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If there’s one thing we know about history, there’s an awful lot of it. The world has changed a lot in the past several thousand years, and it’s tough to keep track of it all. But keep track of it you can, thanks to Macrohistory and World Report.

Macrohistory uses timelines to illustrate historical events. Think of it like SportsCenter — since it’s impossible to catch all the action, you can still see the highlights. And MWR has highlights from the last 200,000 years all the way up to the present day, showing classics like the extinction of neanderthals, the beginnings of agriculture, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In addition to condensed history, you can also find summaries of books on a wide range of historical and geographic subjects, including terrorism, the Middle Ages, and my favorite, “general.” Macrohistory and World Report is a great place to visit to get a handle on events from antiquity, as well as what’s been happening in Europe over the last few months. So even though you’ve missed most of recorded history, you won’t have to miss the most interesting bits. -BILL FERRIS

Macrohistory and World Report

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Amazing! Overwhelming! Mesmerizing! The only way to describe the 2,008 drummers that began the theatrical and technology enriched opening ceremonies in this year’s Summer Olympics at the “Birds Nest” in Beijing. Much of Chinese Culture was infused into the opening ceremonies. Thank goodness the commentators where there to narrate much of the symbolism of the program, or I would have missed out.

But what are the Olympics like for the people who get to watch first hand? Is there culture shock? Is it hard to get around during such a busy time? Fortunately, you and your students can get a fresh perspective on the games and Chinese culture visit You Are Here: Beijing from National Geographic Kids.

The blog is written by David, a 12-year-old American boy living in Beijing. David shares many cultural and Olympic experiences from a child’s perspective. Visit his post on “Getting Around Beijing” to get an insider’s view on the everyday routines of the Chinese. Read about how they are using odd and even license plate rotations to cut down on the pollution in China. Also check out posts about the games themselves, including how this year’s Olympic Games have five mascots (what is a sporting event without the mascots to get the crowd involved?). Read about them and what each mascot represents in Chinese culture. Also find out fun facts, such as why Hong Kong–about 1230 miles from Beijing–was chosen for the equestrian Olympic events. Feel free to leave your comments on the site before leaving as others have done.

If you didn’t find the information you were looking for on David’s blog when it comes to China’s history, The Birds Nest, or the Water Cube and you don’t have the commentators to answer them for you, not to worry. At the bottom of the blog you will find three different links that will take you to information on all of that and much more. -MONIQUE ST. LOUIS

You Are Here: Beijing 

From its beginning, social studies has been a mashup discipline, the marriage of fuzzy social sciences with more tangible fields like physical geography, to say nothing of history and civics. At times, it can be hard for teachers to make these disparate components seem like functioning parts of the same whole, as opposed to some awkwardly cobbled-together Frankenstein of facts.

Enter Worldmapper, a site that aggregates data from just about every country in the world and displays it visually on a flattened global map. Well, not really a map. A cartogram, which “re-sizes each territory according to the variable being mapped.” For example, a cartogram of GDP wealth shows a gigantic U.S., Europe, and Japan, a sizable China and India, and a tiny just about everywhere else.

Worldmapper has 366 maps so far, with more on the way. The maps are sorted into categories (food, housing, health, death, etc.) for easy browsing and are ready to use in the classroom: Text in the sidebar of each page explains the variable being shown, giving context and sometimes clarifying why a certain country stands out or doesn’t appear at all. Some pages also include relevant quotations or interesting facts. For example, I learned from the alcohol consumption map (What? I was thirsty curious.) that when a baby girl is born in South China, “her parents will brew alcohol for her, bury it underground and keep it until she marries.” (Fascinating!)

You may want to save that one for trivia night with friends. But add this site to your bag of tricks, and watch the world of social studies open before your students’ eyes. -EMILY JACK

Worldmapper

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Okay, let’s be honest — I know that some of you still have maps hanging in your classroom with Germany separated into two distinct counties and the USSR. Or worse, some may not even have a map or globe in your classroom at all. Are you fighting with other teachers for use of the limited reference books in your school’s library? Are your Social Studies or Science books not presenting enough information for your lessons? Well Fact Monster is here to put an end to that, and bring your classroom up to date with the latest facts from around the world.

Fact Monster is a great child-friendly reference website that is full of factual information. It has Almanacs, an Encyclopedia, Dictionary, and Thesaurus. You can find maps of any place in the world (think of all the wall space you will save). The site allows you to calculate distance to and from places or find the exact coordinates of a location. You can access information from all over the world on wars, geography, natural disasters, accident archives, and religion.

