Exploring: Introductory Videos

With all the options presented on the homepage for this website, I had a difficult time choosing where to start my exploration. Then, I found the introductory videos! I believe these might be a new addition to the site this week and I think they will be the perfect way to get acquainted with teachinghistory.org.

I would urge all of you to watch the following two videos:


What is Historical Thinking?



Digital Classroom

In addition to these videos, please watch the other video that applies to you (elementary, middle school, and high school). Each segment discusses how the site will help you navigate all of its features.  What do you think? Would you find this site helpful? Do you like to create your own original lesson plans or will you adapt the resources this site provides you? How comfortable are you, at this point, with incorporating primary sources into your classroom?

An Introduction to Teachinghistory.org

Welcome to my experiment with blogger.com! Throughout our semester, I will be using this blog to help you explore all of the great resources available on teachinghistory.org!

Teachinghistory.org, sponsored by the National History Education Clearinghouse, is a fantastic resource for elementary, middle, and high school teachers of history. It is designed to aid teachers in developing quality lesson plans, finding historical content, and using best practices. Upon first impression, the site is a little overwhelming, but they do try make it navigable. Search engines are featured for various types of content and tabs are included at the top so that you can easily shift to the specific type of material you'd like to browse.

Each week, I will explore a different element of the website and try to discuss how I might use it in my own classes. Feel free to comment throughout the semester on both teachinghistory.org and my use of blogger.com :)

I'm hoping teachinghistory.org is going to help us keep our history classrooms from looking like this:
Bad History!