November 8

Website Worth Sharing: US Music Video Webmix

A Symbaloo webmix is a collection of weblinks all displayed in a visual, tiled format. It’s a nice way to keep all of your favorites on one page. Kevin Neal has created a Webmix of US History videos that I think you might find useful: http://www.symbaloo.com/mix/usmusicvideos There are some pretty good ones. The Bad Romance/Women’s Suffrage one is appropriate for today. If you want to show the videos without ads or distractions, paste the video link into https://safeshare.tv/ for a cleaner version to show.

If you like Kevin’s webmix, check out his page to see more: http://www.symbaloo.com/profile/kevinneal (scroll to the bottom). He has multiple pages so be sure to click on the page numbers to see all of them.

If you like these webmixes, you can create an account in Symbaloo and start making your own.

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April 21

Big History Project

The Big History Project https://school.bighistoryproject.com/bhplive  is a wonderful curriculum resource that blends both science and social studies concepts from the beginning of time into the future. Bill Gates calls it his favorite course of all time (he helps fund it). If you register as a teacher, you’ll  have access to their free unit materials which include lessons, presentations, videos, infographics, activities, online quizzes and more. You even have the option of creating a class and pushing out activities through the student portal and monitoring the progress of your students. I would recommend browsing through their materials in order to find supplemental resources to enhance your curriculum. For a 2 minute overview you can check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uMVZ6FOu3I

big history

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March 14

Website Worth Sharing: DSL’s American Panorama and Historical Atlas

US History Teachers,

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but an interactive map that contains a good key and added narrative information is worth even more when teaching historical topics. American Panorama, created by the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond, is a site featuring dynamic interactive historical maps. There are currently four maps on the site: the Forced Migration of Enslaved Peoples, the Overland Trails, the Foreign-Born Population, and the Canals.

Each map has multiple features and levels of content for users to explore. With the trails map, you can choose a trail and read diaries of people’s experiences. The Enslaved Peoples maps have a narratives section that includes personal stories from slaves.  The maps can all be magnified and you can zoom in on a particular location or time period. American Panorama is a work in progress with more maps to come on topics including the Great Depression, Post-War America, and Presidential Elections.

http://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/

You  might also want to check out their other project, the Historical Geography Atlas. While it is not as interactive, it contains a rich resouces of maps, charts and data that could be used to reinforce your teaching for for the students to explore time periods.

http://dsl.richmond.edu/historicalatlas/

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