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A
ADVISORY:
Recommended resources
for teachers supporting students in
College & Career Planning:
________
Wall poster,
Austin-area Institutions of Higher Education.pdf (ImpactNews, 6/2009)
_________
The Lone Star EMMY Award-winning series State of Tomorrow will fire up student interest in Texas' universities while focusing on some of the hottest careers currently making a powerful impact on our state.
Available online for classroom viewing with well-designed associated curriculum. Or, check with your campus librarian who has a copy of these great episodes available for check out!
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Help middle- and high-school students learn about the 21st-century jobs awaiting them and take charge of their own education. Microsoft's U.S. Partners in Learning program has unveiled this free online course called CareerForward.
The project aims to get students thinking about what they want to do with their lives, what types of careers they might want to pursue, and what skills and training they'll need to succeed, Microsoft said.
The program is available to any U.S. student free of charge.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY:
- Multimedia Resources on Academic Integrity, University of San Diego.
- The Center for Academic Integrity, Clemson University.
TurnItIn and iThenticate are now being used by educators and content creators all over the world to fight plagiarism and restore integrity to written work.
Turnitin's comprehensive plagiarism prevention system lets educators quickly and effectively check all of your students' work in a fraction of the time necessary to scan a few suspect papers using a search engine.
The Learning Center at Plagiarism.org is designed to help educators and students develop a bette rsense of what plagiarism means in the information age, and to teach students the planning, organizational, and citation skills essential for producing quality writing and research.
AP Central is the official site for AP teachers! Find AP course information here, including the AP Audit criteria, sample syllabi, as well as released tests for each subject.
The Texas Archeological Society is dedicated to the study and preservation of the historic and prehistoric aspects of Texas' past.
TAS provides Resources for Teachers on Archaeological Topics.
Texas Beyond History is rich in information and resources to help you teach about the past in Texas, using archeology as a lens for discovery.
Click here for TEKS-correlated lesson plans written for both elementary and secondary grades.
ART in the Classroom / ART HISTORY:
- Art History Resources on the Web - In-depth hyperlinked lists divided by period and maintained by Chris Witcombe, Professor of Art History at Sweet Briar College, Virginia.
Art In History's educational programs provide supplemental, hands-on activities that bring students inside the culture and historic time period being studied. Projects offer a hands-on experience using historic replicas of art that students decorate to reflect the time period and culture from which it originated.
Art In History's lesson plans incorporate English Language Arts, Social Studies, and Art Education national standards.
In the 2009-10 school year, Social Studies departments on all Austin ISD campuses received the Picturing America masterpieces of American art and associated teacher resources - check with your campus librarian to access this wonderful classroom material. We have our supervisor Joe Ramirez to thank for writing this grant!
Great art speaks powerfully, inspires fresh thinking, and connects us to our past.
Picturing America, an exciting new initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities, brings masterpieces of American art into classrooms and libraries nationwide. Through this innovative program, students and citizens will gain a deeper appreciation of our country’s history and character through the study and understanding of its art.
The nation’s artistic heritage - our paintings, sculpture, architecture, fine crafts, and photography - offers unique insights into the character, ideals, and aspirations of our country.
Picturing America, a far-reaching new program from the National Endowment for the Humanities in cooperation with the American Library Association, brings this vital heritage to all Americans.
B
- BILINGUAL / ELL
Many of the texts we are expected to incorporate into our Social Studies lessons are challenging for our students, particularly our English Language Learners.
The web tool LessonWriter can be a valuable tool for instructional planning - particularly in addressing the new English Language Proficiency Standards.*
- LessonWriter creates comprehensive lesson plans and student materials from any content in minutes. Watch 3-minute video, Introduction and Demonstration
- A new LessonWriter feature goes a long way in helping teachers fine tune differentiations. You can print the same lesson with different comprehension questions for different students using the new Question Groups feature.
- LessonWriter is completely free, so register now!
Austin ISD Instructional Technology Facilitator Arturo Guajardo's weblog provides an extensive list of web resources - see, ESL/ELL Teacher Tools, Reading Sites with ESL/ELL Support , ESL/ELL Activity sites.
Interesting Things for ESL Students
There are quizzes, word games, word puzzles, proverbs, slang expressions, vocabulary study, pronunciation practice, listening practice and many other things, including:
- the complete program catalog from Voice of America series, "American History for English Learners"
- and English language building quizzes based on VOA's Special English Programs
Click here for additional Bilingual / ELL Instructional Strategies
- BIOGRAPHIES
Teacher discretion advised, biography.com is not appropriate for in-class consumption, however it does have its fair share of treasures usable in the history teacher's preparations, particularly in the recently added Classroom section.
It includes a fairly thorough Black History section, Born on this Day section, the Death-iversary section (Weird!), and the most practical way to search on the site - by Category - allowed us to find such notables as Roland-Michel, marquis de Barrin La Galissonniere, quite easily! Who?
Links to lesson plans and great ideas for putting an unusual twist on ye olde biography assignment can be found on the WebEnglishTeacher.com site. One of our favorite links took us to a lesson plan provided by the National Geographic Xpeditions site titled, Cultural Icons: Voices of Their Nations.
- BUFFALO SOLDIERS
Learn about the Buffalo Soldiers and their fascinating history...
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department website contains many links for students and teachers to use.
Go to the Texas Parks and Wildlife homepage and do a search for Buffalo Soldiers and you will find the Buffalo soldiers’ history, calendar, webcast, news releases, events and more.
This site supports 4th and 7th grade studies in Texas history, the study of African-American history, Texas history, as well as student expectations in U.S. History.
