The Teaching History with Technology Newsletter
Summer 2008
Sponsored by Virsona's Talking History Contest

The THWT Newsletter offers resources, lesson plans, and tech tips to help history and social studies teachers incorporate technology effectively into their courses. To subscribe to this newsletter click the Membership link at the top of this page.

It has been an incredibly exciting few months for us, and so we have lots of news to share in this newsletter: a new book, a new Web site, a new professional development program, and a new contest for teachers. So read on!

• Best Ideas for Teaching with Technology Now in Print!
• EdTechTeacher.org now online!
• Teaching for the 21st Century Professional Development Program
• Virsona launches new Web site and the Talking History contest
• New Web Sites for Teachers

Best Ideas for Teaching with Technology: A Practical Guide for Teachers, By Teachers

We are excited to announce the publication of Best Ideas for Teaching with Technology: A Practical Guide for Teachers, By Teachers, our latest book!  Throughout Best Ideas for Teaching with Technology: A Practical Guide for Teachers, By Teachers we introduce and explain -- in plain English! -- powerful educational tools and strategies that teachers can apply immediately to their own teaching. In our book we show how to use technology to empower students to do creative and meaningful work and develop essential 21st century skills.

The Teaching for the 21st Century Professional Development Program begins for the 2008 school year

The Teaching for the 21st Century Professional Development Program (T21) provides cohorts of teachers the opportunity to develop their technology integration skills over a one year period with the coaching and support of educators who have extensive experience teaching with technology. Participants in the program leave with a greater confidence in their computing skills, practical approaches for integrating technology in the curriculum, and a readiness to take a leadership role in promoting thoughtful computer use in their schools.

• Each T21 cohort is comprised of up to 15 teachers from the same school. Cohorts can either be from a single department or they can be comprised of interdisciplinary teachers who show a special interest in developing their technology integration skills.

T21 Program Details

• Two intensive, customized day-long workshops: the first workshop opens the door to the possibilities of new Web 2.0 opportunities for teaching with technology; the second workshop supports teachers in integrating technology as a regular, constant element of their teaching and classroom life. Every workshop is customized to ensure that our training supports the educational mission of each individual school.
• 40 hours of individualized online/telephone consulting and coaching to help teachers find resources, develop lesson plans, and troubleshoot challenges. (Greater Boston schools can have 10 of these hours on site)
• 24 hour access to video tutorials, lesson plans, and other premium content from EdTechTeacher.org and iSchoolPD.com.
• Copies of Best Ideas for Teaching with Technology for each participant, our indispensable resource for learning to using technology in the classroom.
• Two online mini-courses in technology integration topics to further skills and keep teachers abreast of research and resources.

contact us for more information and pricing

Virsona announces Talking History Contest

Our friends at Virsona who sponsored this newsletter let us know about this exciting new Web site and fun contest for teachers.

History and Literature Contest To Award $2,500 Classroom Grant

How would you like to win a $2,500 grant for your classroom? That’s what you could receive if you participate in Virsona Inc.’s Talking History Contest for teachers taking place now through August 31, 2008. All you need to do to enter is create the most life-like virtual persona of a famous historical or literary figure or event using Virsona’s website and technology.

Imagine chatting with Abraham Lincoln, William Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Picasso and the impact these chats could have on how students learn about these people and characters. That’s exactly the kind of teaching Virsona provides. Virsona is a new, up-and-coming social media service that allows you to create virtual personas, or Virsonas, of any person, real or fictional, living or dead, and then enables you to chat via an instant message format with that person as if they were real and alive today. Virsonas are designed to independently and intuitively remember, react and respond just like the person they were designed to emulate.

The Virsona Talking History Contest challenges K-12 teachers to create the most life-like Virsona of a famous historical or literary event or figure by using the company’s free service available on its website. To create a Virsona, teachers simply add short, one-paragraph, first person descriptions of known memories and documented facts to the Virsona’s life archive. The more information you add to your Virsona, the more accurate and interactive conversations with that Virsona will be.

The teacher who creates the most life-like Virsona will receive a $2,500 cash grant to use for their classroom. Additional cash grants of $1,000 and $500 will be awarded to second and third-place winners, respectively. A panel of five judges will select contest winners based on functionality of the Virsona, the amount of content, and personality injected into the Virsona. They also will perform specific functions on each Virsona to ensure the accuracy of information within the Virsona.

To enter, go to www.virsona.com/talkinghistory and start creating the Virsona of your favorite historical or literary person.

