World History Teachers Blog

The Roman Colosseum Deconstructed

2012-02-02T06:00:00.000-05:00

Really cool short clip from the History Channel.

Iowa (Shift) Happens

2012-01-31T22:27:00.002-05:00

This video reminds me of the Shift Happens ones. It has a little bit on Iowa's digital age (first 53 seconds), but it is still fine. You can skip the last part. I found it today and showed it to my class of teachers as I believe it shows why it is so urgent that we use as much technology as possible with our students. I then showed the video on this video (first 3 minutes) as it shows where we are going (and some lucky few schools already are in terms of customizing classes for their students.

NT Times: Bismarck's Voice Among Restored Edison Records

2012-01-31T21:19:00.003-05:00

Interesting story about Bismarck's voice among Edison's restored recordings. In it, he advises his son to live a life of moderation (unlike the life he lived).

Thanks for the Hits - All 20,000 This Month!

2012-01-31T11:58:00.001-05:00

When I began this blog (and its companion ones on US history and US government) in April 2008 I had no idea how many hits it would start getting (not to mention the opportunities it would bring me). Thanks to your interest we should hit 20,000 hits this month which is a new record. Indeed in the last several months we have been really increasing. Thanks also for the e-mails giving me information for the site and for posting your ideas on the comments (and for all the great thank you notes I receive).

If you want, you can sign up for an e-mail for each of the new posts (no more than one a day) by putting your e-mail address in the box above "submit" on the right side of the blog and pushing enter. Alternatively you can look for me on Twitter under "kenhalla" or under Google+, also under "kenhalla."

In case you were curious about the fourth name, I raise money for William and Mary's track/cross country teams and do an alumni blog for them called the Spiked Shoe Society.

Every Coin Tells a Story

2012-01-31T08:47:00.003-05:00

According to this site, every coin tells a story, giving us clues about the past. Click on any coin between 100 and 400 and watch the flash reenactment analyzing the coin. Thanks to my colleague, Cynthia Hawkins for sending me this site.

Greek Mythology Encyclopedia

2012-01-30T19:47:00.003-05:00

The Theoi Project is an awesome site that explores Greek mythology and the gods in classical literature and art. It is a very comprehensive and well-organized site with more than 1500 pages profiling Greek gods and would be great for a web quest.

2012-01-29T19:45:00.003-05:00

Here is Sugata Mitra talking about the ideas in his book, "Beyond the Hole in the Wall." Kids learn how to use a computer on their own and teach others. His talk is part of the TED Talks series. See Ken's post below about the book.

Sharing igoogle Links

2012-01-29T17:55:00.002-05:00

I've written about the weblinks' aggregator page called igoogle (see how to video below). It is great as I can quickly see a number of blogs that I follow. If you have an igoogle page and want to see what I follow, then go to this link (I did take off the Tweetdeck, Google Docs, etc.). To allow others to do the same for your page, go to the "home" tab in the upper left side and then hit the "share this tab" on the drop down (see picture above). Then you can send an e-mail to whomever you want to share your page.
WARNING: If you do this, it will create a new homepage for you, but yours will still be intact. Both of them can be seen if you look on the left side of the igoogle page where each will have a "home" tab. If you then want to get rid of mine, you could right click on the "home" for mine and then "delete the tab." Or you could just look at the things you like from my account and add them to your page.

Beyond the Hole in the Wall

2012-01-29T10:49:00.001-05:00

Oddly enough I have found that kids are exactly LESS inclined to move off task than if they were a digitized class than a traditional paper and pen one. To that end I just finished Beyond the Hole in the Wall (only $2.99) which looks at kids in very impoverished areas and how much they were able to intuitively learn using laptops. Here are his quantitative papers and here is his blog. Yes, it is a long way from just giving a kid a computer to learning our mandated content, but I believe we are in the early stages of an educational revolution where teachers are moving more to facilitators and students will be doing more work at the higher end of Bloom's and then (and this is the one that is still in the very early stages) have a way to reprocess information they did not learn well as they move ahead (Knewton is one company working on this).

The Roman Army

2012-01-28T20:31:00.002-05:00

The armor and weapons that the Roman legions used. Filmed in South Wales during an annual Roman reenactment day. It runs about 10 minutes. Shows what made the Roman army such a successful fighting force.

Hannibal's Elephants

2012-01-28T20:19:00.001-05:00

Great clip from the BBC about the Hannibal's elephants and how the Carthaginians plied them with wine before battles. The kids will love it and it's only 3.5 minutes long.

Peloponnesian War

2012-01-28T17:39:00.003-05:00

While we are at it, as long as you can stand a computer reading to you, here is a Qwiki describing the Peloponnesian War between Greece and Sparta. Using a Qwiki is a great way for you students to see a visual, audio and video presentation of a topic.

Athens vs. Sparta

2012-01-28T17:35:00.001-05:00

Once you get beyond the metallic sound of the narrator this is actually a great video detailing the differences between the two civilizations.

