Harrison 6 to 12 Social Studies

Brief blog post but a good reminder to consider where we are with our use of technology in the classroom.

With the introduction of the Common Core Standards teachers of American history have been given the valuable opportunity of using primary sources in the classroom. The Common Core Standards ask teachers to devote instructional time to the close investigation of historical texts and the crafting of critical written analysis or responses based on that material. Yet, as all teachers know, the greatest challenge of using primary materials is that the difficulty of a text can overwhelm its usefulness in the classroom; comprehension falls apart and frustration builds. When a primary document appears dense or inaccessible the teacher and students may only do a cursory reading, with the teacher telling the students what the document means. The teacher may have students read a secondary source, such as a textbook, that tells students outright what is important about the document.

Cartoon creator

TodaysMeet helps you embrace the backchannel and connect with your audience in realtime. Encourage the room to use the live stream to make comments, ask questions, and use that feedback to tailor your presentation, sharpen your points, and address audience needs.

GET READY TO TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD! The Department of State and the Department of Education are pleased to partner with the National Geographic Society, which has provided questions from previous National Geographic Bee competitions for this year's Global IQ Quiz. The Global IQ Quiz will change periodically, and follow general subject areas (continents, geography, etc.) 1. Take the Continent IQ Quiz 2. Take the Cultural Geography IQ Quiz 3. Take the Physical & Cultural Geography IQ Quiz

Overview | How does annotating books help to develop stronger reading skills? What can we learn from the marginalia of others? In this lesson, students review strategies of annotation and consider the benefits. They brainstorm ways to annotate, explore various methods in depth and test the value of annotating while reading.

Collection of 28 photographs from around the world during Ramadan from the Washington Post.

Vote Easy is a very accessible interactive that lets users identify their opinion on several key public policy issues, and then compares those positions with those of local candidates.

LIFE recently unveiled a new feature that lets you search for any photos in its archives and create an online timeline/slideshow that you can share with a unique url address. Their Photo Timeline lets you use their original captions or you can edit them and create your own, as well as writing your own description for your whole creation. After you log-in (you can do so using your Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, or Google accounts), it's just a matter of searching and dragging the photos to your timeline/slideshow.

Critical Past is a new site that has 57,000 "historic" videos from 1893 to the 1990′s - many of them appear to be old newsreels. It seems to be designed to sell them for download, but anyone can view them online for free. It has a very nice search feature.

I am always interested when I see a site like Critical Past which Jen shared. A web entrepreneur creates an attractive interface with a user friendly search engine to provide access to material that is freely available for download on the internet on other sites such as Internet Archives. I did a quick search based on one of the clips on Critical Past. It was a newsreel from Universal Newsreels. The company that produced the newsreels gifted them to the American people through the National Archives and NARA has been preserving and caring for these films with tax dollars. Critical Past charges a fee to download and use the material but you can download the films for free from Internet Archive and there is no charge for use since they are in the public domain. The Critical Past interface, however, is much more attractive, user friendly, and appealing. Food for thought? If you find a clip on the Critical Past site that you want to use, try searching in on Internet Archive and you might find it for free.

Rajesh Rao is fascinated by "the mother of all crossword puzzles": How to decipher the 4000 year old Indus script. At TED 2011 he tells how he is enlisting modern computational techniques to read the Indus language, the key piece to understanding this ancient civilization.

This site may likely have a good number of the films Critical Past provides access to, but for free. Critical Past's interface is much nicer however! See my comment on the Critical Past post

Earth Pulse: State Of The Earth 2010 is an impressive effort from National Geographic. It has a number of features, including a photo gallery and interactive quiz. Most impressive, though, is an interactive Vital Statistics Map that lets you compare global trends on many topics.

"A Moment In Time" is the compilation of photos that the New York Times organized. Thousands of people from all over the world took a picture at the same moment on May 2nd. It's an amazing collection.

The BBC has developed what they call the News Globe. It has a virtual globe that you spin, and there are points on it. When you place your cursor on the points a short introduction to a news story based on that location shows-up, and you can click on it to go to the complete report. You type in a query for the types of news you're looking for.

Numbeo shows the cost-of-living in just about every country in the world, and many cities in the United States.

At the BBC's Dimensions site you identify an event or object (The Great Wall Of China, a battle, etc.), then type in a zipcode, and then it will overlay the dimensions of that event or object to the zip code you picked.

"Finishing The Dream" is a new collection of 100 videos from NBC News related to the Civil Rights Movement.