Friday, October 30, 2009

D-Day Smithsonian Videos
Here are three short videos put together by the Smithsonian Institute on the D-Day invasion. To see all three go here.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Quizlet
This is a great site that allows your students to test themselves and/or make their own quizzes for other students in your class.

Saving Paper By Splitting Your Screen
Two years ago I almost bought another monitor so I could see two screens at the same time as I was tired of printing out paper, using it for a minute and then throwing it away. Perhaps the people who view this blog know about the trick above, but in case you don't, please watch the one minute video and learn how to see and work with multiple documents/webpages all at once.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Scholarly Search Engine
This is a site where you can put in say "Thomas Jefferson" and get back a lot of hits found on government servers.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009


America's First President?
Here is a nice video on John Hanson, president of the (Articles of) Confederation Congress.  The film is actually quite good and goes into nice detail about his one year turn.  It is a good discussion point with your students as to why we virtually ignore our first constitution and start with our "do over!" 

Sunday, October 18, 2009


Wheeled History - From Carriages to Cars
This is a great short (7 minutes) film that starts with a covered wagon (who knew they could be 3 tons and carry another 2 tons!) and goes through the early cars. It also talks about the development of early roads and races between horses and early cars (horses won!). I found it at Social Studies Teachers.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Classzone Maps
Why pay for the expensive hanging maps when you can show these on your television or LCD. This has US and world maps and has them in political and physical ones. You can also move the maps around and zoom in and out. When you get to the site, you will need to click on your state and subject and then look for the "Rand McNally" link at the top in the middle and click on it

Monday, October 12, 2009


History of the American Revolution
When I first stated teaching several teachers would show a three day film on the making of the Declaration of Independence. Not knowing any better, I did too, only to realize it was a complete waste of time. From that point on, I started showing film parts - made much easier by youtube.com. Above is a nice and short review of the American Revolution.
PowerPoint Paloooza
This site is one of the most visited sites for US history teachers on the Internet. It is mostly visited for its wonderful PowerPoints that you can download and adapt to your own class as well as a ton of useful links. The New York based teacher also is continually updating the site.

Friday, October 9, 2009


US Expansion in 3 Minutes
I found this on FreeTech4Teachers. It is a nice one that very clearly shows how our borders grew.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Howard Zinn's A People History of the US
Here is the entire history of the US as written by Howard Zinn (pictured above).

Saturday, October 3, 2009


Short How To For Google Docs
If you follow these blogs, you know I have been exploring Google Docs as a way for teachers and students to share and store their documents/spreadsheets/PowerPoints, etc. online. Above is a 4 minute overview that is quite good about how to use the basic features.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Outline Maps
Go here and put in your state and then the radio button for "social studies" and then "go" and then to the book "The Americans" and in the middle column, you will see "maps" and when you click on it there are a ton of maps you can use in the classroom.