Another Guest Post by Karen Schweitzer

A huge thank you to Karen Schweizer for sending this to me to post on my blog. This is Karen's second guest post for ms_teacher.  Below is a great list for history & social studies teachers.  Enjoy!!

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20 Places to Learn More about History and Social Studies Online

 

The many resources that are available freely on the web can make learning history and social studies a fun and engaging experience. From primary documents to interactive historical games, the resources can be utilized by students and teachers alike. Here is a list of 20 sites that are perfect for learning more about history and social studies online:

 

History Matters - History Matters is a gateway site to Internet resources, teaching materials, primary documents, and guides for the purpose of teaching and analyzing American history. Through this site, you will find evidence, blackboard resources, audio, syllabi, and more.

 

History Channel - The History Channel offers informative study guides, programs, speeches, videos, and much more. The site also links to Biographies.com so that visitors can dig deeper into famous personalities throughout history.

 

Library of Congress - The Library of Congress, which is the oldest cultural institution, provides historical information through primary documents. The library also features an extensive teacher's site filled with ready-to-use classroom materials, lesson plans, collection connections, and news.

 

Digital History - The Digital History site uses the technological advances of the Internet to make historical documents more assessable to everyone. Within this site, users can find online textbooks, primary sources, ethnic voices, teaching resources, active learning resources, visual history exhibitions, and multimedia learning resources.

 

BBC - The BBC, a large online provider of educational material, offers online history resources for teachers and students. This site gives you a look at British and world history through biographies, ancient history resources, archaeology, interactives, message boards, and more.

 

HistoryTeacher.net - This site, created by a New York History teacher, offers over 2,000 pages of information on history from around the world. Through HistoryTeacher.net, you can find information on ancient, current, American, and world history.

 

National Council for the Social Studies - The National Council for the Social Studies features a wide range of social studies information including classroom resources. The classroom resources offer lesson plans, maps, book lists, and information on curriculum standards.

 

Voice of the Shuttle - Voice of the Shuttle is a humanities research site with a large world history page. Within the history resources, you can find information on everything from African to U.S. history.

 

Education World - The pages of this educational site hold 26 subcategories and 369 entries all pertaining to history. The Education World entries cover associations, directories, discussions, journals, museums, teacher resources, events, documents, people, and much more.

 

SchoolHistory.co.uk - SchoolHistory.co.uk is a historical resource site for both teachers and students. This site features worksheets, lessons, interactives, quizzes, and a teachers' section with guidance, advice, exercises, and a forum.

 

eHistory - This site provides a huge collection of historical resources for researching, learning, and teaching history. On eHistory, you will find multimedia resources, origins, timelines, online books, reviews, maps, images, and history links.

 

FREE - FREE, or Federal Resources for Educational Excellence, provides free online resources for U.S. history topics, time periods, and world studies. The pages of these resources feature images, primary documents, facts, and teaching materials.

 

EDsitement - EDsitement offers lesson plans and websites perfect for all age levels for most subjects including history and social studies. The lesson plans and website can be browsed or navigated by subject and grade level.

 

The National Archives - The National Archives is a huge database of historical information that offers historical resources, primary sources, and activities for students and teachers. Throughout the pages of this site, users will find lessons, training, research, workshops, regional resources, raw history, and many other materials.

 

Ease History - This site offers an accelerated visual experience for over 400 historical events, campaign ads for 1952-2004, and core values of events and campaigns. Ease History also comes with a learning guide that offers over 20 lesson plans.

 

Flight to Freedom - Bowdoin provides a free interactive game called Flight to Freedom. The game makes it easy for students to understand history after making decisions for historical figures and seeing the outcomes of their decisions.

 

History Mystery - History Mystery is an interactive game that allows you to investigate history through studying historical items, documents, and more. This is the perfect way to engage younger children in history.

 

ThinkQuest - ThinkQuest provides 62 world history websites created by students from around the world. The websites offer games, interactives, and facts that can be used to learn and teach history.

 

MoMO - The MoMO (Museum of Online Museums) is a site that features exhibitions from online museums around the world. Just a few famous museums that can be found on MoMO are the Met, MoMA, Smithsonian, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

 

History Now - History Now from The Guider Lehrman Institute of American History features on online journal with lesson plans, activities, and interactives.

