Primary Access: Projects with Primary Sources

The University of Virginia has established a free site for teachers to use where students can create movies and storyboards with primary sources.  It's called Primary Access. 

One of the reasons I really like this site is the fact that a teacher can create classes and assign students activities to do with the plethora of primary sources available on the site. After students make their assignment, the teacher can view it on the primary access site.  Everything is in one place.  It's so easy to do.

When one creates an account, the directions for adding classes and students are simplified and detailed.  Making assignments are also easy to do.

I can see this being used in a large variety of courses.  Social Studies, Language Arts, Science and Foreign Language definitely, but even some other courses could find value with this site.

I decided that this is going to be one of the tip sheets I share with colleagues this school year because many of them can use this in their classroom.  I think it will be a great PBL tool.

Send your class a video email

Have you gone to a special conference and met someone you wish you could share with your students?  What about a trip that you took somewhere during Spring Break that was a great content related journey you think students need to see?  There is a site you there called eyejot where you can record video and email it directly to your students.

Eyejot has several options for use, the free version lets you send 50 emails of a 5 minute video. That means you can share an experience with 50 students!   You have an unlimited number of messages sent as well.

Due to the limited number of emails you can send, you may have to get creative if you teach a lot of sections of the same class, but, with unlimited messages, you can record different segments of the video to share with students.

There is an app you can use on iOS as well.