Teaching History Online
Number 8: July, 2001
Contents
Introduction
1. Virtual
School History Department
2. The
Mystery of Anastasia
3. Who
Wants to be a Historical Millionnaire?
4. Qualifications
& Curriculum Authority: History
5. History
Forum
6. The
Napoleonic Guide
7. USA
Journalists
Introduction
Spartacus
Educational will be publishing Teaching
History Online every month.
The newsletter will include news, reviews of websites and articles
on using ICT in the history classroom. Members of the mailing list
are invited to submit information for inclusion in future editions
of Teaching
History Online. In this way we hope create
a community of people involved in using the Internet to teach history.
John Simkin
spartacus@pavilion.co.uk
Virtual
School History Department
The
History
Department of the Teachers'
Virtual School now includes several new features. Heather Wheeler
is now running a Designing
a History Website
section. Dan Morehouse has created a History
Forum
and there is also a new History
Timelines resource page. As
well as online lessons the history department includes a large collection
of Resources,
History
Worksheets
and History
Quizzes.
The
Mystery of Anastasia
This complete one hour online
lesson takes a look at the issue of bias by comparing information
on Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be Anastasia. The lesson
begins with a brief description of the Russian royal family and the
Revolution and assassination of the family. Pupils are tested on their
understanding through a cloze passage. They are then presented with
a table to complete from two pages of biased information and are shown
how each page is evidence either that Anna Anderson was or was not
Anastasia. After voting whether or not they believe Anna Anderson
to be Anastasia they are given instructions and a writing frame to
produce an essay on the topic. A selection of all essays sent to History
on the Net will be published on the site.
Who
Wants to be a Historical Millionnaire?
In a joint
venture between SchoolHistory
and ActiveHistory an
online 'millionaire quiz creatior' is now available. This tool allows
anyone, pupil or teacher alike, with or without programming
skills, to enter Millionaire questions for use in their own and others
history classrooms. This tool is available from both websites and
is an excellent activity allowing pupils to create quizzes themselves.
SchoolHistory has also launched a PowerPoint resources
section. This area allows teachers to download ready prepared resources
for use in the History classroom. Already including some extremely
high quality resources, this section will grow further.
In addition to this, SchoolHistory now has over 180
freely downloadable worksheets, with more queued to be added. Responsible
for the worksheets of the History
Department of the Teachers' Virtual School, the site offers many
quality resources that can save busy teachers enormous amounts of
time. Combined with online quizzes, interactive lessons and comprehensive
and categorised National Curriculum history internet links, the site
continues to grow.
Qualifications
& Curriculum Authority: History
The Qualifications
& Curriculum Authority is currently developing a website using
pupils' work and case study material to show what the
national curriculum in history looks like in practice. The examples
will illustrate the standard of pupils' work at different ages and
how the programmes of study translate into activities. Teachers will
be able to use the website for comparing the performance of individual
pupils against a common standard within and across the key stages,
and as a basis for developing a departmental/school portfolio. It
could also be used to plan units of work, classroom activities, and
assessment tasks that relate to the standards set out in the national
curriculum. For full details see the article, Exemplifying
the History National Curriculum by Jerome Freeman.
History
Forum
Dave Wallbanks, Head of History at Eastbourne
School, Darlington, has set up a History Forum. He writes "I
have just set up for history teachers to meet, swap ideas and share
a bit of light relief from the classroom. The basic theory is that
if this works out it should be a really good way for all teachers
everywhere to share ideas, good practice, laughs and personal experiences
from our work. Ideally we can let each other know what we're getting
up to and tell each other things we think would be useful. I'd love
it to be truly international but I'm sure everyone who looks could
find it useful, if we can get the support of teachers everywhere."
The
Napoleonic Guide
Richard Moore is currently producing a website on
the Napoleonic Period. The aim of The
Napoleon Guide is to give enthusiasts, or educationalists,
an easy-to-navigate online magazine that offers broad coverage of
the fascinating era of Napoleon Bonaparte. At launch, the subjects
covered include original articles on Napoleon's life and career, his
closest allies and bitterest enemies, his campaigns, battles, the
armies of the period, reviews of all the Richard Sharpe movie series
and images from Goya's Disasters of War. The editorial team at The
Napoleon Guide will be continually working towards greater depth on
aspects of the Napoleonic Wars and within a year the site will be
considerably more detailed. This year, we are expecting to unveil
the first book in a new series of action novels set during the Peninsular
War. The Napoleonic Guide is a non-profit magazine that aims to improve
knowledge of the Napoleonic Era and provide a forum for ideas and
research into the period.
USA
Journalists
USA Journalists is
the latest of the Spartacus
Educational Encyclopaedias. Each entry contains a narrative, illustrations
and primary sources. The text within each entry is hypertexted
to other relevant pages in the encyclopedia. In this way it is possible
to research individual people and events in great detail. The sources
are also hypertexted so the student is able to find out about the
writer, artist, newspaper, organization, etc., that produced the material.
USA
Journalists: Samuel Hopkins Adams,
James Agee, Frederick Lewis Allen, Jack Anderson, Sherwood Anderson,
Ray Stannard Baker, Ambrose Bierce, Winifred Black, Randolph Bourne,
Heywood Broun, Louise Bryant, Erskine Caldwell, Willa Cather, Peter
Collier, C. P. Connolly, Stephen Crane, George Creel, Herbert Croly,
Charles Dana, Josephus Daniels, Richard Harding Davies, Dorothy Day,
Floyd Dell, Theodore Dreiser, Max Eastman, Benjamin Flower, Waldo
Frank, Hamlin Garland, Martha Gellhorn, Edwin Godwin, Michael Gold,
Francis Hackett, Benjamin Hampton, Norman Hapgood, Bret Harte, William
Randolph Hearst, Ben Hecht, Ernest Hemingway, Josephine Herbst, Marguerite
Higgins, William Dean Howells, Thomas W. Lawson, Alfred Henry Lewis,
Sinclair Lewis, Walter Lippmann, Henry Damerest Lloyd, Jack London,
George Horace Lorimer, Samuel McClure, Henry Louis Mencken, Edward
Murrow, Frank Norris, Adolph Ochs, Drew Pearson, David Graham Phillips,
Percival Phillips, Joseph Pulitzer, John Reed., Jacob Riis, Harold
Ross, Charles Edward Russell, Carl Sandburg, Carl Schulz, Edward Scripps,
George Seldes, Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, Upton Sinclair, Lincoln
Steffens, I. F. Stone, Jane Grey Swisshelm, Ida Tarbell, Studs Terkel,
Mark Twain, Henry Villard, Oswald Garrison Villard, Julius Wayland,
Fred Warren, Ida Wells, Edith Wharton, Walter Weyl, W. F. White, Walt
Whitman, Edmund Wilson and Richard Wright.
Please email John Simkin at spartacus@pavilion.co.uk
if you have information you want included in next month's edition
of Teaching
History Online.
