General History
History and Social Sciences
eHistory at OSU
eHistory has been around in one form or another since 1995, when it was created by the budding historian Scott Laidig. These days, eHistory is operated and maintained by The Ohio State University’s history department. Dedicated to all things historical, the site contains primary sources and documents, original book reviews, digitized books, maps, and multimedia features. These multimedia features are uniformly quite good, and they cover topics such as the internment of Japanese-Americans in the United States during World War II and responses to immigration over the past 125 years. Historians will want to look through the "Primary Sources" area at length, as it contains letters and diaries from the Civil War, along with the oft- cited "The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies" in all of its 128-volume glory. [KMG]
National Archives: Teachers' Resources [pdf]
http://www.archives.gov/education/
The National Archives has developed this site to give teachers an array of resources to use in their classroom, and their offerings range from first- hand accounts of the Civil War to information about summer teaching workshops. The three main sections on the homepage include "Featured Activity", "Featured Exhibit", and "Professional Development". The "Featured Activity" includes collections of primary documents, accompanied by teaching guides, discussion questions, and other helpful items. One such collection includes "The Constitution at Work", which helps students learn how to analyze a number of key documents and then determine their connection to the U.S. Constitution. On the right-hand side of the page, visitors can find the "News, Events & Notices" area, which includes links to social media, regional events and programs, and information about National History Day.[KMG]
Smithsonian's History Explorer [Flash Player Required]
http://historyexplorer.americanhistory.si.edu/
The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, along with the Verizon Foundation, has developed a website that offers standards-based online resources for teaching and learning American history. This lively looking red, white and blue-themed website has an eye-catching feature on the homepage which highlights an item from the Museum's Artifacts. Visitors should click on the "Read More" tab, which is right below the description of the artifact, which will take the visitor to the full detail of the artifact, as well as any related artifacts. Clicking on the "Museum Artifacts" tab at the top of the page will take the visitor to the search engine for the 65 museum artifacts on the site. The "Lessons/Activities" tab at the top of the homepage takes the visitor to a list of lessons and activities that can be filtered by Grade Level or Historical Eras/National Standards. Additionally, the list provides the lesson/activity description, the grade band it's suitable for, as well as the duration of the lesson. Finally, the "Interactives/Media" tab, located at the top of the homepage, links to a slew of audio, video, and interactive resources that are meant to be used by students on their own, without the aid of a parent or teacher. "Building a Sod House", "Artificial Anatomy: Body Parts", "Children Write to the President", and "Whatever Happened to Polio?" are just a few of the 36 fascinating interactive lessons. [KMG]
Teaching History With Technology
This website offers a host of resources to "help K-12 history and social studies teachers incorporate technology effectively into their courses." As there is so much to consider on this website, visitors should check out the "Getting Started" link at the top of the menu on the left hand side of the homepage. There visitors will find the reasons to teach with technology, tips on how to get started, and the connection between technology use and higher academic achievement. "Virtual Tours", near the bottom of the left hand menu, gives ideas for using virtual tours when actual field trips are too costly or would be impractical due to location. There are more than 20 links given to institutions that have virtual tours, with a description of what the tours explore. The tours include trips through art museums, history museums, a medieval village, and Ancient Rome. [KMG]
Teaching With Documents: Lesson Plans
http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/
How does one get students excited about the Great Depression? It can be done, and the National Archives' "Teaching With Documents" site offers a cornucopia of lesson plans on this and other periods of American history. Each lesson plan contains reproducible copies of primary documents from the National Archives holdings, and the plans are correlated to the National History Standards and National Standards for Civics and Government. The materials are organized chronologically along the left-hand side of the page, and visitors can also look at thematic sections that include "The Emergence of Modern America" and "Contemporary United States." Teachers will want to look at the analysis worksheets on the right-hand side of the page that help students become familiar with understanding different source materials, such as maps, posters, and cartoons. [KMG]
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