Historical Videos on YouTube…

Two sites on YouTube offer thousands of historical videos…

AP Archive “AP Archive is the film and video archive of The Associated Press, one of the largest and most trusted sources of independent newsgathering.

View AP Archive’s videos via this channel – the collection offers 1.7 million global news and entertainment video stories, which date back to 1895. ”

British Movietone “British Movietone is arguably the world’s greatest newsreel archive, spanning the period 1895 to 1986.

Discover British Movietone’s newsreel archive, which contains many of the world’s enduring images and is rich in coverage of news events, celebrities, sports, music, social history, science, lifestyle and quirky, via this channel.”

 

“The Vietnam War Like You’ve Never Seen it Before…”

Interesting article at CNN.com on the propaganda art of the Vietnam War.  Great teaching resource for this time period… (See link below)

Art of war: Propaganda posters paint a different picture of Vietnam

World War I Online Teaching Resources…

With the centennial of World War I there are several online resources and articles that can assist educators and students in teaching and learning about a very pivotal time in history.  The following are links to several resources I have been collecting and creating as of late…

Articles

How a century-old war affects you (series of articles…this is a link to Part 1)

How World War I gave us ‘cooties’ (Part 2)

The ‘bionic men’ of World War I (Part 3)

ISIS caliphate shows still no end to WWI (Part 4)

The mighty women of World War I (Part 5)

How toxic weapons killed 90,000 (Part 6)

After war atrocities, who must pay? (Part 7)

World War I’s broken promise (Part 8)

How World War I gave birth to the modern (Part 9)

When the flu wiped out millions (Part 10)

Why words don’t work for war’s horrors (Part 11)

The man who started WWI:  7 things you didn’t know

Photos:  WWI chemical weapons

Video:  Three unexpected things from WWI

Photos:  The ‘golden age’ of postcards

Video – World War I:  American Legacy

In 2014, countries are still paying offf debt from World War One

Where Americans Turned the Tide in World War I

This Week in World War I, Nov. 1-7, 1914

How a war started Daylight Savings Time

Remembering forgotten veterans of World War I

Final Tower of London poppy ‘planted’ on Armistice Day

World War I in Photos – The Atlantic

The Art of WWI in 52 Paintings

WWI site offers hints of J.R.R. Tolkien

Resources

Hokanson’s American History WWI

Tutorials
World War I Cloze Activity – Popups

http://www.quia.com/cz/455972.html

World War I Cloze Activity – (Fill in the Blank)

http://www.quia.com/cz/456001.html

World War I Vocabulary

http://www.quia.com/jg/2433958.html

World War I Hangman (Hints)

http://www.quia.com/hm/873116.html

World War I Hangman (No Hints)

http://www.quia.com/hm/873421.html

World War I Jumbled Words

http://www.quia.com/jw/481171.html

World War I Challenge Board

http://www.quia.com/cb/826588.html

World War I Section 1 Rags to Riches

http://www.quia.com/rr/1026246.html

World War I Section 2 Rags to Riches

http://www.quia.com/rr/1026261.html

World War I Section 3 Rags to Riches

http://www.quia.com/rr/1026273.html

World War I Section 4 Rags to Riches

http://www.quia.com/rr/1026321.html

World War I Section 5 Rags to Riches

http://www.quia.com/rr/1026336.html

World War I Battleship

http://www.quia.com/ba/587142.html

A Tale of Two Cows…

by kylatomdesign.
Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.

Periodic Table of the New Deal

Click here Periodic Table of the New Deal for an interactive view of FDR’s programs during the Great Depression.

The Legend of The Oregon Trail (Mental Floss…)

Great read on the educational game The Oregon Trail @ Mental Floss: http://mentalfloss.com/article/51930/legend-oregon-trail

So, where have you been?

It has been quite some time since I last posted here at HIT.  Since returning to the classroom last fall I have been busy educating the youth of America, at least those that set foot in Room 100 at Adams Middle School.  Our journey together is almost finished in terms of the school year, and we have some evidence to show for it online.  Our American History site can be found at oxpower.org in all its glory.  There are several student projects shared on the home page for your viewing pleasure.  The resources that we use on a daily basis are found mostly via the “Agenda” links in the right hand column, and here you can see all sorts of practice that has been going on on a daily basis.  I hope my students are ready to go to the high school.  I feel like they are getting there, but I also know it will be a whole new “ballgame” for them.  I think they are ready for high school social studies…

How to create accommodations for students…

Any subject area teacher can and should create curriculum tools that can help students that require accommodations in their learning.  This is key to differentiated learning and instruction.  When I think of my content area of social studies I know that it can require a lot of reading.  Vocabulary is an important piece of knowledge that can help students make their way through the content, and I try to create or find activities that support vocabulary acquisition.