C
"We the People:
The Citizen & the Constitution"
companion website
- CIVIC EDUCATION
The Center for Civic Education is a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational corporation dedicated to promoting an enlightened and responsible citizenry committed to democratic principles and actively engaged in the practice of democracy in the United States and other countries.
The American Bar Association is sponsoring two efforts to promote public understanding of our Constitution’s key ideas and values. The newly appointed Commission on Civic Education and the Separation of Powers is developing ways to enhance public understanding of the doctrine of separation of powers and the role of an independent judiciary.
- Lesson Plans and Resources for Civic Education
- Talking Points for use when advocating for Civic Learning in our schools
- Dialogue on the Separation of Power
- In addition, the ABA Division for Public Education has developed a program, Conversations on the Constitution, to assist the nation's knowledge of the Constitution. ABA's new Constitution Web site, includes educational discussions, interactive knowledge tests and the chance to receive a free pocket-sized Constitution.
- CIVIC PARTICIPATION / Community Action / PHILANTHROPY
KAB provides school resources and programs to inspire individuals
and
the entire Austin community
Help End Hunger
While Adding to your Vocabulary?
START QUIZ: For each answer you get right FreeRice.com donates 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program to help end hunger!
"WARNING: This game may make you smarter. It may improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance..." (read more)toward greater environmental stewardship.
With the goal of teaching the importance of voluntary action for the Common Good in a Democratic Society and seeking to empower young people to make a difference in their school, their community, and their world, The League's Learning to Give offers lesson plans, activities, and resources to educate youth about the power of philanthropy (sharing time, talent and treasure).
Partnered with The League's Learning to Give is Austin-based A Legacy of Giving.
View Austin ISD campuses partnered with this local agency, click here.
Did you know?
In 2009, 4,800 students from 20 Austin area schools participated in The Drive, collecting 31,114 lbs. of food and over 2,000 Coats for Kids. Overall, students contributed $214,669.32 back to the community, including 20,108 hours of good work.In 2007-08 A Legacy of Giving trained over 75 Austin teachers who then helped their students to understand the meaning of philanthropy, assess community needs, and participate in hands-on student selected projects. Over 2,200 students engaged in projects that provided $130,685 in philanthropic value to the community. Among other activities, students collected 22,667 pounds of food, gathered 1,610 pounds of trash and made bracelets for soldiers and schoolchildren in Afghanistan. For more success stories, click here.
- VIEW VIDEO that chronicles A Legacy of Giving events in Austin ISD.
The Byrd Amendment requires that schools receiving federal funds teach the Constitution on Constitution Day.
We've provided a directory of excellent web sites that provide lesson plans, student web activities, primary documents, quizzes, video clips, and much more, CLICK HERE.
That directory includes the classroom-ready resources at no cost provided at AnnenbergClassroom.org
These include: Videos featuring members of the Supreme Court; a film chronicling the establishment of one person, one vote and its importance in a representative democracy; lesson plans and quizzes, and more!
- CULTURAL [Heritage Month] RESOURCES
- 2010 Black History Month resource list
Even though construction on the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) isn’t scheduled to start until July of 2012, visitors can already access a wealth of information at the NMAAHC web site. The innovative design allows users of the site to find content through an interactive relationship map that adjusts depending on the page a user is on. The graphic helps create a sense of context. For instance, if you’re on the A. Philip Randolph biography page the relationship map shows connections to photographs, civil rights, resistance, and more. Those subjects are further linked by threads to other people, subjects, and events, presenting a visual and metaphorical view of how actors and events in African American history connect. For those who like the more traditional approach to surfing web sites, there is also navigation at the top of each page, and a well-organized site map.
For the site's educator resources click here - SojournerHistory is an online resource designed by the American Institute for History Education intended to support the infusing of the African-American experience into your United States history classroom
- Austin ISD's American Indian Education Program Coordinator is Wilda Won. Located at Baker Center, this office can provide resources and further information. Recently Austin ISD and other Region XIII districts joined together to form the Central Texas First Nations Education Consortium.
- Asian-Nation - bills itself as the "one-stop information resource and overview of the historical, demographic, political, and cultural issues that make up today's diverse Asian American community."
- The Gilder-Lehrman Institute's resources on Mexican-American history are outstanding and include several primary source documents related to the topic.
Mexican-Americans.com
This site is especially worthwhile for those interested in tracing Mexican-American ancestry.- The Handbook for Educators Who Work with Children of Mexican Origin -
To request your copy of this
free CD, please contact Tripp Tuttle. - CURRENT EVENTS / NEWS IN THE CLASSROOM
African-American
Native-American
Asian-American
Mexican-American
This educators' manual describes the educational background of Mexican-born children and their American-born siblings, the Mexican educational system, the geography and history of Mexico, cultural differences between Mexico and the United States, and Mexican customs and traditions. The project is a collaboration between UNC's Center for Global Initiatives and School of Education. The funding for the current Fourth edition comes from the Title VI National Resource Center Program of the U.S. Department of Education's International Education Programs Service.
Elementary
NEW LESSONS
THE SAME DAY THE NEWS BREAKS ??
- The lessons are free.
- There is a new lesson every three days.
- All lessons are based on stories currently in the news - as the world's news breaks, teach it.
- All lessons are also downloadable in Word.doc and PDF formats.
- Listening files can be downloaded in mp3 format or subscribed to via a podcast.
- Classroom handouts are readily reproducible.
There is a graded listening with each lesson.
- Teachers can easily copy and paste the parts of the lessons they want to use.
