CFR Educators Page

Clearing house for CFR's educators central page. Some of the issues examined are really specific and some material is geared for college age students. Overall impressive collection of material from a legitimate policy powerhouse. You don't have to worry about the rigor or creditability of this stuff.

Darfur

Guide to Darfur crisis from the Council on Foreign Relations. Engaging videos and other interactive guides.

Solving Africa's Problems

This is a sweet interactive site that exams the conflict zones of Africa.

You can look at current conflicts, UN/AU interventions, and colonial history. Definitely worth exploring if you're talking about any conflict in Africa.

I Just Have a Thing For Timelines

I love them and the idea of getting to make an interactive timeline online that I can share thrills me.

1 word, Timetoast.

Easy to use, add pictures, links, description. Timetoast is at the edge of a timeline about the development of timelines.

The Price of Silence

PRI's The World is great because they managed to get a url that says the world.
Also great is this music video marking the 60th anniversary of the universal declaration of human rights.

Human Rights PSA

Want to get fired up about human rights? Watch 10 of these ads and lead the revolution.

Great as hooks into human rights or anything related to government or global studies.

Free Rice

How can you stop guessing country location when each time you do you fill a rice bowl up with 20 grains?

There is something twisted about the idea of me mixing up Burkina Faso with Benign costing someone 20 grains of rice. You could use it for it's world geography or any of the other subjects the quizzes come in.

Reinventing the Wheel

I've never been in favor of reinventing the wheel so I spent my snow day looking up other blogs.

This is a bit of a Russian doll except you never know which doll will be the big, beautiful babushka of your teaching dreams.

First the only Ed blog I've ever read before, Teaching in the 408, is the definition of a teacher taking ownership of his students success and never settling. My readership is due to a friendship but if anyone seeking a little inspiration, and who's seen the Taylor Milo you tube clip too many times, should scroll through.

The sunshine state brings us The Fischbowl which has some excellent posts and shows what can happen if educators are allowed to assemble at a school and think about teaching together.

Teaching every student is worth it for links and videos that can help you, well, reach every student.

Larry Ferlazzo's, an ELL focused teacher, seems to have invented, or outworked, other wheels makers. His best of section is divided by subjects and has an extensive list of social studies related links. For instance, his best map making section is divided into sections. I can only imagine what his desk looks like.

There's more, we'll get there, but the folks at edublog have compiled their own best of list, they have a conference and a big mic.

Spoken Word

If a picture's worth a 1,000 words how much is a postcard worth?

"Look Grandma,
I put on my Sunday best and went to the lynching.
Wish you were here!"

We have all seen awful photos of lynchings, but this site sheds light on an even more despicable practice, the turning of those photos into postcards.

Really helps to show the role of lynchings in terrorizing and how flagrant and widespread the practice was. Especially helpful is that the example come from everywhere from California in the 1930s to the Deep South of the 1890s. Most are explained in depth.

I got problems

Problem based learning at it's finest. The Buck Institute puts together some good stuff. They have a great page of links, including a link to the University of Delaware PBL Clearinghouse. In addition, they have their own down loadable units that include everything from background material, student handouts, and rubrics.

The economics units provides a variety of units.

The well done government units include projects that explain the Supreme Court, Campaigns, interest groups, and other relevant topics.

Voting Rights and Wrongs

African Americans, 15th amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Women, 19th amendment. But when did Native Americans get the right to vote?

The ACLU has a detailed timeline of voting rights expansion.

The Cornhuskers are coming through with this Native American specific site.

I have a question

Essential questions, like witty small talk at a cocktail party, you have to have it but sometimes you just wish someone else would come up with it.

Here's a list essential question that pertain specifically to social studies, everything from geography to civic ideals. Also doubles as a handy themes barn.

Video killed the radio star

Sometimes you hear something on the radio that makes you want to go back to the days before moving pictures, which if you don't own a TV is really easy to do. I heard Campaign '68 a few days ago on NPR and after at end of the hour felt like I really knew the '68 election and the drama behind it. The show paints a detailed picture of the most pivotal election of a tumultuous decade.

The website has a useful timeline and extensive collection of links. Great pages dedicated to each candidate including a short biographic video and specific audio clips.

You probably can't, and shouldn't, play the show in it's entirety but the website and radio show are a great resource.

Ed McMahon's Star Search

Every time I use RubiStar I think back to Star Search, maybe it's the judging, maybe it's the bright pink. Regardless this is a good stop for Rubrics, Rubric ideas, and your dose of pink airbrushed writing on the web that's still school appropriate.

Something like a historian

Thinking Like a Historian is a little gem. Put out by those fine folks at the Wisconsin Historical Society this graphic organizer, historiography 95mb downloadable guide is phenomenal.
The guiding principles of historical thinking are divided into

-Cause and Effect
-Change and Continuity
-Turning Points
-Using the Past
-Through Their Eyes

The charts are a great starting point but scratch below the surface and you'll be richly rewarded.