Instructify

BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

Who was the real inspiration for Count Dracula? What happened during the famous mutiny on the Bounty? Few things fascinate like a great story. Not only can it hook students, but a story also provides a solid framework for building understanding of other material. All you have to do is push play — the storytelling is already done thanks to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a podcast series from How Stuff Works.

Over the last few years the series has built a vast library of irresistible tales. Each one is 10-20 minutes long and presented as a conversation between two hosts. They usually begin by discussing common misconceptions resulting from media portrayals, then go on to tell the story, taking care to separate fact from fiction. With so many historical anecdotes available, it’s worth checking the archive for a podcast related to what you’re currently teaching. They’re displayed on one long webpage, so use your browser’s search tool (Ctrl-F) to find text on the page that’s relevant to what you’re looking for.

If you play a podcast in class, I’d recommend supplementing it with a few pictures to help students visualize the story. Since the podcasts are free to download in MP3 format, another option is having students listen on their computers, music players, or phones. Listening and writing comments makes a great alternative to reading for homework.

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

No social studies classroom is complete without a healthy dose of primary sources. Primary sources develop essential skills for understanding both past and present, like putting information in context and understanding conflicting points of view. Just imagine an entire curriculum designed around these skills. If you teach U.S. history, you have to check out Reading Like a Historian.

The breadth of this project is impressive. Seventy-five lessons span the whole of history of the United States, and though these lessons were designed as a single program, each can easily stand alone. The activities focus on analyzing sources and drawing conclusions about a central historical issue. In some lessons, students explore documents designed to “challenge or expand the textbook’s account.” In others, they use sources to take sides on an issue and then later must reconcile their differences. The quality of the curriculum reflects the talent of the Stanford PhD’s and graduate students that developed it.

The journey is just as important as the destination here. Reading Like a Historian will help your class investigate a topic in more depth while developing essential critical thinking skills. I don’t know anyone who has implemented the entire curriculum, but the abundance of lessons means you’re never far from an opportunity to try one. And since the planning is already done for you, there’s little reason not to use this excellent resource.

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BY BILL FERRIS

The Mini Page is all grown up. After delighting young readers for more than 40 years in newspapers across the country, this beloved insert has found a new home online. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library has published digital archives of The Mini Page‘s more than 2,000 issues dating from 1969 through 2007.

The collection, donated by The Mini Page founder and first editor, Betty Debnam, contains decades’ worth of lessons, activities, puzzles, pictures, and recipes based on a different topic each week. Biff Hollingsworth, a library staffer who works in the Southern Historical Collection, worked closely with Debnam to achieve her vision for how the archive should appear. “She’s considering this as a way to make sure all the issues she’s worked so hard on are given a new life,” Hollingsworth said.

Educators can put the archive to use in a variety of ways, according to Hollingsworth. If a class wanted to look at how African American history was celebrated over the last 40 years, for example, they can compare early Mini Page issues with today’s. In addition, since The Mini Page is written for early readers, the plain language might be helpful for ESL students learning to read a new language.

Visitors can currently search the collection based on date, title, people, places, and topics. Library staff are working hard to make The Mini Page archive more searchable, adding keywords and other metadata. Hollingsworth went on to say that if educators would like to be able to search via additional criteria, they can submit a request through the library contact page.

The Mini Page Archive 1969-2007

BY KEVIN HODGSON

All the news that’s fit to print, indeed. Newspaper Map is an amazing overview of how news is being published — and by extension, how history is being written — by connecting literally thousands of newspapers from around the world on a single interactive map. The site uses a basic format of a Google Map, with pin links to the actual newspapers in just about every place in the world. China? Check. Africa? Check. The Americas? Check. Iran? Not so much, but even the lack of a newspaper has the potential for a classroom discussion about freedom of information and journalism’s role in a country.

One of the nice things about Newspaper Map is that it uses Google Translate to automatically convert any newspaper into other languages, such as English. There is also a handy color-coded key to show the language of various newspapers on the map. Newspaper Map lets students examine how global events, such as the recent riots in Egypt or the vote in Sudan, are being covered in different parts of the world, as well as see how language and politics influence a story.

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BY BILL FERRIS

Remember the good old days of the web, back when all the GIFs were animated and Comic-Sans text would spread out across your entire 14-inch, 50-pound monitor? The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine can take you there. Just tell this virtual time machine which site you’d like to look at, and it will generate a time line through which you can view every incarnation of that site from its inception until the present day. Check out the 1996-era LEARN NC site (pictured) compared with today’s version.

The Wayback Machine has been around for a while, but its revamped interface features faster loading times, and a handy toolbar that makes it easier to visit the different eras of a given site.

You can use the Wayback Machine to show how design has evolved, or for a general discussion on how changes in the web reflect our changing world. It’s also a great nostalgia inducer if you want to relive the 1990s, before Amazon, Facebook, and Google owned the internet. Of course, if you really want to take a trip back to 1995, simply use the Geocities-izer.