TimeForKids.com provides teaching resources to go along with the day's news presented on their (K-6) kid-friendly website. The resources include graphic organizers, worksheets, quizzes, mini-lessons, and a great Around the World feature.
Secondary
A week's worth of news, rapped!
New every Friday.
Scholastic is a leading publisher of educational classroom magazines, with 32 titles for grade K-12, reaching more than 25 million students and teachers across the country. Working closely with teacher and student advisors, Scholastic’s magazines tailor current events coverage for each grade that is age-appropriate, curriculum-based, and award-winning.
Each issue of the magazine includes a Teacher’s Edition, which provides guidance on how to best incorporate the magazines in the classroom. It’s packed with activities, lesson plans and reproducibles that help build students’ vocabulary, reading, and writing skills.
Junior Scholastic (grades 6-8) is new and improved! This bimonthly current events magazine providing social studies teachers with timely articles tying into the complete curriculum, including current events, global studies, geography, economics, American history, world history and government. Ed Press Award Winner.
The New York Times UPFRONT, published by Scholastic in partnership with The New York Times, is a newsmagazine for high school students (grades 8 - 12) with articles on domestic and international politics, government, technology, economics, history and law. The magazine provides a unique teen perspective on the news and gives students the information and background they need to discuss and debate current events. Ed Press Award Winner.
Scholastic News Online, the magazines' online companion, is a free resource for teachers, parents and children that can be used in the classroom or at home to discuss current events and develop students' understanding of how national and international news affects their lives. Online reports compliment news articles in current issues of the Classroom Magazines and offer more activities and extensive coverage of breaking news.
Newseum - Just put your mouse on a city anywhere in the world and the newspaper headlines pop up! Double click and the page gets larger.
The Newseum displays these daily newspaper front pages in their original, unedited form. Some front pages may contain material that is objectionable to some visitors. Viewer discretion is advised.
A wide range of Social Studies lesson plan ideas, including methods of incorporating Current Events in the classroom, are examined at the Teachnology site. The site also has an extensive collection of rubrics, teacher signs, and graphic organizers.
D
- DAILY DOSES OF HISTORY
We've noticed more and more teachers throwing in a daily dose of "On this day in..." on their projector screen along with their day's objectives and student Warmup activity.
Said one World History teacher, "It's all part of the established routine and if I stopped now they'd rebel! They love these and I usually try to include an image related to the event or person if I can find it."
There are several sources one can sift through.
- In dry text form, check out the Associate Press site.
- For more detailed lists that cover multiple eras in history as well as subjects ranging from the Arts to Inventors, we suggest the History Channel's This Day in History site. Besides, they often include short video clips that can add to the fun!
- Our all-time favorite site however, On This Day - one of the many great features found on The New York Times On the Web Learning Network.
is the free online library of the Founders' constitutional documents!
ConSource is committed to providing valuable resources to teachers that will assist them in their classrooms as they discuss topics related to the Constitution. We know students benefit as teachers utilize primary and secondary source documents in their lesson plans. Noticing a need for teachers to have better access to these important resources, ConSource is developing lesson plans that meet the needs of teachers and their respective students.
ConSource is developing a center for teacher resources where lesson plans are currently aligned with the standards of New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.
The project's next phase in curriculum development is to invite teachers in each of the states to explore the ConSource library and write their own lessons based on their state's standards. These lessons may be posted in the Curriculum Center as a resource for other teachers nationwide and specificially for their specific state. Please submit authored lessons to the ConSource Curriculum Developer, Eleesha Tucker, for review. If chosen, your name and school will be posted with your lesson.
Primary Source Learning helps educators quickly find and use primary sources related to specific curriculum standards in all subjects through the Teaching Materials database. Staffed by classroom teachers, Primary Source Learning connects pre-K-12 schools, university programs, libraries, and museums through collaborative programs that deepen student understanding of the curriculum and equip learners with Information Age literacy skills.
The DBQ Project is committed to helping teachers implement rigorous writing and thinking activities with students of all skill levels. The Project has materials in American and World History. These materials are written at two ability levels, thus making the sophisticated Document-Based Question exercise available to a wide range of classrooms and grade levels.
Jackdaws primary sources encourage critical thinking and analysis, and augment retention of information in a variety of interdisciplinary disciplines.
A Jackdaws is your personal archive of hands-on primary source materials. They are an array of fascinating, relevant primary source documents delivered directly to you. Most documents are reproduced in their actual sizes for you to touch and explore over and over. Transcripts and translations of difficult to read documents are provided for better understanding. Every Jackdaw contains full descriptions of the documents and their sources.
______________________________
Wondering where a particular historical document is housed?
And whether you can take a look at it?
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has a nationwide network of research facilities, including presidential libraries, that welcome researchers who are as young as fourteen years of age.
Consult this list to see if there is a facility near you. (Provided by Social Education, 2003).
The NARA site presents important historical documents and provides resources for teachers. Be sure to check out the Tools for Educators in the 100 Milestone Documents section of the site.
This list of articles from the National Council of Social Studies "Teaching With Documents" issue includes the primary source documents and complete lesson plans for secondary classrooms.
They are all presented in PDF format.
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You'll find a pretty exhaustive list here: 100 Terrific Sites to Find Primary Source History Documents
E
- EDUCATIONAL EXHIBITS
The Humanities Texas exhibitions program circulates over fifty traveling exhibitions on a variety of topics ranging from the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence and Martin Luther King Jr. to the art of El Greco and the Dust Bowl. They also make available a large collection of documentaries and other media resources to supplement humanities programming.