Explore information on the US in the areas of history, government, education, laws and rights, population, race and ethnicity, landmarks, and speeches and documents. Learn about people with fun facts, biographies, and information on US Presidents and Famous Women. The sports section presents information ranging from any sport you can think of to the Olympics to animal sports including the Iditarod and much more. There are endless Science, Technology, and Math resources. This is a great site to use for current events discussions. Your students can use the site to help with homework or project assignments. They can also accesses a Blog for Boys and Girls from age 6 – 14 to read articles on current events or participate in interactive activities. -MONIQUE ST.LOUIS

Fact Monster

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Teachers and students from across North Carolina learned the Alice programming language this summer during a workshop and camp at Duke University with support from the National Science Foundation and IBM. Alice uses simple commands to animate student-created movies and video games. According to the workshop organizer, Dr. Susan Rodger from Duke University, “Middle school students don’t really know what computer science is about. Alice is changing that by attracting both boys and girls with its virtual worlds storytelling and interactive capabilities. Our workshop showed that Alice can be used for problem solving and presentations in different disciplines such as math, science, English, art, business, and history.”

Students and teachers alike were drawn to the visual format. Tom Robertson, a middle school mathematics and technology teacher from Asheville, said, “This summer I had the opportunity to observe middle school students using Alice to build creative 3-dimensional interactive worlds. They were completely engrossed in the task at hand: computer programming. Clearly, Alice was providing a technology experience that went beyond the typical PowerPoint presentation.” Janie Torain, a business teacher from Person High School in Person County, agreed. She noted that students in her class will use Alice Programming software to explore multimedia production while creating presentations in a ”FUN-damentally’ different and more enjoyable way than ever before.”

Teachers from many disciplines beyond technology and career education connected with Alice. Math teacher Bridgette Scott created a world for teaching the coordinate plane. Math teacher Cheri Grantlin from Durham plans to integrate Alice into creating engaging class starters. Nashville science teacher Alisa White noted Alice’s assessment possibilities. She said, “Worlds created by middle school students effectively promote interdisciplinary understanding, problem solving and learning fundamental concepts in life, earth, and physical science within a short period of time. It is a great assessment tool.”

Humanities teachers recognized Alice as a way to encourage student creativity and engage students with literature. According to Person County teacher Andrea Payne, “Alice slows the thinking down and helps a child think about ‘thinking about.’ Storyboarding takes thoughts from abstract to concrete. This is how screenwriters do it: they storyboard.”

For students, the most important aspect of Alice was the opportunity for self-expression. Jesse, a middle school student at the camp, said, “It’s interactive; that’s cool. It’s open - you know - there’s a lot you can do with it.” Brittany, another middle schooler, was looking forward to using Alice for projects. She said, “I like that you can actually create your own ideas and express yourself and have fun with it.”

Teachers who are interested in Alice can download free middle school lesson plans and materials from the Duke workshop. -DR. SUSAN RODGER

Note: This article was put together by Dr. Susan Rodger and several teachers attending the Adventures in Alice Programming Workshop held at Duke University in June and July 2008.

Alice (free download)

Free Alice lesson plans for middle school

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Tired of teaching from the text book? Having a hard time fitting environmental science instruction into the school day? Well EcoKids can change all of that!

EcoKids is a Canadian interactive website created to engage students in environmental activities. This site is full of resources for teachers such as lesson plans, printable resources, and helpful links. It even has specifically designed lessons for ESL (English as a Second Language) students using the different environmental themes. Teachers can access information on Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, The North, Waste, Land Use, and Earth Day to initiate any environmental or science lesson, or provided a great follow up to an end-of-unit study. This site even has a Fact of the Day that teachers can use to initiate classroom discussions or writing activities about the environment. Looking for an environmental project for your classroom or school? You can visit different links on the site that show different types of environmental projects students and schools are involved in for ideas.

Students can access the site and engage in games to practice what they have learned in the different areas of Wildlife, Climate Change, Energy, the North Pole, and Land Use. The games integrate the environmental themes with reading, math, science, problem solving, and social studies. Students can work on their writing skills by responding to questions posted periodically on the site, or commenting on the blog. -MONIQUE ST.LOUIS

EcoKids

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Take note, history teachers. The National History Education Clearinghouse is about to make your lives a lot easier. There you can find reviews of history websites, strategies and best practices, lesson plans, plus professional development resources.

