. Even if you're not a social studies teacher, there's a lot of cool information in there that you could. Bring into your classroom a part of discussion. And it would be very useful and very student friendly.

Sure. Certainly.

Yeah.

And now I know what A DBQ is and it's not barbecue at Dairy Queen.

Yes, that is very true. You learn something new every day.

Yes.

Too funny. Okay. And then the other side I wanted to highlight today is the Center for Civic Education. So this is another great resource. The site itself is civic ed.org, so you gotta kinda keep them straight, but it's C-I-V-I-C-E d.org. And the Center for Civic Education has all types of resources for anybody. Like this is not just specific to schools and classrooms, but there are a number of like. News updates that they go through. It explains all types of, like, you can pull up your state. So this one you can find the center in your own state you can search out and it will do state specific information, which I think is helpful. So that way, you know, like if we pull up Wisconsin in Wisconsin. It tells me the information and it talks about the people that are specific to your state, and then also opportunities for professional learning for teachers. And it has resources for, different like webinars and coordinators. It's all types of resources for teachers and people.

Yep.

If you click on the, we, the People, it talks about, different civic. Organizations. It talks about how it continues, like we, the people come, it's a simulation of congressional hearings of students and testify through a panel of judges and explains like all the different pieces that go along with their civic education program. And then there's resources available that you can go through and check checkout. As you click through it, it goes through like civics, the ci, sorry, the citizen and the constitution. It breaks it down for grade level. And you're able to, find those resources that you need for your classroom. Again, lots of professional learning and so it's just a great resource to help with civic education, not only across the country, but also like state specific. So if you're looking for things specific in your area, you're able to do that. It's not just broad information, which I think is really helpful. And their whole goal is to like. Help create responsible citizens within, um, our country and have lots and lots of resources, which I think is cool.

That is cool.

So it's just a way to support civic education and there's lots of resources and it's state specific, so I thought that would be helpful. So it's not always just the broad coverage of everything.

Yeah. Very nice. So civic ed.org.

Yeah. So there you go.

Wonderful.

All of the things for civic education because it happens to be. The unit I'm teaching right now and when I start looking at things, that's, that's I start sending, like, I feel bad for my staff sometimes. I'm like, Hey, did you see this new upgrade? Or, Hey, did you see this new sheet? Or Hey, I think you do a project on this. This is a be great resource. And so I've been sending out a lot of emails like that lately. Mm-hmm. Just because there's been so many upgrades to these sites and there's just so much information out there that you don't know. It's hard to keep up with everything, so it's kind of nice when you know when the upgrades are there and the cool things to do. Yeah,

exactly.

So there you go.

Very good.

The excitement of civic education.

It is very exciting.

There you go. Episode 2 22

20.

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