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The federal education program appropriated funds "based on good test scores in math, science, and reading," she said, but it did not distribute money for history or civics. O¹Connor¹s new web site aims to right that wrong. Launched on May 24, iCivics.org is a rebranded, expanded version of an earlier site called OurCourts.org. "Barely one-third of Americans can even name the three branches of government, much less say what they do," O'Connor said. "… I'm worried." Games on iCivics include "Do I Have A Right," in which the player runs a virtual firm specializing in constitutional law; "Executive Command," which offers a chance to play president; "Supreme Decision," about the Supreme Court; "Branches of Power," which gives the player control of all three branches of government; and "LawCraft," in which the player is a member of Congress. The iCivics program is based at Georgetown University Law School. O'Connor is the project founder and leads the board of the nonprofit iCivics Inc., iCivics spokesman Jeffrey Curley said. The project began in 2007 and is in use at schools around the country.

Also sent a collection of projects being done by different schools; some use Google Earth; others use Google Maps. The site has had over 15,000 visitors. You might want to use it. Schools are from several different states and different countries. Some of the topics include explorers, history of students' local communities (very popular), heroes and courageous people. Some of the GCT's have submitted projects to this site.

Race against the clock to identify places on maps.  

great online tool that students can use to create posters and videos. The National Archives Digital Vault poster and video creation tools allow students to drag and drop digital artifacts into a poster or video. The National Archives provides images, documents, and audio in an easy to use editor. When making a poster students can combine multiple images, change background colors, and create captions to make collages of digital artifacts.

America on the Move is a great online exhibit produced and hosted by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. America on the Move showcases the evolution of transportation in the United States. America on the Move is divided into three main sections; Exhibition, Collection, and Themes. The exhibition section is essentially a timeline tour through American history. The exhibition section begins with the construction of the first National Road and chronicles each phase of transportation development through the 21st Century. The collection section of America on the Move features images of artifacts related to various forms of transportation used throughout US History. Visitors to the site can browse the collection or search by era, region, or form of transportation. The themes section of America on the Move arranges artifacts and stories into eight different themes. Each theme contains narratives related to various eras in the transportation history of the United States. Applications for Education In addition to the great online exhibits America on the Move offers three well-designed educational games for students. Each of the games is requires students to analyze and process information about the history of transportation. In the first game, Where's Everyone Going? students match vehicles to their proper era to learn about transportation in that era. In the second game, Drive Through Time, students spin a clock to select a year. Then they select a scenario and mode of transportation appropriate for that scenario's era. In the third game, Be a Movie Director, students select a storyline and the modes of transportation necessary for the storyline. At the end the students will see the movie they created. America on the Move also offers teachers some free classroom guides to use while students explore the exhibits.

will geolocate "this day in history" facts for you. That is exactly what One Day In does. One Day In places "this day in history" trivia facts on a Google Map in the place where each event happened. You can find facts through searching by date or by simply clicking placemarks on the map. Applications for Education I know some teachers like to include a little "trivia for the day" element in their classrooms. One Day In is one way to provide students with a little geographic context for those bits of trivia. One thing to note about One Day In is that the content is crowd-sourced so use your best judgment in determining the validity of all information on the site.

In a move that will make primary-source documents more accessible for students, Caroline Kennedy unveiled the nation's first online presidential archive on Jan. 13, a $10 million project to digitize the most important papers, photographs, and recordings of President John F. Kennedy's days in office. Users can browse through the drafts of Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you" speech and see how he tinkered with the words of that most famous line from his inauguration. Or, they can listen to his personal phone calls and read his letters. Archivists digitized more than 200,000 pages, 1,200 recordings, and 300 museum artifacts, as well as reels of film and hundreds of photographs. Library Director Tom Putnam said they started with all of Kennedy's Oval Office files-everything that went across his desk-along with his personal papers, official White House photos, audio of all his public remarks, video of his famous speeches, and home movies. Private partners-including AT&T, EMC Corp., Raytheon Co., and Iron Mountain Corp.-contributed $6.5 million in equipment and technical services to digitize thousands of records. The library will continue digitizing about 100,000 pages a year, along with thousands of photos and recordings. At that rate, it would still take more than 100 years to digitize all records from the Kennedy administration