Group items tagged

"The Atomic Archive explores the complex history surrounding the invention of the atomic bomb. Follow a timeline that takes you down the path of our nuclear past to the present. Read biographies of A-bomb father Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi's dispassionate account of the Trinity Test. Examine maps of the damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and summaries of arms-control treaties. You'll also find an excellent gallery of photographs and historical footage."

The English Emblem Book Project of the Penn State University Libraries in Pennsylvania, USA, has digitized older form of texts, the emblem books, for the 16th to the 19th centuries. "An emblem book is a collection of images with adjoining text. In an emblem there is a dialog or tension between image and word. Emblems are frequently allegorical in theme. Emblem books are a form of text not altogether familiar to us today. An emblem book represents a particular kind of reading. Unlike today, the eye is not intended to move rapidly from page to page. The emblem is meant to arrest the sense, to lead into the text, to the richness of its associations. An emblem is something like a riddle, a "hieroglyph" in the Renaissance vocabulary -- what many readers considered to be a form of natural language."

Modules designed for George Mason University's U.S. survey course offering relevant exercises that reinforce textbook readings and classroom discussion. They provide an alternate, often entertaining, way of investigating historical concepts and problems.

The final videos can all be found here.  I hesitate to embed any in the post because I know I would be prone to pick the "best" one.  Please click on the link and randomly select one to watch! There are two pages of videos-and hey-leave a comment or a thumbs up!  I have to say, that after watching the kids make these, the final products just don't reflect the amount of work that is needed.  What I mean is that you shouldn't watch them and say "My kids could do that in a couple of days."  It took 360 minutes of class time to produce those 1-2 minute videos!! One thing I wished we had done is to write transitions so that the different videos linked together better.  I inadvertently led them to make videos on topics that come across as standing alone in time instead of being influenced and apart of other events and movements. Other good resources: Art Titzel Eric Langhorst John Fladd Karen McMillan Greg Kulowiec Mr. Canton Mr. Fogel Mr. Canton Authors write for different purposes.* The writing process is consistent across disciplines.* Technology is a tool for collecting, organizing, creating, and presenting informatio Tags: 6 COMMENTS SO FAR ↓ aimee // Dec 27, 2010 at 8:56 pm These videos really are terrific! I was able to pop in briefly and watch them being created (on Ustream)- such an amazing process! They are so deceptively simple and enchanting, yet require a myriad of skills. Well done! And, I've learned so much Reply Tweets that mention New Post: Key words=Common Craft, Videos, Social Studies, Middle School, 19th Century History, Fu... by -- Topsy.com // Dec 27, 2010 at 10:59 pm [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by mrsdi, Edtech Feeds. Edtech Feeds said: New Post: Key words=Common Craft, Videos, Social Studies, Middle School, 19th Century History, Fu… http://bit.ly/g9YyDH by @paulbogush [...] Reply Sally // Dec 28, 2010 at 10:39 am This is great! When we get back to school the students are finishing up t

"This teaching resource includes digitized selections from the Cameron Family Papers extracted from the Southern Historical Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill. The resource is designed for non-commercial use by educators and students interested in themes associated with antebellum plantation life. The original Cameron Family Papers (1757-1978) include some 35,000 undigitized items available for public perusal in the university's Wilson Library. This web resource presents only a small fraction of the total available documents, as identified and digitized by the site designers to best represent themes associated with traditionally underrepresented persons on antebellum plantations, namely slaves, women, and children. The Camerons regularly communicated by post with their family, friends, and business associates (overseers, tradespersons, and merchants). The level of detail provided in their personal communication provides a rich context for the study of antebellum plantation life in the southern United States. Site users may either search for letters related to a particular theme, or browse available letters using the index of letters page. All letters have been tagged by subject/theme. Letters are available in Macromedia Flashpaper format (.swf). Users may choose to view the original source letter, a typed transcription of the original text (easier to read), or both. The transcription is recommended to teachers and students with limited time, given the difficulty in deciphering original text. "

Excellent PDF resource for teaching critical inquiry. Includes: lesson plans, blackline masters, and readings.  A very clear explanation and process for nurturing better quality thinking in the classroom from teachers and students.

Possible article for student reading . Rest of site looks interesting as well.

This one has an audio file - I am using this to help low literacy students with reading comprehension.  Will get them to read the text while I play the audio.

The long read: Our year of remembrance has exaggerated the tragic futility of the first world war and preserved the dangerous idea that the second was noble and heroic

" China is a majestic* country (note: links followed by * go to a dictionary definition) with a long and interesting history. If, like most people in the Occidental* world, you've never been to this fascinating land, you might want to take a brief tour. Go ahead and walk a few kilometers of The Great Wall or step foot into The Forbidden City or voyage to the Yellow Mountains. But beyond these tourist stops lives another, more complex, China. Currently, the people of China are experiencing great economic and social upheavals*. Such things as the situation in Tibet, Tiananmen Square massacre, and a scandal about treatment of orphans have brought some people to call for boycotts against China. Being faced with the task of understanding something as complex as a nation, you might want to give up. Sometimes in life you have that choice. But to give up trying to understand the China would mean giving up chances to benefit financially, to help people, to save some of the world's natural and artistic treasures, to protect the safety and security of millions of people, or to enlighten people's lives with greater religious insight. You see, you can't give up. So, if you're ready to begin, you might want to read a Travel Advisory before embarking* on our journey."

"State Tectonics, which wraps up Older's critically acclaimed Centenal Cycle series, may be science fiction, but its speculations are eerily relevant. Reading it, one can't help but think of current refugee crises, the rise of reactionary nationalism, the inevitability of accelerating data breaches, and the terrifying brinkmanship so evident in Washington. But unlike the bleak scenarios played out in Black Mirror, Older's world is nuanced, not dystopic, assuring us that even in the midst of disaster, it's still possible to make a difference with a combination of luck, hard work, and compassion."

A book far ahead of it's time. Easy to find a selection for homework or lesson prompt - from the weaponization of public opinion to the marketing of cigarettes. Students could just flip through the book or you could assign specific readings.

Almost every US History teacher tells students about Manifest Destiny, boiling down an explanation of the term to about eight words in a bullet point of a 18 slides presentation that students dutifully copy and recognize out of four other distractors in a multiple choice question. This is the article the phrase comes from - teachers should be forced to read it and explain why they think their teaching of the phrase does any justice to history at all

An article for history nerds and interested teachers who want to dig deeper into the materials they use in class. Many, many teachers use this cartoon as the basis for a full lesson or include it in the presentation of content. Teachers should read or even just skim through this article to recognize the vast depth of historical inquiry that lies beneath even the most commonplace elements of their instruction.