Browse exhibition overviews by title, topic, format, or language, and learn more about the newest exhibitions to enter circulation.
(see also, A.C.C.E.S.S. Spring Traveling Exhibits program)
F
Have you joined your community on the AISD Educational Forum? Have a question or issue that's troubling you about one of your classes or new subject matter you've been asked to teach this year? The district's Forum provides a place to dialogue with your colleagues, sharing ideas and strategies, working collaboratively toward the goal of improved student performance on all district campuses.
Log-in today! The Forum's link button is always waiting for you in the top left-hand corner of our website.Timid? Not sure how to make your way there? Click here and watch the mouse arrow in this tutorial video.
LearnHub, a Social Learning Network created by Savvica Inc., provides a centralized online education destination for teachers and learners of all kinds. With seventeen different features on one fully-hosted platform and a number of strategic partnerships, LearnHub is poised to become the World’s online education destination.
LearnHub offers a revolutionary approach to teaching and learning online through networked communities which focus on a specific subject. Anyone can create a community, share a lesson, have a discussion or debate, create a test, share an opinion and hold an online tutoring session at no cost.In the "History" community we found a treasure trove of videos we've been unable to access because YouTube is blocked in the classroom, such as MLK's "I've been to the Mountaintop" speech. Unique resources can be culled from shared lessons, such as Seymour Hersh and the My Lai massacre
-
FUNDING ASSISTANCE
NOTE: We've found so many great avenues by which you might aquire funding, this topic now has its own page! Go here.
G
- GLOBAL ED. / MODEL UN
The Committee on Teaching about the United Nations provides educators worldwide with opportunities to learn about the work of the United Nations and how to integrate global awareness into learning and teaching at all levels.
The ICONS Project advances learning by designing and delivering dynamic role-play simulations for students and educators worldwide.
Participants in a workshop coordinated by the district's Office of Advanced Academic Services - "Exploring Global Issues for Pre-AP Social Studies Teachers" - compiled this excellent List of Global Issues web resources as part of their work.
Thank you teachers for your efforts to find quality resources for your colleagues and students.
The American Forum for Global Education
program resources.
Goggle for Educators provides not only lesson plans but tutorials for how to bring their other great technology features into your classroom, such as:
- Google Maps [PDF]
Brief overview of Google Maps and explanation of basic features. (JC Escalante, Librarian)- Google Earth in the Classroom [PDF]
Brief overview of Google Earth and ideas for integrating it into classwork. (WestEd)- Google News in the Classroom [PDF]
Brief overview of Google News and ideas for integrating it into classwork. (WestEd)- Google Groups in the Classroom [PDF]
Brief overview of Google Groups and ideas for integrating it into classwork. (WestEd)
H
- HISTORY DAY (NHD Resources)
National History Day encourages students to explore local, state, national, and world history. After selecting a historical topic that relates to an annual theme,
students conduct extensive research by using libraries,archives, museums, and oral history interviews. They analyze and interpret their findings, draw conclusions about their topics’ significance in history, and create final projects that present their work.
These projects can be entered into a series of competitions, from the local to the national level, where they are evaluated by professional historians and educators.
- Cen-Tex History Day 2009 Competition results
- REMINDER: Cen-Tex History Day Training Workshop is scheduled at the LBJ Library Saturday, Oct. 24
Registration deadline is Oct. 16.
I
J
JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT
Junior Achievement (JA) - the world's largest and fastest growing non-profit economic education organization that prepares young people for the world of work.
JA inspires and prepares young people to succeed in a global economy. We do so by building partnerships between the business and education communities to provide the curriculum and volunteers who serve as role models to the students. JA volunteers use his/her own experience in conjunction with the JA curriculum to teach about business principles, decision-making and critical thinking skills.
All of JA's programs are correlated to the TEKS and national standards. Programs use age-appropriate curricula to teach elementary students about their roles as individuals, workers, and consumers and to prepare middle and high school students for key economic and workforce issues they will face. Our goal is to eventually reach every student and inspire them to value free enterprise, understand business and economics, achieve financial literacy, and be workforce ready.
For more information about Junior Achievement or to request the JA programs for your classroom, please email Christine Kempff or call Christine at 512.499.8025
To view a PowerPoint presentation on the programs offered by J.A. in A.I.S.D. Middle and High Schools, click here.
K
L
SHARE A LESSON WITH COLLEAGUES
Download the
Lesson Plan
Submission Form
and submit it to joramire@austinisd.org
Don't forget to attach your electronic resources!
- LESSON PLANNING SUPPORT
i4C is a free web portal designed to assist anyone who wants to find high-quality, free Internet resources to use in classroom instruction, developing project ideas, reinforcing specific subject matter areas both in the class and at home and even for online technology tutorials.
Daily Life Online (DLO) has recently added a page full of great instructional templates - graphic organizers, blank timelines, charts, tables, diagrams, etc.,
CLICK HERE
DLO was created to support teachers by providing DBQ-based lesson plans for exciting, interactive, presentation-based lessons in key curriculum areas. The lesson plans are designed to be used in conjunction with Greenwood Publishing’s award-winning social studies reference source, Daily Life through History.
Even if you do not subscribe, it is free to explore the Teacher Resources site.
Curriki is more than your average website; "we're a community of educators, learners and committed education experts who are working together to create quality materials that will benefit teachers and students around the world."
Curriki is an online environment created to support the development and free distribution of world-class educational materials to anyone who needs them.Click here to download a one-page summary of Curriki's history and mission.
Click here to go directly to Social Studies resources.
