Over the years I’ve used a lot of Google tools in my social studies classes. Some of those tools, like Wonder Wheel and Notebook, no longer exist, but many still do. Here are my five go-to Google tools for social studies classrooms. How to videos accompany each tool featured below.

You can learn more about these tools and many others in Teaching History With Technology.

1. Google Maps & Earth. In addition to zooming and panning across places in a way that a paper map could never replicate, Google Maps and Google Earth provide great tools for illustrating stories in a geographic context. The videos below demonstrate how to use Google Maps and Google Earth Tour Builder.

2. The Google News Paper Archive can be a great place for students to find old news articles about the topics they’re studying in your classroom. Watch the video below to learn how to use it.

3. Google Books provides students with access to hundreds of thousands of books and periodical articles that are in the public domain. I like to create bookshelves within Google Books to help my students get started accessing some of the titles that will be useful to them.

4. Google Scholar is a research tool that is often overlooked by students. Google Scholar provides students with access to court opinions, patents, and peer-reviewed scholarly works. See the features of Google Scholar in my video embedded below.

5. Timeline JS is technically not a Google tool but it does work with Google Sheets. Timeline JS provides a template for creating and publishing multimedia timelines through a Google Spreadsheet.