American History e-Book

While browsing through the US History Teachers Blog, I found a post about this site. Looking through it, I thought it was a fantastic resource. Like the post says, it is very easy to navigate the site, and it is full of great information.

It is not without its faults, however. It is still under construction, and a few of the features are not yet working. The quizzes and "Think About. . ." sections are not up yet. They're also small buttons, which would be easy to miss. I also was not able to locate any sort of bibliography, so using this site for an AP class might not be a great idea.

On the other hand, the site provides some very useful and relevant links to outside sites and sources, depending on what section you are reading. These are easily located down the left side of the screen.

My Personal Learning Network

Many people think of learning as some sort of monastic exercise--something done in complete silence and isolation, preferably in the bowels of some stone vault. Wait, maybe that's just my idea. At any rate, such is not the case. Some of the best learning occurs in environments where ideas are freely shared and acquired. With that in mind, here are some of the blogs and people I am following in order to reap the benefits of their minds (which admittedly makes me sound disturbingly similar to a brain-sucking serial stalker):


D-bomb.com - This is a great blog by one of my group members

In Teaching You Will Learn - Yet another fantastic blog by one of my dynamic group members

Life in the Day - The third in a terrific trifecta of group member blogs

World History Teachers Blog - This is a fantastic blog for anybody who plans to, or already is teaching World History. It is a place where ideas and technology that would be helpful in the classroom can be shared.

US History Teachers Blog - Yet another great blog for US History teachers. As this is what I hope to become, I have high hopes and expectations for the usefulness of this blog in my own development as an educator. It is one that I plan on perusing for ideas and technologies.

Free Technology for Teachers - This blog is a forum for any teacher to find technology that would be helpful in the classroom and education. Like the US History Teachers blog, I expect this one to be full of great resources that I can continue to use.

Best Content in Teaching With Technology - This is a Diigo group, in which members of my class are able to share resources we find in the internet to help each other in our quest to become better educators.

Clif's Notes - Yet another great education blog.

History and Our Story - This is a classroom blog of a class I have nothing to do with. I chose to subscribe to it, because I thought it would be a great example of how to use blogging technology in a high school classroom. It keeps both parents and students informed of happenings in the school and in the class.

Don'tworryteach - This is the twitter account of a 9th grade World History and AP US History teacher in Washington DC. It is interesting to see what she is doing with her classes.

Oralhistorybuff - This is the twitter account of yet another AP US History teacher. His account is great, because he provides a lot of fantastic links and articles in his feed.

Apparatus

Technology is fun, right?

At least, that's how most of my experiences with technology have been. Granted, the yardstick against which I measured the progress of technology through my earlier years was advancements in video game technology.

As I grew a little older, I became interested in technology as I interacted with it through film projects. I remember feeling like the big man on campus, because I edited a middle school highlight film on one of those candy-colored, blocky iMacs. In high school, we graduated from the lamp-like G4 iMacs to G5 Power Macs with Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects. Those iMacs always reminded me of that Pixar lamp. . . .





My hope is that I will be able to learn how to utilize technology to help provide students with a better educational experience. There are so many possibilities that I don't even know what they are.

The fact is, we are surrounded by technology. Smart phones and iPads have placed unprecedented access to information in the hands of anybody in just about any place. Let's be honest, you can't even hide in the bathroom without hearing the person in the next stall tapping away at his Blackberry.

P.S. In a somewhat unrelated note, one of the founding members of ELO was recently killed in a tragic accident. Two things: while this really is a tragedy, does this headline not make it seem funnier than it probably is? Also, ELO is a band with a suitably tech-sounding name, right?