The Federal Resources for Educational Excellence (FREE) website has recently been re-designed and now offers over 1,500 teaching and learning resources addressing 100 different educational topics, all available free-of-charge from the federal government.
TrackStar provides a central hub for organizing and annotating Web sites for use in your lessons, your starting point for creating online lessons and activities for your students.
Simply collect Web sites, enter them into TrackStar, add annotations for your students, and you have an interactive, online lesson called a Track. Create your own Track or use one of the hundreds of thousands already made by other educators. Search the database by subject, grade, or theme and standard for a quick and easy activity.
This free, comprehensive digital learning platform is built upon the merger of two acclaimed programs Verizon MarcoPolo and the Thinkfinity Literacy Network. Thinkfinity.org draws upon the strength of content partners, who produce a wealth of discipline-specific, standards-based educational resources. These include: National Council on Economic Education, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Geographic Society, and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, among many others.
Thinkfinity.org provides not only lesson planning resources but also a wealth of educational and literacy resources for students, parents and after-school programs. Thinkfinity.org's 55,000 standards-based K-12 lesson plans, student materials, interactive tools and reference materials are reviewed by the nation's leading education organizations to ensure that content is accurate, up-to-date, unbiased and appropriate for students. At Thinkfinity.org, you'll find primary source materials, interactive student resources and grade-specific research lists to help you tailor materials to meet your needs. Start exploring today!
While attending the recent 2008 Texas Council for the Social Studies conference we were introduced to the impressive work the folks from Region IV Education Service Center have done on their website for teachers.
The Social Studies Benchmark Performance Assessments portion of the site contains selected assessment items directly correlated to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills statements for grades 6-8 and the three high school courses of World History Studies, World Geography Studies, and United History Studies. Each item is accompanied by samples of student work. NOTE: Enter through the free Public section.
Casey Weaver's site - Austin Postcard.com provides wonderful collection of photos, news clippings, and other ephemera that provide those interested in Austin's history an excellent walk through time.
As the local history collection of the Austin Public Library, the Austin History Center provides the public with information about the history, current events, and activities of Austin and Travis County.
- To discover more about the first 50 years of the Austin History Center,
view this special Golden Anniversary Timeline. Congratulations to our friends at AHC!
- Watch the KLRU Downtown episode about the Austin History Center
Austin Past & Present site - an interactive documentary that brings Austin’s history to life. From its geologic formation to its current urban skyline, Austin Past and Present explores Austin’s past and present in more than 300 multimedia stories and over 2 hours of motion picture documentary.
- Students throughout the Austin Independent School District learn new and fascinating things about their community while they use this project in combination with the TEKS-aligned curriculum prepared by the Social Studies Curriculum office.
Project HOLD-Historic Online Database - an interactive website (affiliated with the city of College Station) which was honored with the
Texas Historical Commission's 2007 "Excellence in Preserving History" Award, the website also contains local history and links to other historical Texas databases.
Many primary source documents, photographs, and resources are contained in this alternative to a local museum.
M
-
MAPS / COUNTRY PROFILES
GoogleLitTrips.com is an innovative way to teach the stories of history - (think: migration movements, famous battles, etc.)
as well as the great stories in literature in a very different way.
Using Google Earth, students discover where in the world the greatest road trip stories of all time took place...
and there is so much more this site can do!
(Note: Downloading Google Earth is required to use this program. However, Google Lit Trips is a project being developed as part of the Google Certified Teachers program and is not affiliated with or sponsored by Google,Inc.)
CountryWatch is an information provider for corporations, government agencies, universities, schools, libraries and individuals needing up-to-date news and information on each of the recognized countries of the world.
CountryWatch’s extensive suite of products additionally features CountryWatch Data, the CountryWatch Map Gallery, the Image Gallery, the Global Guide, the weekly Political Intelligence Briefing and the associated Intelligence Wire. This constellation of products is available only as part of the CountryWatch Premium Service.
A new addition to the CountryWatch suite of products is the CountryWatch Youth Edition, which combines background country information, current events coverage, and other global research resources tailored to young students.
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26,000+ pages covering a wide range of topics await you at CountryReports.org. Teachers are using the site in a variety of assignments and project with their students (and teachers, don't forget to check out the Teacher's Resources section that provides worksheets correlated to information on the site).
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Nystrom has been in the business of helping teachers teach and students learn for over 100 years. Be sure to check out the Teachers section of their website for lesson plan ideas and other resources. For additional information about resources feel free to contact local Sales Representative Bonnie Amundson.
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In addition to the classroom resources that can be provided by Rand McNally, teachers may wish to consider subscribing to Rand McNally Classroom where they will find Online maps, teacher resources, and interactive games and activities. For additional information about resources, feel free to contact local Sales Representative Terry Carter.
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UNforKids.com website has a lot of multimedia for teachers. PDF, PowerPoint, and Word maps and flags are free to download and use, and are based on governement data and satellite maps. There are 191 countries, the entire UN membership is represented. The available information for each country includes: Email for the UN Ambassador for each country (if available); Link to UN Mission (if available); Link to Government website (if available); Full color flags; Full color maps in perspective global view and political view; Outline flags (PDF) that students can color in; Outline maps (PDF) that students can color and label themselves; Full color cutout flags for mounting on a straw or dowel; and Lesson Plans.
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Facts On File's Online Reference Databases are curriculum-oriented, inter-active databases covering a wide range of subjects, such as geography, history, and more. Each subject-specific database offers students and researchers an unprecedented depth of coverage -- with extensively hyperlinked full-text records, citation information, and a wide range of printable teacher resources. Your campus librarian can provide you with the necessary log-in information.
