National Archives DocTeach

Full Description

What is it? The DocsTeach app was formed in partnership with the United States National Archives and the National Archives Foundation as a tool for helping students understand and interpret historical sources.

What are the first steps? Go to www.docsteach.org/register to create your account. You'll be asked for your basic information and what areas of history or social studies you teach.

How do you use it? Once you activate your account using your email, you will be brought to the main page where there are ultimately three different areas to explore.
- "Explore Primary Source Documents" - This page brings you to a general search engine, similar to a library catalog search, where students can search for thousands of primary source documents within the National Archives. Students can either search for a specific document they have in mind, such as the Articles of Confederation, or can simply do a keyword search for a topic they are interested in, such as "immigration." Once they select a document, they will be given general information about the document, photographs of the original document, and written text of the document (if available). This is particularly helpful for documents with handwritings that are difficult to read. This area of the app appears to be very useful toward research papers and projects where primary sources are required.
- "Find and Use Activities" - Here, you can search for activities already created by other teachers. For example, a quick search for "Articles of Confederation" brings up multiple activities that have students analyze certain areas through simple text input, and others that are as interactive as clicking and dragging elements onto a "strengths and weaknesses" scale. This is very easy to figure out.
- "Create Fun & Engaging Activities" - This area, unfortunately, is not as easy to figure out. The page takes you through step-by-step on creating your own primary document activity. However, there is ultimately no template, and you must create the whole page from top to bottom. While it gives you options to add documents, different tools (such as the scale discussed earlier), etc. it is not very clear where to click, and would take some time to figure out. However, it would be a great resource for a teacher who is up to the challenge.

How do my students use it? If your students are simply using the primary source document explorer, they simply log into the app and search. If you would like them to do an activity, you must either create or choose an activity for them to do and save it to your profile. Click the "My Activities" tab to retrieve your classroom code. When students log into the app, they have an option to input the code. The activities you selected will then appear, and students can begin working.

What are the constraints? This app works on iPads only, and does not work on iPhones or Android devices. However, students can use the desktop version by going to www.docsteach.org. Another issue is that the program does not allow you to track student achievement, progress, or completion, meaning it would be a poor homework assignment unless they were given a worksheet to fill out with it.

Final Thoughts? I would highly recommend for research or for an in-class activity. However, creating your own activity is cumbersome, and it cannot measure completion or any other data besides for the students' own knowledge.