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BY AARON FOWLES

July 27 is the UN’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. Google has partnered with Yad Vashem to further digitize and index its extensive archive of Holocaust photographs and documents.

The archive, which contains almost 14,000 items, is a visual journey through the Holocaust, showing authentic pictures of life in the ghettos, extermination camps, and postwar reconstructions and memorial services.

Clearly, this is a powerful collection of imagery that can be leveraged in the teaching of WWII history.  Some of the photos are extremely graphic, so I wouldn’t suggest letting younger students explore the site freely.  Each photo is accompanied by a short description, which should allow students to contextualize what they are looking at.

Moving forward, Google’s plans are to deploy their optical character recognition software on the archives, which will make searching for documents from family members much easier. Enter in a name, and you’ll be presented with an assortment of materials connected with that person. The possibilities for research are endless.

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

These two teachers are on to something. In the age of video parodies, History for Music Lovers on YouTube is a place to learn and to laugh. Listen in as the lyrics to popular songs (current and old) are transformed from karaoke into focused history lessons with a humorous twist. Topics as diverse as The Black Plague (sung to Gwen Stefani), the French Revolution (Lady Gaga), Men of the Renaissance (The Violent Femmes) and The Crusades (Billy Idol) are featured in this collection of homemade videos by teachers Amy Burvall and Herb Mahelona, from a school in Oauhu, Hawaii.

I imagine you could easily get the attention of every high school student in the classroom with a few of these videos, and why not turn the tables by letting students then write and produce their own history music videos.

Just be ready to help with the singing.

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

Gone are the days when teachers have to rely on the limited selection of paper-bound “readers” for supplementary material like primary documents or scholarly articles. There’s a plethora of sources on the web, and Google’s specialized searches make it easier than ever to find what you want.

If you’re looking for past news articles, Google News Timeline provides a fun and intuitive way to search. Simply enter a year, month, and even day to see news articles published on that date. You can then refine your search by entering a subject and clicking “add more queries” to select a type of media like newspapers or magazines. The best thing about News Timeline, however, is the easy-to-use display that arranges the results chronologically. The example above is the result of searching Time Magazine exactly 30 years ago. Clicking an issue took me to Time’s page where the full articles were available. Using News Timeline I’ve found articles as far back as the early 1800s, and in some ways the older ones are the best because you get an image of the original print!

Another source for high-quality readings is Google Scholar. It searches publications like academic journals, public domain books, and court opinions. The options give you the same ability as News Timeline to refine your search by subject, author, and date. For some of the results, only an abstract is available, but for many you can read the full text. My Scholar search for works about Emily Dickinson published since 2000 yielded an entire book of academic reviews and several journal abstracts.

These search engines can open more options for you and your students as alternatives to textbook readings. Historical articles from News Timeline can give a perspective from a different time period, while Scholar can ensure that you keep up with recent developments.

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

This Day, a website by Nikon, is a beautifully rendered look into historical events that happened in the past on the day you visit the site. With a lush background soundtrack (that can be turned off), and an automatic timeline that shifts backwards, the site transports you back in time to key events in history.

What I like here Is the simplicity of the design — the black background, the historical images and a short bit of text about that day in history. The site also offers an option of a screensaver and a desktop gadget. This Day might be useful as something for the whiteboard at the start of the day, as students mill into the room to get ready for learning. Or during units around time lines. On the day I watched, I learned about the Wright Brothers, the Tokyo Train Station in Japan, the first transatlantic radio transmission by Marconi, the rise of Nero, and more.

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

This is a slightly odd site, to be sure, but Boy the Bear’s Age Gauge is also an interesting way to place yourself in the span of historic events. The premise is that you enter the day you were born, and the site calculates how old you were at certain moments in time. Looking at the output for my birthday, I was suddenly transported in memory and time to the day of the 9/11 attacks (I had friends in New York City), the Y2K scare (I was working the late late shift that New Year’s night as a newspaper reporter because we all thought havoc would take place; it didn’t) and even the O.J. Simpson fiasco (I was actually in Los Angeles, visiting a friend, and we saw the police chase scene and the white van go by us as we stood on a bridge overpass).

I can imagine the Age Gauge possibly being used for personal narrative history projects for students, although the site’s list of historic events does not appear to be regularly updated (no Iraq War, for example). An interesting tangent from the main site is that you can also track similar items around entertainment (popular songs at certain ages, pivotal moments, movie releases, etc.).

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

I once had a student in my world history class who was about as lazy as they come. He rarely did homework and spent most of his class time scheming up ways to avoid assignments. So how did this student know more history than 90 percent of his classmates? He played Age of Empires religiously.

The power of video games to engage and teach is undeniable. But historical video games aren’t exactly mainstream, so cases like that student have long been exceptions. Mission US is among the first of a new type of game created specifically for schools and bringing access to all students.