 

Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online school for OnlineSchool.net.

Faith and Tolerance

When I began teaching in my school district, one of things that surprised me the most was the absolute intolerance of many of my students. This intolerance was only reinforced when I was asked to sit in on a meeting to represent one of our teachers. This teacher was an openly gay male who shared with his students stories from his life, some of which included talking about his husband. He did this in part to help any of his students who may be struggling with their own sexuality. He knew of the high suicide rate that exists for many gay teens and wanted his students to know his classroom was a safe place.

The meeting was called due to a parent's complaint against this teacher. As I sat in on this meeting, I was stunned at the bigotry and prejudice that came out of this woman's mouth. I truly felt like I was stepping back in time. The words that she uttered were very similar to what many 40 years ago uttered during desegregation and integration of our public schools. Much of what she said were quotes from the Bible to justify her prejudice.

I guess the irony in all of this is that this woman was African American and she did not want her son taught by some fag. The way she she said that word sticks out in my mind some five years later. It was no different than the bigoted white person who uses the "n" word. It was just as hateful and hurtful.

Vallejo is known as the most diverse city in the U.S. However, it seems as if some want that diversity to not be inclusive of its Gay population. The mayor of Vallejo was recently quoted here and here. How sad it is that in a city plagued by gang bangers, violence, a high drop-out rate.high unemployment and high foreclosures, that he would say something so ugly and divisive.

The mayor will never understand the damage that he has done to the kids who remain silent, closeted and forgotten.

Artist Girl learns another tough life lesson

and that would be that many people simply cannot be trusted.

She has been working steadily for the past couple of weeks. Most days, she was working from 10:30 in the morning until 8:30 at night, six days a week. This was supposed to be a commission based job, but the terms were never clearly defined. The long hours were explained away by the owners who stated that they were trying to hire more people. This never came to be.

They first told Artist Girl that she would receive her first paycheck this past Saturday. That never happened. She went to work Sunday, Monday and yesterday - each day thinking that her check would finally show up. Last night, one of the owners came at the end of a long day with her check. The other young woman that she works with had gone home early, so Artist Girl was left manning the kiosk for most of the day.

She finally had it last night when her co-worker informed Artist Girl that she would have to work today as well as on Friday. She typically has had Wednesday's off, but her co-worker (who is supposedly the assistant manager) was already taking the day off and refused to try to work it out to where each could work a half a day.

Artist Girl is now very frustrated and discouraged. She is really trying to get her life turned around, but then something like this happens. She was so excited about the prospect of being able to pay for her car insurance, buy Christmas gifts, and work towards being more independent. She knew that this job was most likely only going to be seasonal, but she was also hoping that she would be able to get a good reference from it in the end.

Her dad and I are looking into possible employment violations by her employers, such as the fact that she was not given any breaks, including the 30 minutes she should have gotten for a lunch break. There also might be potential problems with the check she finally received. (There is nothing that explains the amount she received nor is there anything that shows the amount of taxes that were withheld.)

Eventually (like within the next day or so), I will have a discussion with her about her options, trying to encourage her that this is just a minor bump in the road. Now is not an easy time to be a young person trying to start their life.

My Dad - the blogger

I've written about my dad before. He served in the Navy for over 20 years, working his way through the ranks, retiring as a Lieutenant. Both of my parents define integrity and goodness. They are who I most aspire to be when I think of those that I most respect and admire.

Imagine my surprise when my dad posted on Facebook that he has his own blog. So far, he has written three blogposts and I love, love, love what he has written. (Sadly, I think that the biggest misnomer out there is that many people in the military are conservative, right-wingers.) My dad is a deep-thinker and rational in every sense of the word. Pop on over and tell him hi. I think that would please him quite a bit!

There's no fun in being dysfunctional

So ms_teacher is feeling frustrated. She really isn't into drama, especially when it involves grown-ups who really should know better.

ms_teacher wants to start telling certain adults to check their egos at the door because seriously? She has too much on her plate.

Letting Your Child Grow and Making Mistakes Along the Way

For those who have followed my blog for any length of time, you are well aware of the struggles that my oldest, Artist Girl, have gone through since she graduated two years ago. She turns 21 in a few weeks and is slowly becoming the caring responsible adult that she was raised to be.