DID YOU KNOW?
For over one hundred years, film and video have uniquely documented history. In Texas, early films recorded Native American traditions, the boom time in oil fields, and daily life in both rural and urban communities across the state. In 1963, a Texas home movie became one of the most famous films of all time: The Zapruder film of John F. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas.
Yet no institution has emerged that is dedicated to the preservation, study, and exhibition of moving images specifically related to Texas -- until now.
The Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI) celebrates the state's home movies, industrial films, television output, and regional cine-club product as well as Hollywood and internationally produced images of Texas. Valuable to state history, these films also serve an important collaborative role in the preservation and restoration of the larger motion picture heritage for the United States.
[Search collection]
- MEDIA / TV Programming / VIDEO for the Classroom
Keep students engaged by inserting video clips into your Lecture / PowerPoint or other mode of instruction. This flagship school service is the only digital video-based learning resource scientifically proven to increase academic achievement. Discovery Education streaming integrates seamlessly into any curriculum with 7,700 full-length videos segmented into 77,000 content-specific clips.
Contact the Curriculum Department if you encounter difficulty creating an account.
The History Channel Classroom is an hour long, commercial-free, copyright cleared programming block that airs Monday through Friday from 5-6 am CT. A printer-friendly monthly calendar is provided on the History Channel Classroom page for teachers to schedule their videotapings.
From historic footage to the latest events, NBC News' HotChalk helps you bring the real world into your classroom in a safe, secure online environment built with you and your students in mind.
Including a searchable archive with thousands of historic video resources, mini-documentaries, primary sources, text resources, and images aligned to classroom instruction.
EASE History is a rich online environment that supports the learning and teaching of US History. Hundreds of historical videos and photographs are currently available in EASE History.
Learn about US History through the prism of US presidential campaign ads, better understand the complexities of campaign issues and their historical context by looking at historical events, and explore the meanings of core values by examining how these values have been applied in both historical events and campaign ads.
Browse the catalogue list of the KLRU (PBS)site to find current and upcoming as well as previous programs / special presentations, most of which include excellent resources including lesson plans appropriate for the Secondary Social Studies classroom.
SchoolTube provides students and educators a safe, world class, and FREE media sharing website that is nationally endorsed by premier education associations. SchoolTube.com is different than other media-sharing websites that currently exist. The SchoolTube platform allows students to upload media into a ‘holding’ area that keeps the media inactive. An email is sent to a moderator informing them that the media is available to be viewed for approval. Only after the media has been approved by the moderator is it available for viewing on the site.
TeacherTube provides numerous videos appropriate for inclusion in classrom instruction. The site also allows for creation of special groups - I found a Teaching American History group that has several in their folder - including one on the Underground Railroad. School departments are also using the site as a loation where their teachers can find training videos as well as exchange lesson plans.
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PHOTOS, STILL IMAGES, & other Digital Archives for the Classroom
Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.
FYI: Did you know that if you add "source:life" to any Google image search it will search only the LIFE photo archive? For example: computer source:life
The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online catalog provides access through group or item records to more than 50% of the Division's holdings, as well as to some images found in other units of the Library of Congress. Many of the catalog records are accompanied by digital images--about one million digital images in all.
While one of the rules of designing a PowerPoint Presentation for educational purposes is to "go easy on the images", the use of images to help students visualize the historical period or setting you are teaching about can be a very powerful aid.
- Avoid the tendency to put provocative, disturbing, or mysterious images in your PowerPoint while providing little or no explanation about them to the students.
- Provide students time to comment and reflect on the images you have selected - such time in the classroom where students are given opportunity to express their feelings, their observations - socializing intelligence - may take your lesson in a direction you had not thought possible but rewarding nonetheless.
Digital History "is committed to providing high-quality historical resources for teachers and students for free and without advertising. We have been fortunate to develop partnerships with a number of archives and museums that share this vision and have granted us permission to draw upon their resources."
Texas Tides offers a digital gateway to rich historical, cultural and scientific resources held in Texas and Mexican libraries,museums, archives, historical societies, private collections, state parks and wildlife preserves.
These resources (photographs, scanned documents and artifacts, video and more) are accompanied by custom-made, standards-based curriculum material and are freely available to teachers, students, and researchers worldwide.
Stephen F. Austin State University's Digital Projects faculty are developing the Texas Tides Digital Learning Consortium, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The People, Places, Things, and Events of the Past... in Pictures
are what you'll find at The Granger Collection.
In response to the growing number of requests from teachers and librarians the world over, The Granger Collection will soon offer its wealth of superlative historical illustrations - many available from no other source - as inexpensive downloadable digital images for educational use. Learn More...
- Political Cartoons (Analyzing)
NARA's Political Cartoon Analysis worksheet
LOC's "It's No Laughing Matter" Resources
For Elementary students
A teacher at Penryn Elementary School District authored this educational virtual musuem for primary students celebrating Presidents' Day.
A third grade teacher at Summerfield Elementary School is behind this fun President's Day Webquest.
White House for Kids - Presidential biographies
White House Presidential biographies.
Excellent teacher resources for introducing Lincoln to a new generation of Americans!
Abraham Lincoln:
Lincoln/Net presents historical materials from Abraham Lincoln's Illinois years (1830-1861), including Lincoln's writings and speeches, as well as other materials illuminating antebellum Illinois.
The complete Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 20,000 documents. Treasures include Lincoln's draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, his March 4, 1865, draft of his second Inaugural Address, and his August 23, 1864, memorandum expressing his expectation of being defeated for re-election.
