Great website for U.S. History!

Student engagement with primary sources is important for providing context and for learning how to analyze and evaluate historical events. The website is useful for student and teacher research, but the mobile app has no research feature. Students can complete activities using the website or the mobile app, though students with certain special needs may need to use the website because the app has no built in assistive technology support such as read aloud. Creating activities for different reading levels requires duplication of effort, which is not ideal for teacher planning and preparation. With access to thousands of primary sources through the National Archives, DocsTeach can be a powerful tool for teachers and students to use as a research and document curation tool. Teachers who want to create activities will need to plan for a learning curve and set aside the time to learn the tools.

It's a good tool to bring primary source documents to life. Documents relevant to the topic are used in a way that requires students to think critically about their significance in a way that students don't overtly look at as a learning moment. The topics are limited and could use further exploration and development, but what there is already is well designed and researched.

Docsteach is a great way to bring primary sources into the classroom. It is very useful in Social Studies classes or in English classes, where reading different types of documents is useful. It is easy to find documents that fit a variety of topics. Analyzing primary sources is a major factor in learning, especially for advanced learners. Science classes may even be able to use Docsteach with certain topics. Some of the documents are a little harder to read, but that is because of the handwriting of the author. Great way to combined technology and primary sources.