She is now working a seasonal job and is opening herself up to me. We are actually have adult conversations in which she shares with me her thoughts, feelings and opinions. This has been a long time coming and I am so very grateful.

This past week-end, I surprised her with lunch. As we sat and talk, she shared with me some of the concerns that she has about her younger brother, Wrestling Fan, who is in the midst of teen-age angst. She wanted to know if it was okay if she took him to one of the local teen-age church groups that she used to attend or if it was okay if she shared with him some of the struggles she had as an 8th grader (the grade he is now in).

We also talked about some of her former boyfriends, two of which I was never crazy about, but knew at the time not to say anything negative about either. Both of these young men are facing serious legal consequences for some of the decisions that they have made. She wryly commented to me, "I sure know how to pick 'em."

These are just a couple of the ways that I can tell that perhaps we are through some of earlier, heart-wrenching struggles. Almost two years ago, we almost lost her. Her dad and I have had to make some tough-love decisions as we witnessed her making really bad choices. However, I think that she has always known that even though we weren't always happy about some of those choices and in fact, felt that some were pretty self-destructive, we still loved and love her.

It is cool to see her starting to become someone that I can not only claim as my daughter, but also my friend.

Blogfail with an update

(Eiffel Tower in Vegas)

My intentions were good as I set out to participate in the daily blogger posting thing-a-ma-jig. However, last week I was forced okay not really to go to Las Vegas with my husband who had to accept an award for the shop he manages. It was really quite the chore, yes I'm lying to have to go to Vegas, seeing all the great sites, eating the great food, and partaking in a wonderful show by Cirque De Soleil, The Beatles: Love.

When we got back, I had to make up for the three days that I was out of town, being miserable in Vegas nothing could be further from the truth.

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This past week has been crazy again. The school district is anticipating closing and/or consolidating a few schools. One of their plans is to make one of the elementary schools a dual-immersion program, focusing on spanish/english. This is great in theory. However, this particular school has a very low Hispanic population. The teachers at this school have a lot of technology and art experience and want the Board to consider a magnet school that focuses on their particular area of expertise. Another elementary school being discussed for closure would fit better in the dual-immersion model that the Board wants to implement. This school's surrounding neighborhood has a very high Hispanic population.

Both schools are neighborhood schools in which many of the parents walk their kids to school. It just feels like someone came up with a great idea without really thinking about where it would fit best.

We shall see if the teachers suggested proposals fall once again on deaf ears. We are, afterall, only teachers who work daily with students, whereas those making the big decisions rarely come into contact with the kids we work with!

Two forums were held this past week to seek community and staff input. Very little trust remains with the Board or District officials as many strongly believe that the decision has already been made and the forums are nothing but a show. We've become very cynical in this District as many decisions that have been made seem to benefit the few at the cost of many. It would be nice if the Board surprised the community and actually takes to heart some of the proposals that were suggested.

It will be very interesting, indeed, to see how it all shakes out in the end.

Got Milk?

This came from Jon B. Gray, who works for Fleishman-Hillar in Kansas City on behalf of the Midwest Dairy Council.

Jon wants my readers to know that the Midwest Dairy Council has valuable, free resources for teachers to use in their classrooms.

Quoting Jon:

It is a curriculum of educational tools designed to help students better understand the importance of healthy snacking from both a health and economic perspective.

This curriculum includes downloadable “Make Change” lesson plans, appropriate for any lessons focusing on health, family and consumer science (FACS), or general classroom discussion. The lesson plans and accompanying tools are located inside the “Educator’s Resource Center” at http://dairymakessense.com/educator/.

Here, you’ll find posters, a PowerPoint presentation, lesson plans and interactive “cow-culator” activity, hand-outs, charts, recipes, and nutrition guides, all available free of charge (and all of these resources have been teacher-reviewed.)

Educators can also apply for a $500 school grant from Midwest Dairy Council to help empower students to take action for their health and improve their school environment. Fifteen $500 grants will be distributed. The grants are only available to schools in the Midwest Dairy region, which includes IA, ND, SD, MN, IL, MO, AR, KS, and eastern OK.

Thank you Jon for providing my readers with this information!