The American Revolution Online

Looking for some sites to enrich your teaching of the American Revolution or celebration of Independence Day? Walter McKenzie at Education World highlights 5 top sites for teaching students about the Revolution. And just in time for the Fourth of July!

The first site McKenzie highlights is The Federalist Papers. All 85 essays are at the website. These essays are often used to help us understand what the Founders meant when they created the Constitution. The site has a great search engine that lets you hunt for exact phrases or words.

The Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention is sponsored by the Library of Congress. Here, students can see the primary documents of the Congress and Convention. It is listed as great for secondary school and even college-level research but it can also be useful in middle school or with gifted students in social studies.

America Rock has all those great Schoolhouse Rock songs that some of us remember seeing on Saturday mornings. Some of the Schoolhouse Rock songs related to the Revolution included at the site are "No More Kings," "Fireworks," "The Shot Heard Round the World," and "The Preamble." McKenzie says adults might find them "silly" but I bet they are too catchy and useful to dismiss. I know that I remember a lot of Schoolhouse Rock almost 30 years later.

Liberty! The American Revolution is a companion website for the PBS special about the American Revolution. It has a lot of great resources for the classroom, including the game The Road to Revolution. This game uses interactive quizzes and fictionalized news articles to engage and teach students.

Independence Day on the Net is a "comprehensive celebration of the history, legends, and traditions of this most American of holidays." The site has music, fireworks, and tons of information on the origins of the Fourth of July and the customs surrounding that day. This site seems suited more for elementary school or the beginning of middle school but can be fun anytime. It's a great idea for your own kids sitting at home who may want to get revved up for this year's holiday.

Little Known Facts about the American Revolutionary War is also a fascinating site with answers that are off the beaten path, like the fact that women fought in the Continental Army and there were actually two Boston Tea Parties. This collection of little-known facts will appeal to kids and adults alike. The host of the site is the state of Delaware.

Happy Fourth of July 2008!

SOURCE: "The American Revolution" 06/03/08
photo courtesy of babasteve, used under this Creative Commons license

Great Sites for American History

Hazel Jobe at Education World wrote about some of the best sites in their archives for American history. These sites are reliable stopping points for enriching American history or any related social studies lesson or curriculum.

Of several sites, Jobe chooses the top five then lists other useful sites. The top five:

• Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids is produced by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office. It has resources for learning about the workings of government for students, parents and teachers.

• History Detectives is a companion site for a PBS series of the same name. Here, students can access interactive features and activities that help them learn about investigating historical mysteries. The site also has lesson plans for middle and high school.

• History Wired is a virtual tour of selections from the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

• The Underground Railroad is a site produced by National Geographic Online that uses multimedia and interactive features to explore the stories and history of the Underground Railroad.

• Teaching with Historic Places has lesson plans and other resources for teaching American history. The focus is on properties listed in the National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places. There are also professional development opportunities for teachers.

Links in the article send you to Education World site reviews from the archive that address content, organization of the website, and aesthetics along with a review that highlights main and especially notable features.

At the end of the article, Jobe lists other sites from the archive worth mentioning, such as the National Constitution Center; American Notes: Travel in America, 1750-1920; and History and Politics Out Loud, an archive of "politically significant audio materials for scholars, teachers, and students." The article was last updated in 2005 so watch out for broken or moved links.

SOURCE: "Sites to See: American History" 05/25/05
photo courtesy of Weaselmcfee, used under this Creative Commons license

Diana Laufenberg: AZ Technology Teacher of 2007

Chelsea DeWeems in the Arizona Daily Sun reports on Diana Laufenberg, the 2007 AZTEA Innovation Award Technology Teacher of the Year. Laufenberg teaches Social Studies at Mount Elden Middle School in Flagstaff. The Arizona Technology in Education Alliance (AZTEA) uses its award to recognize teachers using technology in the classroom to enhance student learning and enjoyment. Laufenberg well deserved that honor.

Laufenberg has been teaching at the secondary level for over 10 years and she has always tried to integrate technology into her teaching. At her first high school teaching job, she was lucky to be in a small Kansas town close to universities that offered access to technology for her classes. When she moved to Arizona and Mount Elden, there wasn't as much technology being used and she has been a contributor to Mount Elden's growing use of technology for teachers and students.

Laufenberg's students create blogs and online magazines and regularly use the Internet, streamed videos, digital mapping and GIS (geographic information system). Laufenberg believes technology opens classrooms to the world. It provides a larger audience than students' classroom peers and teachers which serves as a great motivator. She said, "When you provide that kind of opportunity, their (students') commitment to doing a good job, their interest, their engagement -- everything goes up."

Projects that Laufenberg has spearheaded with her classes include the "Power of One" project in 2007 that culminated with a live visit to Flagstaff by Rwandan humanitarian Paul Rusesabagina. Students created multi-media movie clips on social activists. One student's movie on Martin Luther King earned her a spot at a luncheon with Rusesabagina. A more recent project is an online magazine on American Indians. You can see some of the Power of One project at the MS Social Studies wiki. The wiki also has rubrics for the online magazine articles and a Native Nations Movie rubric and also invites teachers to share some of their best practices for teaching middle-school social studies. Laufenberg also has a Classroom 2.0 page and a blog (no recent updates, unfortunately).

SOURCE: "High-tech teacher is state's best" 03/28/07
photo courtesy of kevindooley, used under this Creative Commons license