Did the First Americans Come From Western Europe?

This is an amazing article in the WastPost that posits that the first Americans did not come over Beringia, but rather have been dubbed Solutreans and came from Spain, Portugal and southern France (Iberia, south Siberia!).  Above is a video (part 1 of 9 and the others show after you play it) on the Solutreans and here is another story in Wikipedia. 

21,000 Hits This Month and Rising

We reached a new milestone hitting 21,000 hits this month.  The top three most hit posts were getting help via Twitter for US history students,  followed by children in the industrial revolution and finally how a Google search works. 

A Webinar on the Flipped Classroom

Thanks to the head of social studies in my county, Alice Reilly, who gave me the heads up on this which she found on Eschoolnews which is a daily e-mail for people interested in technology news.  On Tuesday, March 20 from 2:00-3pm ET there will be a webinar on flipping the classroom.  Go here to register this seminar.  Attendees will learn what a “flipped classroom” should look like (and what it shouldn't look like), how to develop implementation strategies for a flipped classroom model (needs assessment; selecting resources, such as Tegrity; and measuring success), best practices for using Tegrity to create content for the flipped classroom and tips for most efficient use of class time in a flipped classroom model. 

Tiny Url

From time to time I need to shorten my url.  For example if I am sending out a message using Remind101 to my  students, then my Google Docs url is too short so I get a truncated one.  For example, here is the entire url for a webquest my US government students are working on (concerning the presidential election if you are interested) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vFqnQlkG6itPL8ONSWonp_SVMd3O4Zft8-SW24A46x8/edit?hl=en_US and here is the tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/6s72ust  Both end up at the same page. 

PBS Story on Flipping the Classroom

Google Earth of the Panama Canal

One of my teacher-students, Carl Jones, found the video above of a Google Earth tour of the Panama Canal.  Carl enjoys making Google Earth tours of many of his unit destinations.  However rather than having to create a new Google Earth destination and then using Screencastomatic to create a video of it, Carl saved time by finding it (and others on youtube). 

How A Google Search Works

While this is over a year old, it still mostly holds true.  The author, Matt Cutts, is the head of quality control at Google.  He, therefore, is in charge of the search engine and for keeping it "honest" (ie not biased towards Google products).  Play the video for a fascinating look at what happens between when you push return on a search and when you get the results. 

Building a Webquest

My students do a lot of webquests where I have them answer a series of questions using their e-books as well as Internet sites and some videos.  I believe that webquests cater to different learning styles and thus help all students learn more effectively.  Webquest.org is a starting point for hundreds of different webquests.  If you are like me you can take bits and pieces from others or even start with the key concepts you have to cover and start doing some searching online to build one of your own. 

Twitter Help for US History Students

One of my colleagues teaches at Thomas Jefferson High School a few miles from here.  For those of you who haven't heard of it, it is always #1 on Jay Matthews' AP/IB Challenge as it is a very competitive magnet school.  At any rate Scott Campbell's AP US history students have started a help page on Twitter at @apushhelp.  The kids are pretty eager to help out everyone (and themselves in the process since it reinforce their learning).  So you might want to think about giving it to your students in AP or even regular US history. 

Who Was the Richest President?

In light of Romney's wealth Time magazine has a pictorial comparison of the relative wealth of all US presidents in 2010 dollars.  JFK comes in as #1 and Washington (remember he married up when he latched onto Martha Custis) is second.  I found it at a new site I have been following that has a catchy name called "Chart Porn" and, of course, has none of the latter. 

Chomp and Mobile Apps

So, as you can probably tell, I am learning a lot recently about mobile apps.  Well one thing I have just discovered is that there is a company called Chomp which allows you to more easily search for apps (both Android, iPhone and iPad).  It was just recently bought by Apple who is looking to revamp its app store, but for the time being it will continue as is - namely a search engine for your apps.  So if you know what you are looking for to help with your classes, just go there and do a search.  

National Archives Mobile App

The National Archives have an app for Android and iPhone which gives you a daily document each day of the year including a letter Elvis wrote to Nixon asking to meet him (above).  

Mark Twain In A Thomas Edison Film

Yes Thomas Edison is most remembered for the lightbulb, but if you follow this blog a while you know his earliest film was in 1894.  Above is one he took of Samuel Longhorn Clemons (Mark Twain) the year before he died.  Pretty amazing stuff which I found on OpenCulture.   

Children In The Industrial Revolution

I believe that using primary documents is essential in any history class as students need to know how to write history.  To that end, this is an amazing set of primary resources (songs, pictures, newspaper clippings, etc.) all about children working in the industrial era.  Here is a very nicely produced sheet which students can use to decipher these documents. Of course if it is too long, you can use my suggestion for pdftoword a few posts below it to change it to a word document.   Finally here is the source where I found it and you will see many other ways to teach. 

Lindbergh's Flight

Lindbergh's Transatlantic Flight
Above is vintage footage of Charles Lindbergh taking off on his transatlantic flight from the US to France. Nothing like talking about history and then showing a quick video of it.