BY BILL FERRIS
For this month’s random roundup, we’ve selected the Library of Congress, our nation’s storehouse of pretty much everything worth knowing. As you’d expect, a lot of great resources for teachers have been derived from the Library. See your tax dollars at work by reading the articles linked after the jump.
BY BILL FERRIS
The neat thing about the past is so much interesting stuff happened during it. So much, in fact, that your typical history class doesn’t have time to mention all of it (obviously). The fine folks at How Stuff Works have the skinny on a lot of great historical info you don’t have time to cover in their Stuff You Missed in History Class Podcast.
The early buzz about the world wide web was that it would throw open the floodgates of the world’s accumulated knowledge, creating a window into the cultures of the most far-flung places on earth. We instead got lolcats, pop-up ads, and meaningless quizzes about which superhero you are.
Fortunately, some wise folks had an eye on that original idyllic vision all along, and those folks now bring us the World Digital Library. A project of the Library of Congress and UNESCO, the site provides access to high-quality digital scans of primary source materials from all over the world.
These cultural treasures include maps, photographs, manuscripts, audio and video recordings and more, and there’s at least one item from every UNESCO member country. The WDL’s interface is phenomenal, offering beautiful, high-resolution scans with incredible zooming capability. Check out this 18th century Japanese woodblock print; you can zoom in close enough to see individual paper fibers.
The site is also exceptionally easy to navigate — perhaps dangerously so, if you like looking at pretty pictures and are prone to losing track of time. You can browse by place, time, topic, type of item, or contributing institution, and the site is navigable in seven different languages — Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
The possibilities for using the WDL in the classroom are nearly endless: Social studies teachers, obviously, will find a treasure trove of primary source materials, but they can also show works created contemporaneously from around the globe for any era, enabling students to develop a holistic sense of global history. Second-language teachers can have students view culturally significant items in their target language. English language arts teachers can identify exquisite images, audio, and video for use as writing prompts. And the ability to browse by topic provides opportunities for use by those often-neglected STEM teachers: Among the topics to choose from is “natural science and mathematics,” which can be further limited to astronomy, geometry, medicine, physics, etc.
An entry under the topic “mathematical geography” is a 15th-century Egyptian book called A Guide for the Perplexed on the Drawing of the Circle of Projection. Many thanks to the World Digital Library for raising our collective IQ. This is what I always knew the internet could be. -EMILY JACK
Visit the Library of Congress online
Access Primary Sources Online with the Perseus Digital Library
There are few places on Earth that seem to me more remote than Greenland. Not to mention cold. And dark. During the winter, the sun really does not even rise. Sounds like a place for your next vacation, right? Thanks to NASA Cryospheric scientist Lora Koenig, you can experience winter in Greenland without making the actual trip and braving the minus-50 degree Celsius temperatures. She spent this past winter in Greenland blogging about her experience.
As you read her weekly entries, you can come to understand some of the important work she is doing in Greenland. She collected time measurements of snow surface temperature, microwave brightness temperature, and snow surface height. These measurements all help with ongoing projects that NASA has involving several satellites. In her entries, Lora tells you about her work and what life is really like in the winter in Greenland. Even better, there are lots of pictures and a summit webcam and weather station!
In a classroom, this site could be utilized in different ways. As part of a geography class, it could be used to highlight the different geographical features that exist in Greenland. Your class could take a virtual field trip while immersed in the personal stories of the author. In science, this website could be used to highlight important aspects of the process of scientific inquiry. This blog provides a great view into what it’s like to actually work as a scientist. Using the weather station data, a math class could create graphs that track daily temperatures, and could even use other resources to add some local data comparisons to their graphs. This blog opens up a new part of the world to your students.
