Using primary sources

Primary source items are excellent for use in educational contexts. They stimulate students’ curiosity and are very useful for inquiry based learning across a range of disciplines. Digitised primary source items can be used in a variety of ways by students.

While taking care to observe usage restrictions, and by using free to use items, students can re-use digital primary source objects to create projects. Here is a selection of tools that you will find useful for working with these items in the classroom and library. Take a look at the Creative Commons New Zealand website and the Mix and Mash Educators Guide on this website to learn more about copyright.

Online tools

L2 Libraries and Learning
The L2 Blog often reviews apps and tools that you may find useful when working with primary source material.

Creative Commons New Zealand
Here you will find information about using CC licenses that will help you to make decisions about using and publishing your own and others’ work.

Animoto
This tool allows you to bring together and create short video-like presentations of items like photos, music and video for embedding into a web page.

Digital NZ

From Media in the 1980s to Marmite, DigitalNZ’s set function lets you quickly create, describe, and share your own galleries of primary sources.

Evernote
Another great tool for collating various types of media and notes to organise them for a project.

Glogster
Here’s a great app for making posters as part of a unit of study. Students can easily create posters by adding in images and text.

HistoryPin
See stories and photos from personal and wider collections placed on a map so you can explore the present and the past.

Living Heritage
Schools that are interested in telling their own stories using primary sources and more will find Living Heritage a potentially useful publishing platform to celebrate their heritage.

Prezi
This is a fantastic tool for students and teachers to make really engaging and dynamic presentations incorporating digital primary source items.

Quizlet
This great and easy to use site allows teachers or students to make online flash cards that can include digital images for studying a topic. These can also be uploaded onto mobile devices.

ShowMe
Allows students and teachers to create virtual whiteboard presentations and lessons then share using a free iPad app.

Tiki-Toki
This app allows you to create a timeline and incorporate images and text.

VoiceThread
VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show. It includes support documentation especially for educators.

Zotero
This is an online app that lets students manage a research project. They collect their data, information, images, organise them, cite their sources and even collaborate with peers.