The National Archives has created a new web site to help educators teach with primary-source documents. The site, called DocsTeach, not only lets teachers explore documents in a variety of media from the National Archives holdings, but it also includes online tools to help teachers combine these materials and create engaging history activities for students. Shared by Jesse White
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This organization hosts electronic field trips with four main parts: the trip, journal, the virtual visit (a streaming video), an Ask the expert tool, and a hosted web chat.
"With Nuance PDF Reader, you get the most accurate online PDF conversion
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"We believe that everyone should have the same opportunity to learn. The best way to make this possible, we believe, is to organize into one, super directory the hundreds of thousands of good videos currently available on the Internet. To
make this a reality, we invite teachers, instructors and educators to suggest
videos for inclusion into our directory, and then to review, approve, and assign
those videos into appropriate categories using a wiki framework and philosophy.
The videos are the highest quality found on the World Wide Web, cover all major
educational topics from elementary to secondary schools (or age range 1 - 18),
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"TimeGlider is a data-driven interactive timeline application built on the (Adobe) Flash platform. You can "grab" the timeline and drag it left and right, and zoom in
and out to view centuries at a time or just hours. TimeGlider allows you to create event-spans so that you can see durations and how they overlap. Being web-based, TimeGlider lets you collaborate and share easily.
You can create timelines about the last year of your family, the last century of world events, or about pre-historical (bce/bc) times. Currently, one can zoom out to a scope of millenia:"
With a view of travel as an educational experience like no other, the project makes use of digital media to promote an understanding of different culture and customs to students worldwide. The site hosts virtual field trips to England, Jordan, and South Africa that include more than 160 fort films that correspond to the destinations. Each video explains more about the region's food, music, culture, and language. Since 2003, project explorer has counted more than a million visitors to the site from more than 40 different countries. Recently, it won a Parents' Choice Award for "Outstanding Web Programming." The site's developers qre not working to add a fourth field trip--this one to Malaysia--the Project Explorer has lesson for upper elementary, middle and high school. They plan to offer lesson specifically designed for the early grades.
Wolfram/Alpha is to be the first web-based tool that can find answers to all systematic knowledge in the world. For educators, this "computational iknowledge engine" can find objective and fact-based answers for a variety of subject areas. Type in "Newton's Law," for example, and the formula for force is explained. Enter in an equation for a line, and the site plots the line on a graph. Ask "What is the GDP of the United States and Canada?" and a chart depicts a side-byside comparison of the nations' economic data.
"The History Place is a private, independent, Internet-only publication based in the Boston area that is not affiliated with any political group or organization. The Web site presents a fact-based, common sense approach in the
presentation of the history of humanity, with great care given to
accuracy."
"AwesomeStories is a gathering place of primary-source information. Its purpose - since the site was first launched in 1999 - is to help educators and individuals
find original sources, located at national archives, libraries, universities, useums, historical societies and government-created web sites"
Sophia is a first of its kind online social teaching and learnign platform that provides free academic content to educators. in beta testing since March, 2011, the site lets educators supplement their teaching methods with Web 2.0 tools to craete public or private learning environments
"Arcademic Skill Builders are free research-based and standards-aligned educational games! Engage and motivate students with our multiplayer and single-player games." As of August 2011 Academic Skill Builders has released 40 web-based learning games designed to help K-8 students build basic math, olanguage arts, vocabulary, and thinking skills. The games incorporate multiplayer capabilities in educational gaming. Studetns can play together in groups of 4, 8, or 12 at a time, promoting positive interaction and achievement. Educators can use the free arcade-like games with a projector screen, interactive whiteboard, or computer lab. Security safeguards ensure that no one outside the classroom can contact students who are playing the games. The games align with state standards and the Common Core Standards.
Online professional development, TV programming and multimedia web content, lesson plan ideas, and ways to connect with other educators are all things featured on the PBS teachers page. The website also features news and webinars for teachers to view.
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