Entirely free and web-based, Mission US puts you in the shoes of a teenage boy in Boston just before the American Revolution. You have to complete a variety of tasks around the city while meeting people and making choices that affect the outcome of the game. Ultimately, after witnessing the Boston Massacre, the hero has to decide if he’ll support the patriot cause or not. It’s this deep storyline that sets Mission US apart from other educational games. The adventure is divided into six episodes and takes about 90 minutes to complete. Students can save and resume their game, allowing them to play certain parts and then do corresponding activities provided in the teacher’s guide. Your teacher account will allow you to track each student’s progress to make sure everyone’s keeping up. And whether you have students play together or separately, in school or at home, the guide provides tips for each situation.

This is why it’s exciting to be a teacher in 2010 — Mission US is a dream come true for teachers who want to integrate a full-length video game into their class. Keep your eyes on this project, as a second “mission” is in development that will deal with the anti-slavery movement before the Civil War.

Mission US

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

With this coming April marking the 150^th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, expect media outlets to feature extra coverage of this trying time in United States history. The New York Times is leading the charge with a new blog called Disunion.

The project’s premise is simple, yet brilliant. Disunion reports on the Civil War as if in real time, so the post for today would reflect the events of November 19, 1860. With a staff of writers that includes professional historians, university professors, and an ex-presidential speechwriter, the stories are top quality. Here’s a sample from one of my favorite entries:

In 1860, a cub reporter named Samuel R. Weed scored the assignment of a lifetime when his St. Louis newspaper sent him to spend Election Day with the man who might become America’s president. Surprisingly, no one else had thought of it, and Weed arrived to find a relaxed Abraham Lincoln, greeting him “as calmly and as amiably as if he had started on a picnic.”

For us teachers, one of the best things about Disunion is that it includes primary sources from the Civil War era (the post quoted above featured the article written by Samuel R. Weed). Finding good teaching documents is always a challenge, and the Disunion people do the work for us by providing them on an almost daily basis.

I’ve never been a Civil War fanatic and you certainly won’t see me out in fields reenacting battles, but I’m already hooked on Disunion. Use it to inspire your teaching or give it to your students as supplemental reading.

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

We’ve come a long way from the days of using a map to memorize the 50 states. With animation and narration, a map can show that geography doesn’t just sit there; it plays a role in shaping ideas and events. Try these animated maps to show the interplay between history and geography.

The Map as History: With a captivating British accent, the narrator sets the stage and the maps zoom around as pictures appear to illustrate events. The maps are about mostly modern European history, but they recently added series about the United States and Ancient Greece, and they’re working on more. The catch is that only a handful are available for free. However, the reasonable subscription rates would make it a good value for both your students and other teachers in your school.

Maps of War: Don’t be misled by the name; this site also has maps that illustrate the spread of religion and democracy from ancient times to the present. We’ve touched on Maps of War before, but it’s worth another look. This thematic design is great for showing a big picture view of history. And these maps are just as visually engaging, with colors and events appearing as the story advances.

Watching these animations will help your students see connections between places and events, as well as inspire them in some creative map making of their own. Give them a blank map and some tools -– as high-tech as an image editing program or as simple as a few colored pens -– and see what they produce.

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BY AARON FOWLES

Maybe you’re like me. Maybe you weren’t the greatest math student. The earlier math classes may not have been that hard, but Algebra 2 threw you through a loop. The teachers tried and tried with their overhead projector to make the problems spring to life, but nothing worked.  You just couldn’t picture it.

For the modern student, enter Khan Academy. This site and accompanying Youtube channel contain more than 1,800 short videos on topics mathematical, biological, chemical, and even historical.

It’s hard to sufficiently describe the wealth of knowledge hidden in these videos. Even harder to describe than the content of the videos is the creator, Salman Khan. Operating out of a closet in his home, Khan cranks out videos at breakneck pace using a simple tablet and display program. Khan Academy’s screencasts are picking up fans across the world, including Bill Gates.

Besides the videos, khanacademy.org also has self-paced and instantly graded practice activities that measure a learner’s mastery of the content. The results of these activities can be stored and accessed at a later time, making Khan Academy a great resource for teachers who want to develop a picture of a student’s progress.

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

The National Archives has recently combined an interactive approach with their extraordinary collection of primary-source documents. The result is called DocsTeach and U.S. history teachers will soon be flocking to it.

Perhaps the best feature of DocsTeach is that it lets teachers take the lead. The Archives provides the documents; teachers create and share the activities. There are a variety of activity templates that encourage critical reading and allow you to work with the documents in a way that fits your teaching. In Finding a Sequence, the dates of documents are hidden and students have to put them in chronological order. Mapping History challenges them to pin documents on a map. Pictured here is weighing the Evidence, in which students put documents on one side or another to support a position on an issue.

The documents themselves are impressive because they are not presented as text, but images of the originals. With every pen mark, stamp, and crease visible, the documents tell compelling stories.

Though DocsTeach is new this year, there’s already a considerable amount of teacher-created activities available. You can give your students a link directly to a specific activity, and they can use the email feature to send their work to you. If you don’t find the activity you want, what a great excuse to create your own!

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