Friday, December 26, 2008

Modern World History
Or as we call it in my school district, WHII. This is a super site for the Renaissance to the present with an amazing number of links. If you are setting up your course or trying to create it so the kids can do everything online (webquests for example), this would be the place to see.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

A Great Online Textbook
Okay, so I found another online textbook (see entry below). This one is fantastic as it has both Prehistory - 1500 and 1500 to the present. Each course is broken down into the normal textbook categories. There are also great links which vary depending on the time period. The only glaring omission is lots of pictures, but if you wanted to save on a real textbook or need one for students to work on at home, then this resource might be the answer.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Digital World History Textbook
This is the only world history textbook I can find online. It is broken up into easy to follow subheading, has timelines and most importantly has a search engine.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

A Good Place For Students to Start
This site has great timelines (seen above) for 500 year periods, and then people broken up into time periods, then another group for people, events and finally period maps. The best part is that when you decide the era you want, you can then click on the the names, events, etc. and you get more in depth on the side. No it's not enough for a research paper, but enough to get your students on their way.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Super AP World Site
Wow! If you like to have your students do outlines, keep this site to yourself! There is a great chapter outline for every chapter of the Stearns book. There are also unit outlines, key words (by chapter), regional thematic outlines, unit essay questions

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Redraw the World Map Demographically
This is rather interesting. You can select a demographic and it will reshape the world map. The one above, for example, shows where the world's religions based on membership and then gives a pie chart showing the size of each relative to the others.

The Hajj
With the Hajj now going on, the video above is a great (and brief at 3:45) video from National Geographic on the pilgrimage. Here is also an interesting site from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Finally this is the scene from Malcolm X (the movie) which has amazing shots of the Hajj. At the time, it was the first western movie ever allowed to shoot footage during the pilgrimage.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Lots of Great Goodies!
You want something related to geography, then it is here including: a list of every country, their flags, the time anywhere in the world, how far between two points, information on longitude, latitude, bodies of water, map clip art, outline maps, populations of every country and even a detailed map of every nation in the world.

Monday, December 1, 2008


A How To Primer for Google Earth
If you haven't used Google Earth with your students or need to know how to do it or want lesson plans or examples of what you can do. Check out this site.

Friday, November 28, 2008

And another one!
Here is another site for World History notes. There are tabs for each subject and once you click on them you will get to a pdf file. If you want to make changes on the notes, go to "edit ... select all" and then "edit ... paste" and then copy it into a word document.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

The History of Religion
How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go! Click here. There is also another map that has "The March of Democracy."

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Bridging World History
This has an amazing number of maps and videos. You can see the list above right or by go to the site here.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Martin Waldseemueller's Map
Waldseemuellar was the first (that we know about) who gave credit to Amerigo Vecpucci by putting the name "America" on his map in 1507. Here is a rather informative article that discusses it. Also click on the map above to get to a much larger image that you could show your students.
Movie on Islamic Spain
You can see this movie as a whole or in parts by going here.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Webpage Making for Teachers and Students
I have received a number of inquiries into how to make teacher and student blogs. You can see that I use blogspot.com, but there is a newer site, wordpress.com which has one additional advantage in that is allows you to upload documents for your students. Blogspot, though, has a bunch more add-ons. Both have tutorials in how to set them up. However here is one that I wrote which tells you how to set up a webpage and how to set up an aggregator. An aggregator lets a person list a bunch of websites and tells you when they have been updated. This way there is no need to type in a url. This is handy if you want your kids to turn in assignments. The blog feature allows you to make comments and you can set it so that only e-mail addresses you want can see the site so that students can have their work protected. I had my regular world history students do this writing assignment and it worked rather nicely. Now another idea is to have one page and have your students add entries as is done here. If you want to see an example of wordpress and how it is used for class assignments, go here. If you want to go further with all this, read this book.

Friday, November 14, 2008

The Flow of History
This site has a flow chart which you can download or blow up for use on an overhead for each part of world history.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008


Graphic Organizers
Here are a few good sites to use if you want ideas for graphic organizers and blank sheets.


Tuesday, November 11, 2008

CNN's MILLENNIUM
Each episode from this site is approximately 45 minutes in length (one-hour with
commercials) and addresses five events or people from a century. For each century, the filmmakers have selected a technology to serve as a metaphor and to tie the events and themes of the episode together. They also include curriculum connections, essential questions, historical perspectives, history and geography themes. The episodes are linked to a CNN web site http://cgi.turnerlearning.com/cnn/millennium/index.html and appear as
follows:
Episode 1: 1000-1100 CE - Century of the Sword
Episode 2 : 1100-1200 CE - Century of the Axe
Episode 3: 1200-1300 CE - Century of the Stirrup
Episode 4: 1300-1400 CE - Century of the Scythe
Episode 5: 1400-1500 CE - Century of the Sail
Episode 6: 1500-1600 CE - Century of the Compass
Episode 7: 1600-1700 CE - Century of the Telescope
Episode 8: 1700-1800 CE - Century of the Furnace
Episode 9: 1800-1900 CE - Century of the Machine
Episode 10: 1900-2000 CE - Century of the Globe
Each of the five segments of the episode is approximately 7-9 minutes in length. Some stories are distinctly cultural, some focus on movements of peoples and ideas, some illuminate the lives and legacies of important individuals, places, and events, and some concentrate on historical themes. All segments augment and subtly develop the technological advances that distinguish the century depicted in each video episode.

Saturday, November 8, 2008


Need a Map?
This site has every map you'd ever want and you can download them for copying for students and or save them on your own website.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Online Supplements for Anyone
Whether you have this Peter Stearns' book or not (and he designed the course and helped write the first tests, so it's not a bad idea to have it or use it as a supplement), this is a fantastic site available to anyone. There are terrific summaries of each chapter, practice questions, links to other websites, flashcards, essay prompts and more.


