Education Pays in Many Ways

Yes, I know not everyone is going to go to college - or should, but I like to connect it to the increased likelihood of success in life for my students or in some cases just graduating as opposed to not for some of them.  Well, yes, this is biased since it is put out by the College Board, but it does look at an amazing array of statistics such as voting rates, exercise enhancement, donations to charity, more activities with your children, less likely to be obese or smoke, etc., etc. and of course generally more income!

History Film Reviews Galore!

The American Historical Association has recently put together a really wonderful list of historical films and their associated reviews. The list also includes relevant articles related to the films and/or subject matter.

While I've certainly had my problems with the simplistic treatment of historical films as either accurate or inaccurate, the AHA has really provided us with a wonderful resource here.

(x-posted at World HIstory Teachers Blog)

How Stuff Works

Japan's Attack At Pearl Harbor
How Stuff Works
This is a great site for many reasons, mostly because they have hundreds of short videos (on many things beyond the classroom). I have found it very good for both US and world history. Above, for example is the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The coolest thing is that the movies are 3-1o minutes, so if a student misses class, he/she can still see what you watched!

Sporcle

Fellow blogger Frank Franz (Panthers Fan) told me about this at a meeting we attended a few days ago.  Sporcle has some great timed review games and allows you to create your own.  Frank and I were talking about having students do essay re-writes and what should be done with the kids whose first essay is pretty good and having them create a review game was his answer.  

Civil War from NEH

I just received this from the NEH for their Civil War items to help you in the classroom.

• An Early Threat of Secession The Missouri Compromise 1820
  Interactive map illustrating the geography, demography, and political division of the United States as a result of the Missouri Compromise over the issue of Slavery in 1820-21http://edsitement.neh.gov/student-resource/early-threat-secession-missouri-compromise-1820-1821 

Accompanies the EDSITEment curriculum unit: The Growing Crisis of Sectionalism in Antebellum America: A House Dividing

• Kansas Nebraska ActAn interactive political and demographic map of the U.S. in 1854 that allows users to see the economic, demographic, and political makeup of regions and states at the time. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854: Popular sovereignty allowed the settlers of a federal territory to decide the slavery question without interference from Congress.
  http://edsitement.neh.gov/student-resource/kansas-nebraska-act-interactive-map

Accompanies the EDSITEment curriculum unit: The Growing Crisis of Sectionalism in Antebellum America: A House Dividing

• Abraham Lincoln on the American UnionExplore this interactive timeline of Lincoln’s most famous speeches, and a little-known fragment on the Constitution and union’ to learn about the significance of Union to the future of American government.http://edsitement.neh.gov/student-resource/lincoln-american-union-word-fitly-spoken
  Accompanies the EDSITEment curriculum unit Abraham Lincoln on the American Union
• On the Eve of the Civil WarA student interactive that uses a series of animated maps to summarize all the factors and statistics on the United States on the eve of the American Civil War. Click on the various tabs across the bottom of the interactive to bring up the different statistical maps.
• Meet the CommandersA comprehensive animated map showing the locations and travel routes of the major Civil War military campaigns. Accompanies the EDSITEment curriculum unit: The American Civil War: A “Terrible Swift Sword”.
• Battles of the Civil War Campaign Map A comprehensive animated map showing the locations and travel routes of the major Civil War military campaigns. Accompanies EDSITEment curriculum unit: The American Civil War: A “Terrible Swift Sword”.

http://edsitement.neh.gov/student-resource/american-civil-war-eve-war

Accompanies the curriculum unit The American Civil War

Cr-48 Google Cloud Computer

Initially I had hoped to have "won" a free one of the above laptops, but it will be my next one this summer (think Acer is going to produce it).  If you are a fan of Internet (cloud computing) only computing, it will be the perfect computer for you as it will be cheap, fast and turn on and be online in just a few seconds.  What's the catch - it will only have a little bit of hard drive (enough to run e-mail, download some things before you upload them onto the web).  Being completely on the cloud WILL be the future. By the way, I got a reminder of this innovation from The Innovative Educator. 

Historians and Public Disagree Over Causes of Civil War

With the 150 year anniversary of the Civil War swirling about, it seems only appropriate to mention a resource or two associated with it. As an AP US History teacher from a southern state, class discussions concerning the causes of the Civil War still generate intense debate. PBS Newshour recently sat down with three historians to discuss why 48% of Americans still believe that states' rights was the primary cause of the Civil War. (SPOILER ALERT: Slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War. Period.) This report is not so much for classroom consumption but rather for lesson planning.

Civil War's Causes: Historians Largely United on Slavery, But Public Divided

Pagination in Google Docs

Okay, so perhaps it is not earth shattering, but while I love Google Docs, one of the short comings for me has been that you could only see the pagination view if you went to the print preview. Well starting today, it shows up just as it would in any Microsoft document and if you want to see it as a continuous page, then you simply need to go to "view" and then "document view" and "compact."  Now if GD could just have a way to combine boxes in a chart, then it would be perfect.  

Geography Games

Geogames is a new site (that I found on FreeTech4Teachers) that allows you to see if you have learned your geography by dragging countries, rivers, mountains, etc. onto a blank space (or a country depending on where one starts).  You can also print out your results. 

E-mail to Text

Kids do not seem to use e-mail anymore other than to send a teacher a message, but never to retrieve one!  So if you want to send an e-mail to their cell phones, here is how you do it:

Sprint	phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Verizon	phonenumber@vtext.com
T-Mobile	phonenumber@tmomail.net
AT&T	phonenumber@txt.att.net

So if the number is 571222333, you would e-mail to "571222333@messaging.sprintpcs.com" for Sprint. I found this info here.

Lots of US Sites

This is a collection of all things digital for US history broken up into four larger eras and then many more subsets.