CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Middle school students in Kanawha County Schools will have additional resources when it comes to social studies beginning next school year.
The school system recently announced it has extended its partnership with Discovery Education, a digital learning platform.
Schools will add techbooks in social studies to the already heavy collection in earth sciences and biology, as well as rolling out a streaming platform ran by Discovery Education.
Briana Warner with Kanawha County Schools said the addition for social studies comes as a new textbook adoption had to be chosen in the subject for the 2019-2020 school year.
Teachers decided to create their own curriculum with Schoology using iPads and computers, and with the savings from hardcover textbooks, they were able to invest in this new digital program.
Warner said this program benefits all the different kinds of learners.
“Students who learn best by reading a text, there is still text available within the course,” she said.
“For students that learn better by seeing video or listening to audio, that is something that the Discovery Education partnership and other resources that our teachers have pulled in is available to help them.”
According to Warner, teachers enjoy the techbook and streaming service because it comes vetted and secure with content. The streaming service announced with Discovery is a six-year partnership for not only middle school but K through 12 students.
“It covers different english and language arts, it covers health modules, it covers everything that you can imagine,” she said. “There will be additional resources, videos, news stories, maps.”
The additional resources in the social studies programs can help students keep up with current events, Warner said.
“Having a virtual field trip actually inside a pyramid that may have been created and produced within the last year and having news clips that were just from the current week or the previous week. That’s just a really nice addition.”
Warner understands that not every student in the county has the internet to use the platform at home, as she said that 7-percent of students do not. But the school system is excited for the program as well because all of the material is downloadable.
While the techbooks with Discovery are only certain subjects right now, Warner would not rule out the possibility of expansion in the school system. She said the decisions will come once other subjects are due for a textbook adoption but the decision will ultimately come down to what the teachers want to do.”
To learn more about the program, click HERE.