As long as you can get past the chilliness that will seep into your bones as you peruse the site (I think I need to go put on a sweater), you’ll find at least a few ways that this resource could be useful to you and your students. -REBECCAH HAINES
Winter Camp: A Blog from the Greenland Summit
Summit Camp Webcam and Weather Station
Meet Me at the Corner: Virtual field trips for kids, by kids
Ancient Civilization from the British Museum is a beautifully done interactive site looking at different civilizations from China to America, and everything in between (including Ancient Africa south of Egypt).
The material is presented as six themes covering religion, technology, trade, writing, building and cities. Each section has an overview write-up, then students can see examples by picking a highlighted area from the map. The sub-sections include illustrations and examples so when they talk about pyramids, for example, they can a explore an interactive model of a pyramid, with a more detailed map of Ancient Egypt to provide background.
In addition, if students click on the clock at the bottom of the screen, a time line will appear. Clicking on the globe at the bottom brings up all the civilizations covered on the site.
It’s a really robust site with great information in nice digestible bites for kids or adults who want something more engaging a dusty old book to learn from. -ALICE MERCER
Ancient Civilization from the British Museum
Friends, Romans, teachers, lend me your computers: Ancient Rome 3D
Explore Early Civilizations with BBC Ancient History
It’s All Greek (Mythology) to Me
Photo credit: David Paul Ohmer on Flickr.
Are you tired of the same old boring state reports? Really, how much thought is involved in looking up the state bird of California (the California Quail — yawn). Would you like students to learn something new and interesting about the states? Explore the States on the Library of Congress’ America’s Story website could be just the answer to that need. Here are some examples of the great stories you’ll find:
Change up your state report routine and add some spice to your students studies of other states at America’s Story. -ALICE MERCER
America’s Story: Explore the States
Capital Way to Learn Your State Capitals
Teach Students US Geography with 50 States
Choke on Your Own Hubris as You Fail to Name All 50 States in 10 Minutes
Photo credit: Marxchivist on Flickr.
You’ve probably already heard about the link between math and music. How musical patterns, can help explain mathematical patterns. Phil Tulga is a musician who has taken this connection to make a happy combo of fractions and rhythm with flash to help students make tunes and learn about math. Students are shown fractions in pie form, and the beats they stand for are explained. Then, at the bottom, they can listen to songs that range from Revolutionary War drum calls, to the theme from The Simpsons. They can also make up their own using everything from Taiko drums to water, with a nice snare drum in the middle. This makes a great activity for music, math, or even social studies. -ALICE MERCER
Add The Biochemists’ Songbook to your .mp3 collection
Karaoke to learn English? I thought it was Japanese?
Photo credit: iurikothe on Flickr.
3 Challenges to Wiki Use in Instruction
Every teacher’s got a wiki these days. So what do you do with it in class? Integrating a piece of technology doesn’t lend itself to flying by the seat of one’s pants. THE Journal presents 3 Challenges to Wiki Use in Instruction, discussing what factors must be overcome to get the most out of wikis in education.
The World of 100
Imagine if the world were condensed into a village of 100 people. Now imagine if these villagers’ lifestyles were documented in the form of snazzy-looking charts. Toby Ng Design has created The World of 100, an illustration project in which demographic information such as population, literacy and air quality are depicted in striking graphic representations.
Learn 35+ Languages for Free in iTunes
LifeClever presents this list of free language courses available on iTunes. Good for your language students, or for anyone who’d like to converse in another language.
100 Free Online Lectures that Will Make You a Better Teacher
As a dedicated teacher, you’re always looking to improve professionally, right? A good tip at the right time can make a world of difference. This list of online videos will give you knowledge and ideas for getting even better at what you do. These videos deal with instructional suggestions, technology demos, and rules of the road for new teachers. -BILL FERRIS
Photo credit: One Good Bumblebee on Flickr.