Like a lot of history sites, The Clearninghouse is big on using primary sources rather than just textbooks and lectures. One article,”The Power of Primary Sources: How Teaching American History Grants Changed My Classroom” talks about how primary sources…well, changed that teacher’s classroom and got students engaged. The site’s creators realize exploration and discovery are what makes history seem fun. Indiana Jones probably gave a lot of lectures as a teacher, but it’s the action sequences that the movies focus on. Learning by doing can get students to care and, dare I say, actually get excited about history class. -BILL FERRIS

National History Education Clearinghouse

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The world can be a dangerous place. Aside from the business in Iraq, there are problems in Darfur, Chechnya, and the Basques and Spaniards aren’t exactly friendly these days, either. If you teach history or social studies, you can show your students where the hot spots are with World Conflicts Today. Click on the site’s world map and find out the specifics on conflicts around the globe. Find out about key figures, the politics involved, and even get a quick overview with handy PowerPoint presentation.

World history is built on conflict. World Conflicts Today gives you the skinny on the big ones. Hopefully, by learning the issues behind these skirmishes, we can learn how to prevent them in the future. -BILL FERRIS

World Conflicts Today

UPDATE 8/11/08: This site apparently is subscription-only now. As if that weren’t bad enough, there’s no info on how to get a subscription. Good things don’t always last, I guess. -BF

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Former US Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor wants to do for civics what John Madden did for video game football. That’s why she’s speaking on behalf of Our Courts, an still-in-development video game that will let students learn about government by tackling true-to-life legal issues online.

In a recent Reuters article, former Justice O’Connor said students aren’t learning enough about how government works. “[O’Connor] said the only way to preserve an independent judiciary was through public education, which she said was failing to produce citizens with enough knowledge about the three branches of U.S. government — legislative, executive and judicial.” To help make up the difference, Our Courts will provoke student debate on issues such as the 1st Amendment rights of a student wearing a controversial T-shirt to school.

Though Our Courts isn’t yet complete, you can already find useful resources like information on state governments,the structure of the state and federal court systems, plus key definitions that will translate legal mumbo-jumbo into plain English.

Once Our Courts is complete, make sure to send your students there. If they play it even a fraction as much as they play Madden football, they’ll become veritable experts on the workings of government. -BILL FERRIS

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Teach the Art of Diplomacy with Future State

Today’s young people are tomorrow’s diplomats. That may be a hard concept to internalize as you watch your students duel over a bag of Hot Cheetos in the cafeteria, but it’s true. To get them off to a good start, send them to Future State, the U.S. Department of State’s website for youths.

The site introduces students to the secretary of state, shares stories from the children of diplomats living overseas, provides starting places for those interested in careers in diplomacy, and links to fact sheets about every country in the world. Games for younger students teach them about world flags and test their geographic smarts.

The most compelling part of the site may be the news and events section, which seems to be targeted toward middle and high school students. As any social studies teacher knows, it can be difficult to make distant countries seem important to a 15-year-old who’s never touched a newspaper. But posts like “An American Girl in Riyadh” can make a far-off place like Saudi Arabia seem real – and even interesting – to the most apathetic American student.

The site can go a long way toward making students feel like the federal government is accessible to them, and that the wide world is not so far away. -EMILY JACK

Future State

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I saw the new Indiana Jones movie last weekend, so I’m suddenly keen on history and archeology. That’s what drew me to BBC Ancient History. This site provides a close-up look at several ancient civilizations, including the Mayan Empire, Mesopotamia, Rome, Greece, India, and several others.

BBC Ancient History packs the usual resources like images, time lines and scholarly articles, along with animated demonstrations of architecture, like an Iron Age Roundhouse from British prehistory. You can also find some surprisingly fun games. I recommend Viking Quest, which is like Oregon Trail, except instead of migrating to the west, you’re trying to loot a monastery in Britain. It’s not easy - for bringing home a paltry 150 pieces of silver and eight slaves, I was banished to a fishing village in Norway.

If you cover any of these civilizations during your world history course - and it’s hard to imagine world history without the Greeks or Egyptians - your students will want to check out BBC Ancient History for additional resources. They’ll get a lot more knowledge, and they won’t even have to bring a bullwhip or fedora. -BILL FERRIS

BBC Ancient History

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I’m terrible at Risk, which probably has something to do with the fact that I’m terrible at geography. My main problem, though, is that I end up with terrible territories:

Opponent: “I’m sending an army into Irkutsk.”

