Wilderness Warrior
For me this year has been a bonanza of reading. It helps that I finally finished my Ph.D., but I also have several sites that I use to find new books to read. They have helped to break me out of my normal genre (mind you I still only read non-fiction) and learn a whole lot. In case you're interested I use the the WashPost's blog page, the one on the NewYorkTimes and the HistoryBookClub (which has the amazing offer of 4 books for $15 basically as many times as you want!).

At any rate one of the many perks of doing this page is that I get offers from publishers to read their books free. To date I have turned them all down - until now. Douglas Brinkley has a new 800 page book on the environmental side of Teddy Roosevelt. If you have never heard of Brinkley, he has become the new Stephen Ambrose in that he seems to have a new really well written and researched book come out almost every year.

Honestly the scary thing about Wilderness Warrior is its size (unless you get the Kindle edition), but once you start reading it the story grabs you. This surprises me because I didn't know I cared about bird watching, going to national parks, etc. But this book (I'm 3/4s done) is VERY interesting even when it webs into other people's lives twice removed from TR. Here is a rather descriptive review from the HuffingtonPost and here is an intelligent interview from FoxNews.(how's that for balance?!).

Text Your Students with E-mail
I always get my students' e-mails and will occasionally send them a message. It is frustrating that half of them never check. In fact even after they e-mail me, they don't look for a reply. But here is a way to use cell phones, but not in the classroom. You could set up a database with their cell phone numbers and then add the code below depending on their cell phone and then they will receive a text. Certainly this way the kids will get the message. (Obviously this is one you'd want to check with the parents first to make sure they don't mind)

Sprint:

[10DigitNumber]@messaging.sprintpcs.com

T-Mobile:

[10DigitNumber]@tmomail.net

Verizon:

[10DigitNumber]@vtext.com

AT&T:

[10DigitNumber]@mobile.mycingular.com

Just replace [10DigitNumber] with the ten digit phone number you are trying to reach (area+ local number).

New Webpage for the Library of Congress

Many of you probably have used the Library of Congress webpage for its amazing array of pictures, documents and multimedia resources. Well the page moved to here. It is a great page for both the teacher, but also if you have an assignment that gets your students to see how history is made using primary resources.

Google Earth Blog
This is a great site that shows you all the uses for GoogleEarth.com. Above is one example of how you can "go somewhere" and narrate the tour for your students. Wow!

12 Essentials for Technology Integration

Here is a great booklet put together to help you set up an online class for your students. While I am in a county that pays for Blackboard.com, remember you can have your students put everthing up for free - your assignments and the work for the kids. If you want to know how, check on this Free Technology for Teachers site. This site tells you how to set up Google folders, have cool slide shows, podcasts, create student webpages, get clips of films, get videos on Teacher Tube and more. About the only site I'd add is Moodle.com which allows teachers to set up folders for classes.

Very Clear Footage of the Moon Landing
When Armstrong first walked on the moon, I was five and just had moved to Iran and had no television. So I am always happy to see this footage, especially since NASA has "cleaned" it up.

AP US History Study Guides
This is getting to be too wonderful. All we need now is to have a laptop for our students and we'll be all set. Go here and you will find every major AP US study guide in the country and it's all FREE. You can also add the link to your own page or you can embed the entire thing in a webpage as I have done above. Generally there are a few pages missing, but you still can get a lot for free.

Read Books Online
Ok, so this isn't for everyone, but iframe>'>Google Books has some pretty good ones such as Obama's one above, as well as Team of Rivals, The Nine and so many others. The great thing is that you can pull it up in a full screen and then just keep toggling down (as in no more turning pages). You can also embed the books as I have done above (to do it click on the "full screen" icon and then on "links" and then the code will appear.

Amazing Site of Links
This site will take me a while to get though as it is a very rich source of links, video, etc. broken into a variety of topics. For our purposes, it includes categories for world and US history as well as US government.

Game Templates
This comes from FreeTech4Teachers. I love using review games for my students and here are templates from Jeopardy, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Wheel of Fortune, $25,000 Pyramid and more.

Lesson Plans
This has some real potential, but it is only a limited free offer. So go in and take what you need, but your visits will be limited.

This Day in US History Video
So many teachers buy books that give a short update of what happened "on this day in US history." Well here is a site that gives a short video (which I found on FreeTech4Teachers.com). So now you can just show this each day! You can also subscribe to a free newsletter if you want more details.

Fireside Chats
If you want to hear FDR's fireside chats go to one here. But above is one that was filmed and has him discussing the Great Depression. I found this gem on the Social Studies and History Teachers Blog which has a lot of video.

In April, I ran a post on Snagfilms which allows you to take parts of films and "snag" a section of it to show in class - rather than the entire thing. I just received this e-mail from them

I wanted to let you know that we are doing a 50-State Giveaway of this collection (click on the link to apply)—one in every state—and we’re strongly encouraging K-12 schools / libraries to apply. Teachers can apply on behalf of their school library. Applications are due by July 4th, 2009. The application form is here: http://alexanderstreet.com/50states.htm

In exchange for the free year of access, schools will be asked to serve on our 50-State Advisory Board and give us 15 minutes of feedback 3 times during the year of their access. You can learn more about this collection and the Advisory Board at the link above.!

Seven Stories You Didn't Teach!
I'm not sure most of them rate w. the time we have to teach, but a few are pretty interesting. For example, a number of women were in the Civil War as men, Paul Revere's grandson fought, Dixie was a northern tune and most of you probably teach that Lincoln was willing to do anything to save the Union even have separate areas for African-Americans and whites. More