George Washington:
The University of Virginia provides a collection of George Washington's papers.
The complete George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress consists of approximately 65,000 documents. This is the largest collection of original Washington documents in the world. Document types in the collection as a whole include correspondence, letterbooks, commonplace books, diaries, journals, financial account books, military records, reports, and notes accumulated by Washington from 1741 through 1799.
Rediscovering George Washington, a 2002 PBS documentary discusses three character traits which allowed Washington to gain and wield power-skill as a warrior, charisma, and political savvy...the website offers a wealth of teacher resources.
The History Channel's In-depth & Interactive Site on the American Presidents - Use your mouse to select the image of one of the 43 and find everything from a bio to major legislation to video clips and more related to that President.
IMAGINE: An interactive timeline of Presidential history that also serves as a central hub for accessing materials drawn from all 12 of the nation's Presidential Libraries.
REALITY: The Presidential Timeline provides a single point of access to the ever-growing selection of digitized assets from the collections of the twelve Presidential Libraries of the National Archives.
The Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of West Virginia is a national meeting place to research, reflect and report on issues of national importance to the governance of the United States.
Featured on its website is the American President Online Reference Resource that provides in-depth information reviewed by prominent scholars on each President and administration.
Among these assets you’ll find documents, photographs, audio recordings, and video relating to the events of the presidents’ lives. The goal of the project is to make these resources readily and freely available to students, educators, and adult learners throughout the world.
- Claiming to be the most comprehensive site on the Internet for presidential resources, presidentsusa.net can provide you with everything from who was in what's his name's cabinet, what was the First Family's pet's name, to what was the scandal in his administration?
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RELIGION
As Social Studies teachers not only should we not run, we have an obligation to include the role religion has played in the cultural development and history of humankind in our courses. However, there are important things to remember about such discussions in the classroom related to our professional responsibility to present such topics factually and objectively.
The Online Companion to the weekly television series provides lesson plans and other useful resources not only on the topic of religion and ethics, but excellent discussion materials on cultural sensitivity in general.
Recommended Reading:
- In a recent article titled Teaching Religion in Public Schools from the NEA website the authors note "teachers we talked to say there's no need to shut out the holidays altogether, just tailor activities to fit the demographics of your classroom, always err on the side of inclusiveness, and make sure your teaching is in accordance with district policies." Referenced in the same article is an excellent resource, Chapter Six of Finding Common Ground: A Guide to Religious Liberty in Public Schools.
- A recently recommended website is TeachingAboutReligion.org - the website is designed to serve professional educators [teachers, administrators, college professors, and curriculum developers] especially in the areas of teaching about religion in history, social studies, and religious studies.
- Titled "Regionalism & Religiosity", this interesting map of the United States and all of its states' counties highlights 8 major Christian denominations, showing where they represent a plurality (and in counties marked with a + at least 50%) of the relevant counties’ population - revealing that there are quite a few remarkably contiguous religious blocks in the US.
DISTRICT POLICY:
"Each day, thousands of parents from diverse backgrounds entrust the education of their children to the Austin Independent School District. For this reason, everyone involved in the education of children ... needs to understand the role of religion in public schools. That role is delineated by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution....It is the policy of the Austin Independent School District not to allow any activity or action that would give the appearance of school support or endorsement of religion in general or of a specific religion, and to support, as far as is reasonable, the free, private exercise of individual religious beliefs by students and staff...."- Austin ISD Policy Guide, "Religion in the Schools"
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RESEARCH / LIBRARY SERVICES
Type into any AISD computer browser window "iBistro"to access Online Library Catalog.
- AISD Library Online Resources 2009-10.doc (intranet download only)
- Library Resources for Social Studies overview.doc
(D. Buffington presentation at DWSD, Feb 2010.)
[NOTE: The information in the two documents above, courtesy of Library Media Services,
is not for public distribution and is not to be posted on any other site.]
DID YOU KNOW?
Beginning in September, 2007 the State of Texas began funding the Ebsco Publishing Databases as well as the Britannica Online Student Edition for Texas teachers and students to use.
Ebsco provides:
- 34 online databases with 3 age-appropriate interfaces for K-12
- Full-text articles from newspapers and magazines, maps and charts, photographs, educational and health reports, historical and current event information, biographies, country and state reports, etc.
- Professional journals and research studies
The curriculum-aligned, award-winning ABC-CLIO Databases are specifically designed to support Social Studies instruction and student research.
Britannica's Student Edition provides:
- 4 complete encyclopedias, two in Spanish
- Atlases, dictionaries, timelines, and more than 600 multi-media rich student activities
- Learning materials and encyclopedia articles aligned to TEKS
- Reference resources available in Spanish, Chinese, French, Korean, and Japanese.
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AISD's Special Education department's site provides a list of excellent web resources.
Texas Education Agency provides information and resources for TAKS-ALT.
TAKS–Alt is the assessment designed for students with significant cognitive disabilities to meet the federal requirements mandated under the NCLB Act. According to federal regulations, all students will be assessed on grade-level curriculum which includes those students receiving special education services. Students with significant cognitive disabilities may be assessed with alternate standards using an assessment that is linked to the grade-level curriculum through prerequisite skills.
The TAKS-Alt webpage has added an "Activity Bank" section. You can get to the webpage from the "A to Z" directory under "T" or, CLICK HERE.
Recommended article: important information on Special Education Inclusion.
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STATE AGENCIES
The Social Studies Center on the T.E.A. website provides such resources as
- a catalogue list of Primary Documents for U.S., Texas, and World History;
- resources for PreAP / AP teachers;
- and great information for teachers on the Understanding By Design instructional planning process.