In the past I have utilized sites like Quia to create activities that build and reinforce vocabulary knowledge.  Quia activities like flashcards, matching, concentration, word search, and hangman are a few that present vocabulary in a fun way.  You can also create cloze reading activities with Quia that enable a user to read passages of text and identify key terms that complete a paragraph.  Online textbook resources also often have ready made vocabulary activities that can make it much easier for students to navigate text or take an active part in classroom discussions and projects.  Online textbooks are also interactive and most have an audio or read-aloud feature built into the text.

The following are several examples of vocabulary and reading activities that I have created or found and linked to that assist all students and especially those that may struggle with reading (especially see the flashcards, matching, concentration, word search, hangman, jumbled words, pop ups, and cloze activities).

American History Vocabulary and Reading Activities

World Geography Activities

Hokanson’s American History Quia Class Page

Help your students gain a better understanding of the content by accessing the reading tools that are all around you or create some today.  Technology makes for better and more complete learning, and your students deserve to utilize these tools.

Social Studies Project Based Learning Idea: History A to Z

In getting ready for a return to the middle school social studies classroom I have been considering projects I might start off with.  One I call “History A to Z.”  I see this as a beginning of the school year project to get students thinking about history, in a way where they can embed technology in the process, and to find out what social studies and technology skills they bring to my classroom (a diagnostic project if you will).

Students first would come up with words starting with letters of the alphabet and then find historical pictures that would match up with the words.  Students could use Photo Story 3, Windows Live Movie Maker, iMovie, iPhoto, or any digital photo storytelling program to piece together a sort of historical slideshow.  The slideshow could even be a personal history with pictures from their own lives to place another twist on it.

An extension of this project, that can be collaborative, would be teaching the importance of copyright, citing information, design, and you could even have students add narration to the story.  There are always many variations with a project like this, and that is why I like to provide students with an opportunity to try them.  The following is an example I put together…

Enjoy!

I’m only a teacher…

Five years ago I moved to North Platte, Nebraska to take a position as the educational technology director for the North Platte Public Schools.  I had taught for 13 years prior to that as a high school and middle school social studies teacher.  Upon my arrival in North Platte I soon found a lot of opposition to embedding technology into the learning process.  One of the first school board meetings I attended I heard one gentleman accuse me of being “only a teacher.”

What a great compliment!  That phrase sticks in my mind, and I couldn’t be more proud to be called such a name.  My career as a teacher has led me to many places and on adventures with many great educators and students.  I now go back to the classroom to teach, to work with students, to feel like what I am doing is worth something.  Worth more than gold or riches.  Teaching is a profession that literally reaches into the future.

I am a teacher, a great teacher.  If only everyone would be…

Mission US: A Revolutionary Way to Learn History

Mission US is an interactive web based game that is a fun way to learn about the Revolutionary War.

Veteran’s Day Tribute via Digital Storytelling

I put together the following short video to show some teachers how they could extend information found on bulletin boards outside their classrooms.  It is my tribute to all veterans on this upcoming Veteran’s Day…

Hokanson’s American History

I have been thinking about ways to entice the old guard into the digital world in a meaningful way that gets them to look at their strategies for teaching in a new light.  As I’ve contemplated this challenge I have tried to take a list of benchmarks (I know, I know!!!) as a baseline to build an online course (based on an open courseware approach).

In a matter of roughly five hours I have created the following framework for a project-based learning approach.  The projects/assessments are not there specifically as I would have students piece that together based on their needs (see student resources).  It is a work in progress, but I am considering some sort of professional development that follows this approach.

Hokanson’s American History

Resources and such…

The following is a list of sites that have been shared with me over the past several days.  Generally, you will see all kinds of findings in my Delicious links on the top right hand side of this blog.  Enjoy!

What to read?

Library Thing Suggest

What Should I Read Next?

BookLamp

WhichBook?

Math

That Quiz Math Test Activities (Science & Geography too!)

Social Studies/Current Events

Know Thy Congressman

NewsMap

National Geographic Little Kids

Science/Health

NSF Scrub Club

iSpecies

Digital Citizenship

Creative Thinking Home

World Languages

Foreign Internet Radio

Virtual Field Trips (All Subjects)

SimpleK12

TRACES Bus-eum…

Our high school students had the opportunity to view a TRACES Bus-eum exhibit titled:  Held in the Heartland German POWs in the Midwest, 1943-46.  You can read more about it and see pictures HERE.  A video clip follows below.