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The Holocaust History Project is a website dedicated to presenting information about the Holocaust. The site is an archive of primary sources including letters, essays, photographs, and much more. There is an incredibly compelling text and audio presentation of Heinrich Himmler speech to a secret meeting of a group of SS officers in 1943. Himmler's speech tells part of the story of the Holocaust. Any of the material on this site could be used to support a unit or lesson on the Holocaust. The site also has a "Q & A" section listing all the questions they are received and answered over the years. One can also submit a question on the "Question Form." As an activity, students could develop questions based on research and submit those questions. There are also several Youtube entries that could be used along side the information found on the Holocaust History Project Website. While there are many to select from, I found this one to be quite moving….check it out.on www.youtube.com. The title of the movie is 8. The Holocaust History Project. The movie ends with a sign that states "Think about what you saw."

This article examines how the State of Texas went about designing new standards for history government and social studies. Also, there are comments that people have made for and against the new standards.

A few years ago I was taking a tour of a dome shaped house, and the architect explained to me that domes are an optical illusion. Whenever someone enters a room, their eyes inadvertently glance up at the corners of the room to give them the contextual dimensions of the space they're in.

So rad! Social Justice lesson plans on current events. AHHHHH!!! I looked through a few. Looks like they just have articles and then questions on them. So they'll pick a topic and then amass a number of readings on it and write critical thinking questions. So rad. One of the lessons is how to teach Freire to 5th graders. I'm in love! Happy Thanksgiving!

Laura, This is awesome and perfect for one lesson in my curricular unit..thanks a bunch!

Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute, and Google's top rated Futurist Speaker. Unlike most speakers, Thomas works closely with his Board of Visionaries to develop original research studies. This enables him to speak on unusual topics and translate trends into unique business opportunities.

So this may be my favorite organization ever. They have an international branch, a branch in DC and a branch in California. They have a daily civics quiz on the the website and a daily 60 second civics podcast . . . I'm in <3.

I'm just overwhelmed. I want to work at this organization . . . so many incredible incredible programs, teacher trainings, professional developments, etc. Lynn Cohen worked with Civitas in Bosnia.

This is sort of a basic review of how and why we as teachers might use film in the classroom. This is my first post on this issue; I am searching for some more in-depth sites that might have models for lesson plans. Many sites have lesson plans based around a specific film; a site that provides lesson plan templates that are applicable across a wide variety of films would be more applicable/useful. However, the comments made here by Paris provide a good base from which to start thinking about the idea.

From the site: "Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) uses properties listed in the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places to enliven history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects. TwHP has created a variety of products and activities that help teachers bring historic places into the classroom." Including lesson plans and tips!

Lesson Plans: The Lesson Plans link has SO MANY lesson plans. They are designed at a middle school level but can easily be adapted (says them). The lesson plans are organized by Location/State; Theme; Time period; and Skill - meaning that you can click on any one of those subdivisions and search them that way. Very exciting! You should definitely check these out. Even if you're not in that state, they still have pictures, mapping materials, and activity ideas that you can use to incorporate geography into historic concepts. For example, the Battle of Bunker Hill lesson contains two maps (of Boston today and in 1775) and inquiry questions for these, a section of text (looks like a high school level to me) and inquiry questions for that AND three images (one a sketch of an encampment and two pictures) and inquiry questions for those. These might make fantastic "Do Now"s for the beginning of the lesson even if you didn't use any of the rest of the sites info. So neat!

Also they have lots of tips for how you can incorporate place into your lessons. AND! you can submit your own lessons. They take you through the TwHP lesson creation process and you can submit them.

I found this article about individual teachers selling their lesson plans online to be very interesting. Over the past few years, many teachers have started selling their lesson plans online rather than just sharing them on free websites. One teacher has earned $36,000 in a year selling lesson plans. This trend has caused some school districts to question the idea of who owns material developed for public school classrooms and whether or not school districts should share some of the profits. Others worry that selling the lesson plans harms the idea of free swapping and sharing. But, some teachers argue that it validates their efforts and shows that people recognize their hard work and expertise. Whether using free or bought lessons from online, I did find the teachers who argued that they enjoy comparing their lessons and getting ideas to be very compelling.

"Collections of primary resources compatible with the Common Core State Standards - historical documents, literary texts, and works of art - thematically organized with notes and discussion questions."

This site is RAD! Current and Recent Events resource From the website: "Students can read the day's top stories using Knowledge Tools, take a news quiz about today's world, and play special crossword puzzles. . . . Teachers can access a daily lesson plan for grades 6-12, written in partnership with The Bank Street College of Education in New York City. Each lesson plan and the article it references can be printed out for classroom use. Previous lessons are available in the archive and in thematic lesson plan units. . . The site additionally provides teachers with the latest education news from the newspaper. "

Create a set of websites for students/faculty to view in order, w/comments and questions and/or directions. 

This is a letter written by a parent into the Washington Post Education section. As an IB Diploma recipient, I find this extremely interesting, as the parent ignores all of the wonderful and beneficial things that one gets out of an IB education, questioning it because it doesn't allow his daughter to accelerate her math classes.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is significantly more than just a museum and it is arguably the most thorough site on the Holocaust as well as other acts of genocide. Just reviewing the website and all that it offers can take several hours. Through the education filter, teachers can find complete information on how to teach the Holocaust or other acts of genocide. For example, the site offers online lessons, teacher workshops, essential topics, teaching resources, lesson plans, activities, and a list of common student questions. USHMM site suggests 5 guidelines for teaching the Holocaust, which include defining genocide, investigating the context and dynamics that led to genocide, understanding parallels to other genocides and analyzing American and world responses. A function that I find very useful and interesting is the "Mapping Initiative" filter where one can learn how to use Google Earth to view a Darfur Layer file. This file provides comparisons of before and after views of villages impacted by the ongoing events in Darfur. There is also a section of photographs, videos, and testimonies. In addition the USHMM maintains an archive consisting of wide variety of documents including photographs and films. Lastly, if field trips are a possibility, admission is free and there is a special children's exhibit called Remember the Children: Daniel's Story.

This link is a part of a school district website in the state of New York. I found it while searching for information on Socratic seminars. It is really great because it provides all the information one needs to learn about teaching the dialogue method. Informational filters include an overview, elements of a Socratic seminar, frequently asked questions by teachers and students, dialogue and behavior guidelines for using this dialogue method and suggestions for the types of readings or materials that work best with this method. If you like the idea of using the Socratic method in your classroom, you will want to visit this site.

This is an awesome sight to use for ancient world studies. By clicking on the "new site" button, you can view a virtual tour of the La Grotte de Lascaux, in France....the site in in English and offers french and spanish as well. The tour is about 6 minutes or so. Anyway, I used this for my 7th grade class yesterday and they really got into it. They had all sorts of questions about the paintings, the lifestyle, etc.

The students were surprised to be able to see something that was written by humans nearly 17,000 years ago and 3000 miles away.

My search for information on how schools are funded also turned up this website, which has video links to each of the episodes from "Where We Stand: America's Schools in the 21st Century." Each of the clips are certainly interesting, though not really telling us anything we don't already know. The fifth segment deals with the question of how we finance education.