PowerPoint Palooza - over 220 PowerPoints on History/Social Studies

PowerPoint Palooza is a site that has over 220 PowerPoint presentations from teachers and students on History and Social Studies topics, that you can download and edit and use in your classroom (just give credit to the original creator).

This is a great resource for teachers and students to find some presentations on different topics in history. While I don't advocate teaches do lots of lecture, they can be used effectively in a classroom.

CIA World Factbook - excellent resource about countries of the world

The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) World Factbook is an incredible resource about the countries of the world. It's free and available online and you can also download a copy for offline viewing and access. Older versions (back to 2000) are also available, which can be good for history teachers looking for older information.

The site has information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities. The Reference tab includes: maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map.. It's a great resource to find out information about the countries of the world and the CIA is constantly updating it.

Check it out and share it with your students. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

NationStates - free nation simulation game - create and run your own country

NationStates is a nation simulation game that allows you to create your own country with your own politics and ideas and then care for its people, "or oppress them".

You can also interact with other countries, participate in a type of united nations, and run your country as you see fit. There is a news and forum section also to share and get ideas and information.

This is a great way for students to really explore politics and government.

Here's a spotlight page on one of the countries.

National Geographic releases images of Titanic site

National Geographic has released new images of the wreckage site of the RMS Titanic. The images are mosaics, made up of thousands of images from sonar and photos, in high res. It shows everything as a whole, versus small individual areas.

The images are available in the print edition of National Geographic, on their website, or in the iPad edition of the magazine.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/04/titanic/titanic-photography

These images are a great resource for teachers and students studying the tragedy.

At 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, the “unsinkable” R.M.S. Titanicdisappeared beneath the waves, taking with her 1,500 souls. One hundred years later, new technologies have revealed the most complete—and most intimate—images of the famous wreck.

Source: The Verge




Related:

Wind Power interactive - great resource from NatGeo

National Geographic Education - teacher resources

Sea Monsters - Nat Geo - ancient sea creatures

Animal Facts from Nat Geo - great resource

Pearltree - Ben's Guide to US Government - great resource for K12

Pearltrees is a great, free site I wrote about in January that lets you organize web content in a visual pattern. There is a Chrome browser extension that makes it easy to add sites to your tree. Trees can be shared and even worked on collaboratively.

A member of my PLN (sorry, can't remember who now and I forgot to make a note of it) just shared a great Pearltree: "Ben's Guide to the U.S. Government for Kids."

The resources are sorted by grades: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12 and there is a page about Ben and a Parent and Educator section. Each section has information, links and resources about the US Government. This is a great resource for anyone teaching, or learning, about the US Government and how it works. 

Here's the main page for 9-12:

This is a great example of how a tool like Pearltrees can be used to create educational resources for students (or even have students create them as a project)

Panoramic Views of 7 Wonders of the World - great education resource

Panoramic Views of 7 Wonders of the World is a great resource for sharing these great places with students. The panoramic views are wonderful and very easy to use on your computer. You can change your view just by moving your cursor around.

Each image only takes about 30 sec to load and then you are ready to go.

This is a great way to show students some wonderful things in the world without having to go through airport security (or take out a 2nd mortgage for the trip).

Educational Poster - Timeline of Everything

The Timeline of Everything poster is a 36" x 24", full color poster that is a visual demonstration of 10 billion years, compared to 1 billion years, compared to 100 million years, etc. There are 9 time lines, each 1/10th of the length of the previous one. Each time line has significant or intriguing events in the history of the universe, from galaxies forming 13.2 billion years ago to Albert Einstein proposing the theory of special relativity in 1905.

These posters can be used to discuss history and get your students engaged and interested in history.

They are free until the end of today (October 11th.) The original price is $9.99

Today in History - manned spaceflight and the Civil War - free resources

Today is the 50th Anniversary of 1st Human Spaceflight and the 150th Anniversary of the start of the US Civil War.

Google's Doodle is about the 50th Anniversary of the 1st Human Spaceflight.

Here are some resources about this historic event, along with other resources about manned spaceflight:

NASA's Page on Yuri Gagarin - news article from the event, archived video, and summary of his flight.

Russian Archives Online - biography of Yuri Gagarin and history of his historic mission. 

First Orbit - site tracks Gagarin's mission and includes transcripts of his communications with mission control. Includes a "video" of the mission as seen from the International Space Station, along with actual mission audio and news transcripts. 

Today, 150 years ago, the Civil War began at Fort Sumter. Here are some resources about the US Civil War:

Civil War Traveler - this site has information about all of the historic sites from the Civil War that you can visit, with historic information and travel help. Great for learning about the Civil War and for planning a trip to historic places. 

Internet Modern History Sourcebook from Fordham University - links, articles and historical documents

History Channel - interactive timeline, videos, links and more. 

Social Studies for Kids - links, articles, and more - written kid-friendly

Using "Today in History" is a great way to talk about different topics and events with your students in any classroom. 

CBS News - Inside the FBI interactive

CBS News has a great interactive site on the FBI. The site includes the command structure, with links to more descriptions about each position, changes in the FBI, triumphs and disasters, history of the FBI, major cases, and more.

It is a great resource for history and criminal justice teachers to use with their students.

The Avalon Project from Harvard - documents in law, history and diplomacy

The Avalon Project is a site from Harvard University that contains thousands of documents relevant to Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. These documents also include links to supporting documents that were referred to in the text.

The documents are sorted by date range and go all the way back to 4000BC. The documents are fully searchable and are also sorted by collections such as American Revolution, Jefferson Papers, Geneva Convention, the Middle East, and more. There are even transcripts of witness testimony in the Nuremberg Trials. Pretty amazing stuff.

This is a priceless resource for any educator or student, teaching or learning, reading or researching these topics. These documents are primary sources and can be used for a variety of learning.

Panoramic Views of 7 Wonders of the World

Panoramic Views of 7 Wonders of the World is a great resource for sharing these great places with students. The panoramic views are wonderful and very easy to use on your computer. You can change your view just by moving your cursor around.

Each image only takes about 30 sec to load and then you are ready to go.

HSI - Historical Scene Investigation

Riding the wave of the CSI craze, HSI - Historical Scene Investigation is a ingenious way to teach history. The site was created by a consortium of colleges and the US Library of Congress in is based on Social Studies/History standards.

There are 13 "open cases" for teachers to choose from, with topics such as children in the civil war, the atomic bomb, and the Boston massacre.

Each case poses a question about the topic and has resources for both teachers and students. Students then use the resources on the site to answer the question(s) posed at the beginning of the case.

This is a great resource for teachers to incorporate more project based learning and critical thinking into their classrooms. The site has come up with some great topics and provides excellent resources for the students to use. One of my colleagues who teaches history thought it was great and is using some of cases right now.