Tuesday, November 4, 2008

A Brief History of the World
This source breaks up world history into its distinctive units and gives you (or your students) the essential points. It would be a good supplement for test review or a cumulative one at the end of the year.


Sunday, November 2, 2008

Powerpoint Palooza
This site is amazing and it is completely made by a NY teacher. She has a complete set of powerpoints for AP European History as well as World Geography. There are also links to great sites, class ideas and more.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Annenberg Videos
Wow. Talk about great videos. Annenberg has used some of its considerable funds to come up with such videos titles as "The Spread of Religions," "Connections Across Lands" (which looks at the Silk Road), "Early Empires" (Mongols), "Colonial Indentities" and more. There are other world history related topics here which you can click on to get more videos. Once you get to the video page you will have to sign up for a free password. (picture from learner.org)

Monday, October 27, 2008

Palestine/Israel & India/Pakistan
This site's pictures are a bit cheesy, but don't let that deter you, there is an amazing number of lesson plans such as the two above (which we in VA need to teach for our state exam). The site also has US history.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The History Channel Videos
One of the people we have to teach about in WHII (Renaissance to Present) is Miguel Hidalgo. If you click here, you will see a short video on him. There are many others and they keep changing.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Deliberating in the Classroom
First off what is deliberation? This site explains the technique and gives you plenty of lessons that work in the classroom. Go here to see the site.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Teaching Resources for H.S. Teachers
and for that matter, parents and students as well. This page has a lot of links for world history teachers and you can even sign for a newsletter. One site it connects to is PBS, another has primary documents, another teaching ideas and on it goes.
AP World Teachers
The site apworld.wikispaces.com is a great place for a new AP World Teacher to start. It has Power Points for the entire year, rubrics for the free responses, review sheets, chapter outlines broken down by: interactions; change & continuity; technology & demographics; social & gender; cultural & intellectual and state structure. In short it is a great tool if you are just starting out or a great supplement if you have been teaching for a while.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

World History Resources
Whether or not you use this text, "Patterns of Interaction," you can still use their resources online. There are quiz questions, puzzles, web links, in depth articles on many many topics and primary documents. It really is exhaustive. Click here to get there and once there, select "high school" and then your state and "go."

Saturday, September 27, 2008



The Hajj
As Ramadan winds down, I thought it appropriate to show the Hajj. The top clip comes from a great new site called "TheNewsRoom.com" that has local, national and international clips that you can use for the classroom. The bottom one is from youtube.com

Friday, September 19, 2008

A Great Overview of World History
A friend of mine, who teaches AP World, gave me this title and said that he uses it as a review right before the AP exam. It is an extremely interesting and quick history. From the review: The authors explains how the Greeks took grapes and made wine, later borrowed by the Romans and the Christians. Arabic scientists experimented with distillation and produced spirits, the ideal drink for long voyages of exploration. Coffee also spread quickly from Arabia to Europe, becoming the "intellectual counterpoint to the geographical expansion of the Age of Exploration." European coffee-houses, which functioned as "the Internet of the Age of Reason," facilitated scientific, financial and industrial cross-fertilization. In the British industrial revolution that followed, tea "was the lubricant that kept the factories running smoothly." Finally, the rise of American capitalism is mirrored in the history of Coca-Cola. more

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Make Your Own Puzzles

The Discovery Channel website is so good to us! Check out their Puzzlemaker site to create your own puzzles-- you can make a word search, crossword, cryptogram, hidden message, or several other types of puzzles.

You can create a puzzle to help students review their academic vocabulary for a test, or have students create puzzles to exchange with each other. The site is easy to use, and the puzzle images can be printed out as-is or inserted into a Word document.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Global Studies Test Archive - New York Regents

For years, social studies teachers in Virginia have felt like outcasts when it comes to getting released Standards of Learning exams. Until a year ago, the state had not released any social studies tests, but even now there is only one while other subjects like math and English have many.



For a rich source of SOL-like test items, check out the New York Regents test archive for Global History. The archive contains 20 tests going back over 10 years, with 50 multiple choice questions and 2 essay questions on each test.


Did you know that about 30% of questions on the history SOL exams contain some kind of graphic for the student to use to answer the question? The Regents test archive contains plenty of graphics-driven questions, including maps, charts, and political cartoons.


The Regents exam covers all of world history, so Virginia teachers will need to pick out questions dealing with their specific time periods.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

World History Sources is an online resource center designed to help high school and college world history teachers and their students locate, analyze, and learn from online primary sources and to further their understanding of the complex nature of world history, especially the issues of cultural contact and globalization.

Women in World History is an online curriculum resource center designed to help high school and college world history teachers and students find and analyze online primary sources on women in world history. Materials encourage teachers to integrate recent scholarship and give students a more sophisticated framework for understanding global women’s history.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

The IRA Is No Longer a Threat
Here is a useful article for WHII teachers since the IRA question is on the SOL.

Monday, September 1, 2008
















In an Indian Village, Signs of the Loosening Grip of Caste
By Emily WaxWashington Post Foreign Service Sunday, August 31, 2008; Page A14
GADDOPUR, India -- Rubbing his salt-and-pepper stubble, Lasla Ram, 60, stretched out on his wide porch overlooking a fertile knoll in this village of Dalits, the lowest caste in India's social pecking order. His children and grandchildren were gathered at his side as he told his story. More













Create and Use Other People's Timelines
Click here or on the picture to go to a timeline sharing site. You can steal other people's timelines or make up your own. It will also give you links to youtube.com sites.














The World Over Time
Pick a place in the US and you can see what was going on at any time in history. Click here or on the picture.