The Best Social Studies Websites.

Ferlazzo, L. (2008, August 1). The Best Social Studies Websites. Classroom Tech Learning. Retrieved December 8, 2010, from http://www.techlearning.com/article/14290

            This is a list of what Mr. Ferlazzo considers the best Social Studies websites.  Two of the 19 sites listed are pay sites.  Two others are sites in which students can track their carbon footprint to see how transportation or other social activities affect their footprints.  There are two that are geography and map quizzes, and others that use ZIP codes or places on the map to retrieve demographic information about certain neighborhoods.  The top rated site was HippoCampus.org, which is from a textbook publisher that covers numerous subjects, even U.S. History.  The site offered lessons and PowerPoint presentation for a number topics in its history text.
            This was a useful article and a good resource for social studies teachers to bring outside sources of information into the class.  Looking through the HippoCampus.org website I notice that it offered a number of presentations on lesson topics.  This could be useful for teachers looking to get additional resources outside of their textbooks.  Another site that was mentioned was hotpads.com. This site was designed for real estate buyers and sellers to research available rentals or real estate purchases, but had interesting filters to find median ages and incomes of areas.  Teachers and students could use this site to research information about areas in which events took place, taking a look at median incomes, rents and ages of certain areas to help students get a fuller picture of why certain things happen in certain places.  I look forward to researching the other sites mentioned in this article.