Great New Web Sites for History Teachers and Researchers

Footnote
http://www.footnote.com/
Footnote is a project that attempts to combine a large collection of digitized documents from the National Archive with social networking features. Users can search for textual documents and photos pertaining to American history from the Revolutionary War to the present day. While the sheer quantities of documents available can make it difficult to locate information of a specific topic, the social networking tools on the site allow users to tag, annotate, and share documents with others, allowing for a unique collaborative research experience. Not a good starting point for research, but useful for locating otherwise unavailable historical documents or for learning about the process of research itself. Some features and documents require paid subscription.

History of Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada
http://www.lasvegassun.com/history/
The narrow focus of this excellent site allows it to create a fascinating and immersive multimedia experience. The collection of resources assembled by the Las Vegas Sun newspaper includes a comprehensive series of video documentaries, timelines, audio recordings, interactive maps, and stories from the Sun archives. Special features cover topics ranging from nuclear weapons testing to the role of the mob in Las Vegas history, although there is not enough information included on most of these topics for in-depth research. While some aspects of the site can have the feel of slick advertising for the city, the overall quality of the presentation makes it worth a visit for anyone interested in the subject matter. 

TeacherTube
http://www.teachertube.com
This YouTube-inspired site brings together a large numbers of educational videos, many created by teachers. While the videos cover a wide range of academic subjects, various channels collect videos dealing with specific themes: one channel includes videos related to American history created by the American Institute for History Education, while a general 'social sciences' channel provides more content but with less consistent quality. The general uneven quality of these videos, along with their varying subject matter and targeted grade levels, means that most will probably not be appropriate for any given class. However, there is certainly valuable content here for instructors or students willing to take the time to find it.

Museum of Missing History
http://museumofmissinghistory.org
The Museum of Missing History website posts information on missing objects, such as historical artifacts and works of art. The stated goal of the site is to provide a means for members of the public to submit information that could potentially lead to the recovery of these objects. Each object listed is accompanied by a short but interesting article detailing its history, significance and last known location. The layout of this site is polished and intuitive, but unfortunately so far only 22 objects are listed. The site has only been online since February 2008, so more content may be added soon.

Elizabeth I
http://www.elizabethi.org/
This informative site provides a great deal of information related to the life and times of Queen Elizabeth I of England. Articles detail various themes and periods from her life, while other sections provide links and resources for further research. The site is heavily dependent on text, with a simple layout and long articles, many of which are text-only. These articles rarely cite sources, although a link to a bibliography page is available, and strong interpretive claims are sometimes made without support, causing the articles to read more like biography than history. The only interactive features are a pair of short quizzes. For some students, this site will prove inaccessible; for others, it will provide as much information as possible in a format short of a full-length biography.

Virtual Tour of Machu Picchu
http://www.247rep.com/machu_picchu/index.html
This excellent website provides a virtual tour of the ruined Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru. The tour consists of 19 different panoramic images, which can be zoomed in and out and panned horizontally and vertically a full 360 degrees. The images are united by a map of Machu Picchu which shows the locations at which the different images were taken and allows the user to jump between them. The limited text sections of this website are not very useful, generally focusing on tourism and filled with advertisements, but the photographs alone make it entirely worth a visit.

Timelines TV
http://www.timelines.tv/
Timelines TV is an excellent compilation of historical documentary television dealing with many aspects of British history. Major topic modules are arranged on three timelines (titles 'changing lives,' 'rulers and ruled,' and 'nations and empire'), ranging from 1066 to the present day. Most modules contain multiple short videos, filled with interesting content and streamed quickly at very high quality. Each module also has links to other relevant transcripts, and transcripts to accompany the videos. The interface is generally easy to use, though not without occasional problems; the content is exceptional. This is a useful and enjoyable tool for learning about most major subjects in British history, though the short length of the videos makes it more useful for surveying extended periods of history than for specifically focused research.

National Geographic History
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/
The section of the National Geographic Magazine website devoted to history is an extremely high-quality production, with frequently updated articles, videos, photographs, games, and a polished interface. The site focuses mainly on ancient civilizations, describing its material as 'mysteries of the ancient world.' The organization of this site is somewhat lacking, as the individual topics are not organized by time or geography. So, although a visitor can click on a link to 'Valley of the Kings,' there is no way to see all the material related to Egypt collected in one place. However, the articles themselves, often drawn directly from the print version of the magazine, are well-written and augmented with links to relevant information on other parts of the National Geographic website. It is very interesting to casually browse this site, but harder to find specific information.