Have you always longed to be like Nicholas Cage in National Treasure, a treasure hunter on the trail of a priceless fortune — as well as a cute librarian — in the National Archives? Okay, maybe you’re just looking for an interesting activity to introduce your students to primary sources (without having to steal them like Nicholas Cage’s character does). Look no further, your quest is done. The National Archives Experience invites you to “unlock the digital vaults” and explore 1,200 out of the more than 10 billion (!) records on file. These include photos, and other documents (like records from Brown v. Board of Education, and documents from Rosa Park’s trial). It’s not the whole shebang, but it’ll keep you busy.
The documents focus on a variety of topics from presidents to African Americans to Einstein. Not only can you “collect” documents with descriptions and other helpful information, you also have a choice of three activities to do with the images. You can make a movie (similar to the interface on National Geographic Wildlife Film Maker), a poster, or what they call a pathway — sort of a treasure hunt through documents that are related in one way or another. It’s all fascinating, and a really great way to introduce kids to primary documents. At the National Archives Experience, you and your students can find your own national treasure. -ALICE MERCER
Be your own curator with Museum Box
Instructifeature: Now museum, now you don’t
Visit the Library of Congress online
Photo credit: marttj on Flickr.
America is a nation of immigrants. They’ve hailed from all over the globe, from places like Russia, Mexico, Africa, Europe, and everywhere else except Antarctica (so far). The New York Times has put together an interactive map that chronicles America’s foreign-born population through history at Immigration Explorer.
Immigration Explorer breaks down immigration in every county in every state by country of origin, and the percentage of the population born outside of the United States. If you’re a history teacher, you could use the map to get students to think about what was happening in, say, Western Europe in 1880 that caused such high immigration numbers. Of course, a map like this could have dozens of possible uses. What would you use it for? -BILL FERRIS
Immigration Explorer via the New York Times
I had some really old school instructors when I was studying Korean. Not only was it great to have instructors with a lot of life experience, but given that they were native Koreans it was even more enriching. In addition to unique teaching styles, they had story after story about what school was like in their home country. How else would I have found out about weird schoolyard games, like the Chicken Fight? (That was the best video I could find.)
That little reflection of mine might be submission-worthy over at CulturallyTeaching. I’d probably have to up the word count, and I’d also need to find out how much they’d plan on paying me. I’d then need to instantly demand they DOUBLE IT. But enough about my negotiation skills.
Have you studied and/or taught while abroad? Do you have a new ESL student? Maybe you’re curious about how you can add some culture to your foreign language lesson. If any of those scenarios struck a chord with you, check out CulturallyTeaching.
Although their blog only recently started up in November of 2008, they have been steadily ramping things up. Its always good when you see a new, useful blog find it’s footing and start posting more and more. Postings at CulturallyTeaching generally fall into a few different categories, with a great deal of images, videos, culture lessons, resources and activities. If you’re interested in how culture affects people both in and out of the classroom — not only in America but also abroad — their blog is definitely worth reading. -NICK YINGLING
Field trip to Jordan: No tickets required with Project Explorer
Travel the world with Project Explorer
See the world, learn a language: Scholarships for students to study abroad
Photo credit: alessandro pucci on Flickr.
As budgets for field trips (and supplies and paper!?!) get brutally slashed in schools around the country, teachers are looking for alternatives. Okay, no, there never was any money for a field trip to Jordan, but Project Explorer gives the kind of information and experiences that replace — and even exceed in some ways — what you and your students might have found at that history museum that you suddenly can’t afford to go to.
Project Explorer, which was previously reviewed on Instructify, provides free, virtual field trips to global destinations for students at the upper-elementary-, middle- and high-school levels. They have recently added Jordan as a destination, which is filled with Project Explorer’s robust written, photographic, and video content about the nation’s history and customs. As with other destinations on Project Explorer, students are taken through Jordan by “tour guides.” Unfortunately, the tour guides are not a racially diverse bunch, which has two negative effects. First, it contributes to an overall sense of the outsider looking in on a culture that has little chance to represent itself with an insider’s voice. Second, it may be more difficult for students of color (now representing 44% of public school students in the U.S.) to identify with the guides and conceive of the notion that they too can become global explorers.
