Tech Tool of the Month: Story Maker

Story Maker is a simple digital storytelling tool for elementary students to write a story. Students can practice their writing skills, add color, add additional pages, and then save (or print) when finished. Story Maker is part of the ABCya site, offering countless free web games, interactives, and learning experiences.   Grade level Story Maker … read more »

Bringing Historical Events Alive In Your Classroom with Primary Sources

On February 19, 1942, FDR signed Executive Order 9066 which paved the way for Japanese internment camps. Teaching sensitive and complicated topics like this one is made easier with the use of primary sources. In this article entitled Teaching Difficult Topics with Primary Sources from the National Council of the Social Studies journal Social Education, … read more »

What’s the Buzz: Instructional Technology Frameworks Part 1

After the VSTE annual conference, I’ve done a lot of thinking about frameworks. One of the Keynote presentations introduced a framework that was new to me and then questioned the continued use of structures like SAMR. I had to do some reflection, because here at TeachersFirst we use the SAMR model a lot.   I … read more »