Wednesday, January 2, 2013

The Big History Project


David Christian, who helped create the site, World History For Us All, has created another site for World history teachers and students called “The Big History Project.” It is still in its beta form but teachers can still register and explore the site.

Christian divides history into big 10 big periods with timelines, images, animations, infographics, and even comic books for many of the periods. He begins each unit with big questions. For example for unit 9, which covers revolutions and the creation of the modern world, Christian asks which factors contributed to the acceleration of change since 1500 and why these factors were so critical?  If you like World History for us All, then you will also like the Big History Project.

In his blog, Getting Smart, Tom Vander Ark, describes the project like this:  "Teaching Big History as a course or using it as the central idea for block or an academy currently takes a lot of teacher initiative. Over the next couple years, archetypal uses, lesson plans, professional development opportunities, and other supports will emerge. Big History is a big idea. More precisely, it’s a set of big questions. It’s a set of question that I’d like to see every young person have the chance to ask."

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