Technology in the Social Studies Classroom

I can't stress enough the importance of bringing technology into the social studies classroom, especially for teachers of the middle grades. Pictures are the most important tools, besides videos, for my seventh-graders. Most children are visual learners, so pictures and videos keep them engaged and help them make connections between concepts. This nine weeks, my students have been learning about pollution in the Ganges and Yangtze Rivers of Southeastern Asia. Without pictures of what water pollution looks like, and what the actual rivers themselves look like, and of the suffering caused by pollution, I'm not sure they would care much about such far-away topics at all. And so there's very little chance they would actually have learned about them.
Far away and long ago seem to be the most commonly-associated phrases with social studies. It's tough to get students to find relevance, for example, with the cultures of ancient West Africa if they are, say, Hispanic (or of any other ethnicity not related to West Africa) , and living in the twenty-first century American South. Students are more generally interested in the here and now, absorbed into and trying so hard to keep up with their own culture that social studies topics of history and geography can take a back seat. As social studies teachers, one thing we can do to help here is to bring the places, people, and times of content standards into the classroom. We can do this through videos, photo journals, simple photo slide shows, documentaries, and web quests. There are so many technological resources available, even if your school is limited in funding. Be creative, be thoughtful, and inspire your students to do the same. Aim to help them get real meaning out of what you spend your days teaching in social studies. Social studies already gets a bad rap in so many districts that it's a wonder it still exists in some places. Let's not let that happen wherever we are; there is real, critical value in social studies teaching & learning and it's up to us to champion for it...help yourself out with technology!!!