On Australia Day it’s appropriate to talk about teaching History and Geography well in primary schools

In recent posts and links on various websites there has been intense interest in innovative ways to teach History and Geography to primary school students*. It seems important to flag this on Australia Day, and at the start of a new school year, when many teachers will be stepping into teaching History and Geography as separate subjects in the Australian Curriculum for the first time.

One excellent History technology example drawn to my attention by well-known Australian archeologist and historian Dr Louise Zarmati was a blog post by Miss Amy Kingsley who teaches at Russell Scott Primary School in Manchester in the UK. Although Amy’s context is the UK what she recommends has applicability for teachers in Australian primary schools.

Amy has written a piece that will be published soon by the Victorian History Teachers Association and she has titled it Shaping the iHistorians of the future: engaging children in history through technology. Don’t miss it.

In the article Amy gives examples of various content areas and how they can be enhanced through getting students to use their mobile devices and some terrific apps. For example, when studying the Romans she suggests using iMovie to make a trailer, and another app Skitch that is useful to annotate over photos, pdf documents, maps and web pages.

Book creator is another app that Amy mentions and one that I have used with young students to make a simple biography. Amy’s students publish their class work on You Tube

Another original idea Amy details is Thinglink in the context of her class’s fascination with the life and accomplishments of Emperor Hadrian. They wanted to know more about Hadrian’s Wall, so they used this app to publish sentences about the wall, which are then published to the Thinglink website or embedded into a class blog for parents to view. They also used Audioboom to make radio ads persuading people to visit Hadrian’s Wall. What great ideas! In our context this could be a trip to Uluru?

Another suggestion Amy gives and one that I have used with my pre-service teachers #101582HSIE is QR codes. QR code trails are great for history treasure hunts and to switch primary school students onto thinking historically. Artefacts can give a code and then analysed using a rubric that pays attention to where the artefact comes from and making predictions of what it was used for?

Amanda Fox is an extraordinary social sciences teacher in the US who is taking this a step further with using Aurasma and some other edgy apps in her teaching, and she would like teachers in Australia to consider entering their students’ work in the upcoming STEM film festival. Great opportunity to create international history and geography tech pals.

Pic collage is another great little app for being creative once you have taken a photo. Students in particular very young students in Early Stage 1 for example can annotate them with facts and information about a subject. There are other good app suggestions like History: Maps of the World and Back in Time that you might like to check. Don’t forget Catherine Smyth’s Scoop It Site and the HTA website too. The NSW State Library has created deep, substantial units of work based on a key inquiry question— they are a must see.

Teachers in primary schools have always enjoyed teaching Geography and this won’t change with the Australian Curriculum — being able to integrate technology adds extra zest to what is possible. What geography artefacts are you going to use? What excursions or field trips have you planned for 2015? Have a look at some of the new ACARA work samples.

Geocaching is something that we promote in #101582HSIE and you might like to see what the NSW group is up to here. Another key resource is GeogSpace — it’s really all you need to teach primary geography really well. The text that I use to supplement my support to pre-service and in-service primary teachers is here. Apps that are excellent for teaching geography include the wonderful Gapminder and Google Earth.

I am not a fan of publishing extensive lists of apps as they quickly become obsolete and the choice of app needs to fit the teaching context, the teacher’s pedagogical purpose and learning objectives — but these are some ideas to get you thinking as the new year starts. Go well!

*A website of resources and other excitements to support the upcoming publication of the High Possibility Classrooms book is under construction — watch out for it in the coming weeks.