Request a Free DVD Set of "America The Story of Us" from the History Channel

Attention history teachers : The History Channel is offering a FREE set of DVDs from their upcoming (April 2010) new series "AMERICA The Story of US". Each school in the country can request a free DVD set if their principal fills out the information on this site.

This series will be amazing and I'm sure each school would benefit from having it in their collection.

Here is some more information about the upcoming series from History:

Video Trailer for "America The Story of Us"

Press Release on the Educational Connections to "America The Story of Us"

History Channel page for "America The Story of US"

History Articles - Academic Earth

Here is a great resource. Academic Earth is a collaboration between Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA and Yale that provides full video courses and lectures for free. There are video lectures that cover both US and World History, as well as Political Science/Government. I'm planning on using these in my AP World History class as enrichment material that students can access from home.

2009 in Review as seen by Google Wave

2009 in Review as seen by Google Wave

Above is the year in review by Google Wave. If you haven't seen Google Wave, it is real time talking (both written or via up to six video links). this is from a Twitter feed from GiseldaSantos.

Quizzes on Google Docs

Quizzes on Google Docs

Perhaps I am getting too far afield with all the "Google stuff," but above is a video that tells you how you can create a quiz with all types of questions in Google Docs and then allow your students to take it.

Kids Making Their Own Cartoons

Kids Making Their Own Cartoons

I received this from one of my normal followers (feel free to leave a message with your tips or to e-mail me at kenhalla@gmail.com) if you have any. I always have my students create cartoons as I find it a good way to memorize something without having to actually sit down and say something over and over until it is in one's head. With this site, one can actually make digital cartoons much as we have drawn them in the past.

Iran and "The Lede"

Iran and "The Lede"

Having spent a number of years in Iran in my youth, I must admit I am smiling that so many seem to be rising up against the current government there. More to the point since Iran is one of the countries on the AP Comparative test, it might be interesting to follow it more online. Above is a video from today taken by some of the participants. Here is a blog entry which includes links to the opposition website. It is from the NYTimes Lede which is a supplement to their newspaper and includes many videos and pictures and is another reason why I no longer read a newspaper in paper form. 

 

Internet 3.0

Internet 3.0

This short video explains how we went from Internet 1.0 where you could see what others had designed to 2.0 where the average user can create their own projects to Internet 3.0 where we will be better connected between our projects and better able to see them from the computer, phones (look out Google is about to release its own phone- and I don't mean the Droid- which you will be able to use no matter what phone service you use) and other devices.

 

Easy Slide Show with Voice Add In

Easy Slide Show with Voice Add In

One thing that sometimes gets me when I give assignments that require the Internet is that some of the kids say, "Why can't you just give us a worksheet." This is one A good place to use it might be for your absolute monarchs section of the course where you can have a picture for each person and then have the student tell how they were strong leaders and/or innovators. You can also have other students make comments themselves. What is great is the above slide show was made by 2nd graders! Hit the buttons in the lower right corner and you can see all the pictures at once. The last one will allow you to embed it. I found this site on a Tweet (and I can't say enough about using Twitter for teachers).

World Population Clock and much more

World Population Clock and much more

This is much more than a clock as it has a running total of the number of people, but also time clocks from around the world, as well as live statistics on death, illness, the enviornment, energy, US crimes, food and more.

Blog Project using Blogs.mu

I have created a project for my World History class. I am assigning them a event in WWII and they are going to create informational blogs about the event. To make this work well I am using Blogs.mu to host the students' blogs.

On my classroom site I have more information about the project. In a couple weeks I will post links to the finished results of the student work.

I really wish I would have found out about this site earlier. I can see so many uses for blogs.mu in a classroom or school.

Battles BC on the History Channel

This is over some ancient history, but what a way to get students to perk their ears up. History Channel has created a series detailing ancient battles. What is great about it is that there is some acting/drama that students will enjoy and it goes through the logistics of the battle as well.

Battles BC

A Good Place For Students to Start
This site has great timelines (seen above) for 500 year periods, and then people broken up into time periods, then another group for people, events and finally period maps. The best part is that when you decide the era you want, you can then click on the the names, events, etc. and you get more in depth on the side. No it's not enough for a research paper, but enough to get your students on their way.