Docs That Teach

I came across Docs That Teach this morning (Thanks to @SuzanneWisler)

Docs That Teach

The site is divided into three parts:

1) Activities

• Find and use Activities created by other educators.
• Create  your own Activities

Each activity-creation tool helps students develop historical thinking skills and gets them thinking like historians. Choose one of the tools below to begin. Then find and insert primary sources and customize the activity to fit your unique students.

www.docsteach.org

2) Documents- Select from 3000+ primary sources for use in classroom activities

Primary Sources

We have selected thousands of primary source documents to bring the past to life as classroom teaching tools from the billions preserved at the National Archives. Use the search field above to find written documents, images, maps, charts, graphs, audio and video in our ever-expanding collection that spans the course of American history.

3) Account- Being logged in allows you to bookmark documents and activities to access, use and create later.

The site was created by the Foundation of National Archives and offers even more  resources for teachers:

Looking for “Experts” to Help Us Learn With Perspectives About Christopher Columbus

A new school year has started for us here in the Northern Hemisphere. We are off to a fantastic start. I am working with our 5th grade teacher and class on their Christopher Columbus Social Studies unit.

Cristobal Colon

We are looking to involve students in researching the historic figure from different perspectives in order to put together a more accurate view of the “hero-fied” persona he has been portrayed as in many textbooks in the USA.

To this end, we would like to skype with “experts” from different countries and backgrounds who could tell us a little bit about what their perception of Christopher Columbus is. What have they been taught in school or at the university about the “Discoverer of the Americas”? Do you celebrate “Columbus Day” , “Dia de la Raza” or “Dia de la Hispanidad” in October? What does your textbook say?

We would be interested in skyping with educators at the elementary school, middle school, high school or university level as well as entire school classes to put together different perspectives.

If you have a different perspective, please contribute to our learning. Leave a comment here on this post, contact me via the form or Tweet me to let me know you would be interested in participating.

The actual Skype call should not last longer than 5 minutes and we would send you specific questions ahead of time.

Celebrating Language, Culture & History via Skype

Students from Jacksonville, Florida/USA and Binyamina, Israel recently celebrated Jerusalem Day together. A true opportunity to share Language, Culture & History via Skype.

A grandfather in Israel shared his memories of the Six Day War (1967) of liberating Jerusalem. The Rabbi from Florida explained what Jerusalem means to Jews outside of Israel. Students sang songs, played instruments and practiced English and Hebrew.

Jerusalem Day- Yom Yerushalaim from langwitches on Vimeo.