Contributions of Greek Culture to Western Civilization

2012-01-28T16:15:00.002-05:00

Well almost as soon as I did the post below, I found a very nice lesson plan of ancient Greeks who contribution to western civilization. It involves having students make a simple video. Since it also includes EXACTLY the descriptions I want, it will form the basic of my students assignment which will probably be a simple movie made on movie maker or more likely on Wevideo.com. Here is another summary, if you want just a link to the information and not an actual assignment.

Ancient Greece Website

2012-01-28T15:59:00.001-05:00

I am struggling right now to figure out a good way for my students to look at key cultural figures in ancient Greece while getting their main points and doing it in a way that is better than a straight lecture. In that search I found this is a fantastic site with succinct coverage of everything that your kids needs for ancient Greece. In addition to having descriptions of the key individuals it also has a section on the Olympics, geography, art and architecture, history, wars and more. If someone as a good lesson plan for these individuals, I'd love to see it on the comment section.

World History PowerPoints

2012-01-26T20:37:00.001-05:00

One thing I like to do when we hire brand new teachers is to give them as many resources as possible so that they can focus on learning the content, getting to know one's students and to grade creative assignments. Here, then, are a number of PowerPoints for world history including Greece, Egypt, Absolutism and much more.

Online Project Rubrics

2012-01-26T19:49:00.001-05:00

I have written on some rubrics, but here is another one from Effective Online Teaching and Training. There are a variety of categories including blogs, wikis, e-portfolio, Twitter, online discussion and more. I found the item from a Google+ post from Eric Sheninger.

Still Room in my Social Studies Tech Class

2012-01-26T05:06:00.002-05:00

I am teaching a technology integration course (p. 42) for 7-12th social studies grade teachers (despite the heading above) for Fairfax County, VA teachers. It will start January 31st (so sign up soon) and run for 10 Tuesdays from 4:30 to 7:30. It filled up very quickly in the fall, so please sign up early. To sign up go to MyPLT, then put "social studies" in the search box and look for the title "Enhancing the Use of Technology in the Social Studies Classroom."

World War I - Animated Battle Maps & Much More

2012-01-25T21:08:00.002-05:00

Here is an animated map of each of the years in WWI that show the major movements of both sides. But there is much more on this BBC site including the human experience, international view, virtual tours of the trenches, Versailles and more. While we are at it, there is also a WWII and Cold War page.

Stickies on a Virtual Wall

2012-01-25T20:37:00.001-05:00

Just the other day I was at an in-service where the presenter suggested one technique where students could write one question on a wall and others could answer it. Then he said that during a test students could look at the wall for a minute or so. Obviously the point was that kids who are less reticent to ask a question would feel more inclined to do so. Well, while Wallwisher has been around for a few years, it allows students to put stickies on a wall and others can edit (i.e. answer it). So in the case of my kids who often take e-tests, this would be one way to get a lifeline.

Who Wants to be a Cotton Millionaire

2012-01-25T18:20:00.003-05:00

Studying the Industrial Revolution? Take your kids to the computer lab and launch this site and have them play this game. It allows them to evaluate the different factors that entrepreneurs had to make if they wanted to make money in the new cotton industry. It's a BBC site, of course and is terrific and is a fantastic introduction to the textile revolution. My thanks to my colleague, Jeff Feinstein, for sending me the link.

NY Times Story: "Istanbul Yields a Treasure"

2012-01-24T19:08:00.005-05:00

Archaeologists discovered a harbor town dating from the second century and the remains of a 5th century Byzantine church. The discovery is a big deal and some say it has the potential to become "the library of Constantinople." The story might add a bit of relevancy to our study of the Byzantine Empire. Here's a short video clip showing the harbor city that was discovered, Bathonea.

Geography Book Online

2012-01-23T22:18:00.001-05:00

If you look at my government blog you can see that Flat Knowledge already has a US government (AP) out (and next year a two part US one), but here is a world geography - the entire book! They are banking on people wanting to buy the paper copy so if you need it for your classroom, it is free for anyone.

Digital Books & A Little Self Promotion

2012-01-23T20:17:00.001-05:00

Today the DC metro affiliate of NBC news came to my classroom (and one other) to talk about digital textbooks which you can guess that I have been pushing for years up until this year when our entire county (27 high schools) went digital from 6-12th grades. If you want to be an advocate I should say that it started with my getting a few teachers and 1/3 to 1/2 of their students on board, then an entire grade pilot and that led to 18 middle and high schools doing it with a great deal of help from our curriculum great teachers, curriculum specialists and other administrators.

Tremendous Study Guide

2012-01-23T18:56:00.000-05:00

We just had our January re-testing for the students who failed the state exam over the summer or last spring. I gave the kids outlines found here on world history through the Renaissance and from the Renaissance to the present. While they are for VA tests, they are a great review for any world history class.