That said, Project Explorer provides a great way for students to explore Jordan, from key historical sites to cuisine to Middle Eastern music to more nuanced socio-political issues such as the experience of Palestinian refugees or Western stereotypes about Middle Eastern dress and terrorism. The video content is by far the most engaging part and there is plenty of it for your students to get access to the sights and sounds of Jordan. Accompanying lesson plans provide basic ideas that you can use as seeds for more robust lessons that link to key content for your students.
The new content about Jordan is a welcome addition to Project Explorer and we can look forward to planned trips to Singapore, Central America, Southeast Asia, and Greece and Italy, as well as content catering to the early-elementary level. More than an encyclopedia or a typical museum, Project Explorer gives kids the chance to explore the world…no buses or plane tickets required! -ABBY MARTIN
Travel the world with Project Explorer
See the world, learn a language: Scholarships for students to study abroad
Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books? The folks who created National Geographic’s Underground Railroad site sure do. It’s a historical game where you assume the role of a runaway slave, following Harriet Tubman’s lead as you try to make the right decisions that will lead you to Canada and freedom.
Okay, so this site isn’t exactly Web 2.0 (it feels more like Web 0.5). Bantam Books stopped publishing CYOA books in 1998, and this site’s design elements feel like it was designed around that time. And for being a high-stakes adventure where you have to run thousands of miles to freedom, it’s not especially thrilling or challenging, either. Still, it’s a useful way to introduce young learners to the concept of slavery and the Underground Railroad. Your students should pick up enough information to make them want to learn more.
If you’d like to play the game, turn to the Underground Railroad page.
If you’d rather stay put, turn to the Instructify page. -BILL FERRIS
Underground Railroad — History of Slavery, Pictures, Information via National Geographic
In Motion: The African American Migration Experience
Learn about the lives of runaway slaves with The Geography of Slavery
Last year, before the presidential election, we first featured Politifact. I even worked in a Flavor Flav reference. But that was months ago, the election is over and I hate reading anything I wrote that’s more than three weeks old. To quote so many ex-girlfriends, “I’ve moved on.”
Still, we wouldn’t like to see all that youthful energy your students had for politics die down. Neither would the folks over at PolitiFact — which is why, I’m guessing, they started the Obameter. After having compiled a list of 500 campaign promises made by President Obama, PolitiFact is keeping track of each promise’s progress.
Readers can sort by a handful of subjects and can sort promises by rating. Not surprisingly, we can see that the overwhelming majority still fall into the No Action category. President Obama has been in office barely a week, so I wouldn’t view that number too pessimistically right now (This is still politics, though, so maintain some degree of pessimism: introduce students to the expression, “the speed of government”).
Before the election, I urged that students double-check their fact-checking. Now, sticking with my theme of hyphenated words that involve the word “check,” I’d encourage students to check-in and check-up on what’s being done by this new administration. Political re-engagement! Its not just for every four years! -NICK YINGLING
The Obameter: Tracking Obama’s Campaign Promises via PolitiFact
Cut through political spin with PolitiFact
The candidates answer tough questions about science at Sciencedebate 2008
Two things I don’t particularly enjoy: geography and quizzes. I have a horrible sense of direction, and who really enjoys quizzes, anyway? Yet somehow I love the San Francisco Chronicle’s Annual Geography Quiz. It’s eerily similar to last year’s quiz in that the questions are fun, and in the words of quiz-creator John Flinn, it is, “a way for me to highlight some fun facts I stumbled upon in 2008, usually while in the process of looking up something else.”
This quiz might be a fun activity for your students. If nothing else, they’ll learn a lot of cool trivia about the world. You never know when you might need to know whether Mount Everest is taller than the Mariana Trench is deep, or what nation Zanzibar belongs to. -BILL FERRIS
2008 S.F. Chronicle Geography Quiz
Test Your Geographical Knowledge with this Geo Quiz
Photo credit: -Fearless-!- on Flickr
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