The Region XIII Education Service Center Social Studies page provides a plethora of downloadables
- including PowerPoints on instructional strategies, graphic organizers, TAKS Resources, and other resources for every Social Studies grade level course.
Worldometers is managed by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world.
Sources are carefully selected to include only data published by the most reputable organizations and statistical offices in the world. The counters that display the real-time numbers are based on Worldometers’ algorithm that processes the latest and most accurate statistical data available together with its estimated progression to compute the current millisecond number to be displayed on each counter based on the specific time set on each visitor’s computer clock.
The same folks also recently developed Stop the Hunger, a website with real time statistics on world hunger.
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Our own AISD Instructional Technology provides on their site many helpful suggestions and specific lessons for grades K-12. The lessons are highly engaging and linked both to the technology TEKS and to Social Studies TEKS. You can access these lessons and resources on the district matrix site,
- click here - CORE Content Instructional Technology - and remember to select the Resources tab!
EasyTech, a proven, Web-delivered K-8 technology literacy curriculum, easily and effectively integrates technology into Math, Science, Language Arts and Social Studies. Engaging and interactive, EasyTech improves student learning outcomes in core curriculum subjects while it provides students with the skills they need for success in the 21st Century. Students love it! EasyTech's self-paced, interactive curriculum engages students in technology-based activities they find relevant. With EasyTech, teachers don’t have to stop or change what they plan to teach to integrate technology into their day. Instead, EasyTech provides comprehensive, scoped and sequenced lessons and activities that incorporate technology skills into their curriculum.
Curriculum Connections is a collection of original lesson plans and resources provided by the Anti-Defamation League that help K-12 educators integrate multicultural, anti-bias, and social justice themes into their curricula. Each edition is organized around a particular topic or theme, and a new edition is published three to four times per school year.
Find lesson plans, classroom activities, kits, publications all provided here
on the Southern Poverty Law Center's Teacher section.
EDUCATOR TRAVEL 
Close Up provides a one-of-a-kind interactive and educational experience in Washington, DC, for both students and teachers.
During their 6-day/5-night civic education programs in the nation's capital, students will have an opportunity to:
- Share experiences, views, and ideas with students from across the country
- Explore Washington's famous monuments, memorials, and museums at day and night
- Visit with their Congressional delegation and their staff on Capitol Hill
- Take part in seminars with Washington insiders (lobbyists, ambassadors, etc)
- Visit the various neighborhoods that make Washington, DC unique
While students are taking part in the Close Up program, teachers have the option of participating in the exciting, parallel teacher program or exploring DC at their own pace. We take care of the travel arrangements, hotel accommodations, meals, night supervision/security, and medical care. Teachers also have the opportunity to earn CEUs and/or graduate credits from Indiana University. Each year, over 16,000 students and teachers participate on Close Up's interactive and educational programs in Washington, DC.
If you have any interest in offering this opportunity to your students, please contact Justin Andersen; Close Up Foundation.
- TRAVEL
Looking to travel abroad during the summer? Would you like to earn graduate school credit and / or professional development credit while seeing the world?
GEEO is a 501c3 non-profit organization that has been created to help and encourage educators to travel abroad in order to bring their experiences back into the classroom and create a more outward-looking next generation of Americans. Educators can earn graduate school credit and professional development credit while seeing the world. The trips are designed for teachers and include activities such as school visits and homestays that give participants authentic exposure to local culture. The trips are deeply discounted so as to be affordable to teachers. GEEO also helps teachers find funding to subsidize the cost of the trips.
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The Voices of Veterans program, sponsored by the Texas General Land Office, was created to preserve the memories of those citizens who have served our nation in the armed forces. The program is free and open to any veteran in the state. Those who have been interviewed come from all corners of Texas. The interviews span every conflict from WWII to the present day and range from survivors of the USS Indianapolis, those who fought at Iwo Jima, members of the WAVS, prisoners of war, and to those who saw no combat, but still served honorably.
The program's website includes many of the interviews, transcripts, and photos. These primary sources are available to teachers and students.
"Their Courage Endures"
- 2009 Veterans Day Teacher Resources from O.E.A.
In honor of Veterans’ Day, November 11, the Ohio Education Agency is sharing a thoughtfully planned packet of instructional materials that focuses on disabled veterans of military service. The materials are intended to inform and educate students about the costs of war and the sacrifices that disabled veterans have made on behalf of American freedom.
- Download, 2009 Veterans Day Teacher Resource Pack.pdfThe format of this curriculum is designed to make it possible for teachers to pick and choose pieces from the lessons to dovetail into existing units they may already have on any one of the events, topics or time periods. Lessons can be adapted for students in grades 5 - 12.
Additional Recommended Web Resources on this topic:
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WetPaint's Wikis in Education is now ad-free! We like that.
Get on the bandwagon now...create your own, join others, or simply browse and learn what others are doing in theirs!
The following resources are among those found on our annual Women's History Month page:
The Great Texas Women's Lounge, Kinsolving Hall, The University of Texas at Austin celebrates Great Texas Women and their historic accomplishments by displaying their individual stories and photographs.
"The National Women's History Project, founded in 1980, is an educational nonprofit organization.
Our mission is to recognize and celebrate the diverse and historic accomplishments of women by providing information and educational materials and programs."
The Women's Museum: An Institute for the Future, in association with the Smithsonian Institution, is a comprehensive national American women’s history museum. Located in Fair Park in Dallas, Texas,
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