Me: “Meh. You can have it, Nanook.”

Perhaps I’d do better if I got to defend a place I actually cared about, or could at least locate on a map. The New York Times reports a few Ivy Leaguers apparently felt the same way when they created GoCrossCampus.

Like Risk, the goal in GCC is to recruit and position your armies to take over your opponents’ territory. Unlike Risk, the territory consists of college campuses, or U.S. cities and states, and your armies consist of you and your friends. Working as a team with people within your social network, dormitory, whatever, you coordinate your movements to defeat your rival, as well as develop teamwork, collaboration and leadership skills. You can also nominate commanders, and remove nefarious spies from your ranks.

The game’s creators - a small group of Yale students - designed the game to be compatible with existing social networks, both online and face-to-face. They also play up the game’s small time-commitment - only a few minutes every day.

GoCrossCampus isn’t available to the general public just yet, but the founders plan to expand into high schools, as well as corporate team-building exercises. If you can’t wait that long and you’d like to participate at your school ASAP, you can contact them via the GoCrossCampus website. It’s a good way to bolster school spirit, as well as inject a little energy into your next geography lesson. -BILL FERRIS

Storming the Campuses via the New York Times
GoCrossCampus

When my parents went to school, they ran drills covering what to do in the event of an atomic explosion. We’ve come a long way since then, but nuclear weapons remain a danger. The Global Disarmament Hub wants students to do something about it. That’s why they created Students for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World. If your pupils are concerned about the threat of nuclear weapons, they have a chance to win a trip to the organization’s annual seminar in Geneva.

To enter, students must respond to the question, ”What do you think can lead governments to stay away from, or do away with, nuclear weapons?” They have three options to do so: write a 1500-word essay, produce a 2-5 minute video, or design a poster.

Entries must be received by May 31, so they’d better get started pretty soon (sorry, we just found out about this ourselves). The Students for a NWFW website has lots of links and resources to get your kids started. An essay or poster might be easiest this late in the process. If your students do decide to shoot a video, make sure that “Duck and Cover” isn’t part of their solution. -BILL FERRIS

Students for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

Photo credit: AlbinoFlea on flickr

You’ve heard a lot about this “social networking” stuff kids are talking about. Whether you’re a complete networking newbie or you’ve got a MySpace, Facebook and Twitter account, make sure to check out iCue, a site from NBC News that combines peer connection with learning and multimedia.

iCue is an online learning environment that will let your students collaborate online while learning. While it does have fun stuff like games, iCue’s coolest features are the Cue Cards, which play video clips, as well as view images, documents, and video transcripts, related to the subject you’re looking up. Like an online baseball card, “flip” the Cue Card over to read useful info about the person speaking, his or her political views, the source of the video clip, earned run average, and lots more. Each card is tagged with notes and keywords, and if NBC’s notes don’t cut it, you can write in your own. Also like baseball cards, you can save and share them, so you can finally get hold of the Barack Obama rookie card.

Once they’re in iCue, students can build their friends network, interact with peers through discussion forums, and comment on others’ Cue Cards or ideas. iCue forums also have a “Thought Starter” which you can use to spark student discussion about an event in the news.

For its debut, iCue features content focused on politics, since there’s apparently a presidential election coming up. Over the summer they’ll add resources for courses including US History and English language and composition. Who knows? Once your students get started on iCue, discussing political candidates and collaborating on history research may just take precedence over updating their MySpace pages. -BILL FERRIS

iCue

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Tired of kids doing the same games from your list of activities? Would you like to add the element of random chance into your curriculum, but still have solid academic (yet fun) online activities for kids to do? Let Computer Lab Favorites at Scholastic.com change up your mix. This site generates new content and activities suitable for independent work at the lab.

The activities are presented on a wheel, which features four color-coded subjects (English, Math, Social Studies, and Spanish). It comes in two levels K-2 and 3-5, and a “spin it” button to let you do a random selection, adding the element of chance to your session. Activities include phonemic awareness and reading games from Clifford, science from Magic School Bus, writing activities from “Dog’s Life” and other “Flashlight Readers, and the poetry machine.

This is a great resource for high interest, easy-to-use independent activities on your classroom computers, and a rendezvous with Madame La Chance. -ALICE MERCER

Computer Lab Favorites at Scholastic.com