Go Back to School with USC Shoah Foundation Educational Resources, IWitness

With the first day of school already behind many students and teachers, USC Shoah Foundation is debuting several new educational materials that can help educators teach about genocide, civil rights, tolerance and other topics.

First, the IWitness Activity Library has been completely redesigned in order to provide a better experience for educators. After conducting market research surveys with 400 IWitness educators, the IWitness staff has made significant changes to the ways in which activities are organized in IWitness.

Now, users can browse activities by keywords and search terms. They can also filter by activity type, subject area, author, closed captioning and standards addressed.

Educators can also share activities with their colleagues via an email link attached to each activity. Another new feature allows them to “favorite” activities; these favorites are saved in a separate folder for easy access. Educators can also view all the activities they have assigned to different classes and groups.

Within the Activity Library, educators will find several new activities, including an Information Quest about the Armenian Genocide and 13 activities that are related to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which was commemorated in January 2015.

This summer, IWitness staff also began hosting monthly webinars to introduce educators to all the features and possibilities of IWitness. Webinars are the third Thursday of each month, and each webinar takes an in-depth look at a different aspect of IWitness.

USC Shoah Foundation has also compiled two exhibits of testimony clips devoted to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which are available on the USC Shoah Foundation website. 30 Voices from the Armenian Genocide is a series of 30 clips from the new Armenian Genocide collection, and each one is accompanied by a written response from an Armenian Genocide scholar to provide context and further information.

70 Stories of Auschwitz is a series of 70 clips about all aspects of Auschwitz, from selection procedures to liberation. The series ran for 70 days leading up to January 27, 2015, the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation at the end of World War II.

Search all USC Shoah Foundation-created lessons and visit IWitness to explore the new activity library and find information on upcoming webinars.