Resource+Sharing

[|HistoryPin]
History pin is a website that has archives for multiple different events, people and places. What is cool about this website is that you use your location and it shows you archives for that specific location. For example, I put in my zip code (22309) and interesting things about George Washington came up. I think this would be useful because it lets students explore the history behind the area they live. It also lets them explore other areas that they may never go to or may not know anything about. (Posted by Chopin. M)

Best of History Websites
This website provides a number of excellent sources that a social studies teacher can use. It includes ancient, American, European, modern, military, oral, and art history, with the first four categories containing specific subtopics that go provide websites and resources for each specific section. Overall, the website of compiling resources to make it easy for the teacher to have many options for finding relevant sources ranging from ancient Mesopotamia to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. (Posted by K. Alquist)

[|HipHughesHistory]
This is a well rounded website that has resources for students and teachers. This website was founded by Keith Hughes who was a teacher at Buffalo Public schools for 16 years and he also spent some time at the University of Buffalo. Hughes implements technology to form reviews for various U.S. history and Government topics. Hughes also offers teaching tips for teacher as well as podcasts which range from topics like why he uses social media with his students and how to build better relationships with students. (Posted by M. Chopin)

Smithsonian Learning Lab
The Smithsonian learning lab provides resources from the 19 Smithsonian museums in order to provide mini lessons, which all include some sort of compelling questions. The resource provides information on a broad range of topics. This website is beneficial for students because they can explore it to find topics that may interest them. As for teachers, this is a good resource to use as a model for a lesson plan or a guide for ideas. (Posted by M. Chopin) =[|Beyond The Bubble]= Beyond the Bubble was created by Stanford University that offers activities and assessments for grades 6-12. These assessment aim to challenge the student to go "Beyond The Bubble", or filling in the blank, and assessing historical events and issues and analyzing them such as historians would. The 10 assessments that can be found vary from the first Thanksgiving to Lange's Iconic Photograph. Under the Approach tab, one can see how to carry out these assessments, through evaluating evidence and how to think historically. It even offers the standards that are being used in the assessments. (Posted by C. Helock) =[|Big History Project]= Big History Project is a hybrid of sorts for many secondary disciplines. Big History works on the concept of blending social sciences along with technical science. This program is often best used when taught by both a Social Studies and a Science content area teacher, but the resources provided can be implemented into any basic social studies class. With content ranging from the big bang to present day, this program assists in developing information for students on various hybrid social sciences that often get over looked like archaeology anthropology. This site offers an entire course provision which an individual teacher or school can sign up for and use, modify the content to suit each classes needs, or there is even a public course designed just for lifelong learners or parents who wish to try this new method of interrelation teaching. (Posted by M. Renfrew)

[|California History-Social Science Project]
CHSSP provides a resource that was created to assist California social studies teachers. Included on this site are entire lesson curriculum, plans, with supporting secondary and primary sources. This project also has resources that focus on English learners, native speakers with low literacy, and students from low economically disadvantaged communities. There is digital access to the magazine that coordinates with this resource, and an online blog that tackle teaching issues and theories. Most interesting is a section that focuses on teaching current events (ex. Syria Civil War, Iran Deal) in a historical context. (Posted by A. Bane)

Center for History and New Media
The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media is a resource which is organized into three sections: Teaching and Learning, Research and Tools, and Collecting and Exhibiting. Teaching and Learning provides various educational projects and links to their appropriate sites. Research and Tools includes links to different software and methods that are being developed to help with the transformation of the process of conducting historical research. Collecting and Exhibiting provides digital tools, collections and exhibitions that educators and learners can access to collect an array of data and resources. Educators can use this site to gather relevant primary sources to supplement their lessons as well as provide this site to students to find sources and sites to help support research. (Posted by K. Mauger)

=**[|The Civil War Trust]**= The Civil War Trust is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization devoted to the preservation of Civil War Battlefields. Since their mission is to protect these sites, they want teachers to help teach the Civil War so a new generation can care and nurture these sites. The Civil War Trust provides lesson plans that cover many political, social, and military aspects of the war. They have produced videos and other resources to help teach the civil war. Some of the most interesting resources are setting up field trips to these sites, and traveling boxes of Civil War artifacts you can use in class. (Posted by A. Bane)

=[|Classroom Law Project]= The Classroom Law Project is a nonprofit organization that specializes in the teaching of how to be a active citizen. This site provides various ways of integrating American law and civics studies into the classroom to help foster informed and active citizens within the judicial system. From explanations of the founding documents of America and basic street law applications, to mock trial exercises and court house experience seminars, this site has loads of information designed to be presented to students from kindergarten through secondary school. There are also numerous competitions and conferences students can become apart of and join other schools in a national setting to show what they have learned. (Posted by M. Renfrew) =[|Concordia University Virtual Field trip]= Concordia University Has accumulated links to a number of virtual reality tours/field trips that would be very engaging in the classroom. . The tours include the Anne Frank house, Ancient Egypt and Ellis island. Sites that otherwise would be left to textbooks and lectures. These field trips allow students to step inside the ancient pyramids and look around for themselves while still being educational. These tours will be a good supplemental source to helps students get/stay engaged in the lesson. Since most students won't get the chance to travel and tour Anne Franks house or even get as far as Ellis Island these tours could be key to spurring student interest.(Posted by M. Wise)

=[|Crash Course]= Crash course is a great resource that offers content based videos on many topic. The topics are split up into "courses," such as World History, Government, Psychology, etc. and from there the videos are broken down into sub-topics such as World War 1, History of Presidents, Intro to Psychology, etc. This YouTube page has over 6 million subscribers, and is a great resource for educators especially those with a flipped classroom. (Posted by C. Wolfgang)

Digital History
This is an excellent resource for teaching American history. It provides a complete online textbook, primary sources, links to multimedia, and specific resources for teachers. You can use Digital History as a supplement to your textbook or as the textbook in itself. It is especially useful if you have your students do a lot of online activities and for providing quick background readings. (Posted by M. Swogger)

Discovery Education
This source offers "virtual field trips" for students and teachers to tour through. Individuals are able to browse through archived virtual field trips which are organized by subject, grade level, and theme. These videos and tours provide a more immersive learning experience and allow students to see footage of places, peoples, and things that are being discussed in their courses. This site also provides teaching resources for educators and lesson plans in technology, math, social studies, and language arts. Student resources are also available and these include interactive games, videos, homework assistance, and virtual labs. This is a good resource to use to spur ideas or interest for potential lessons or activities. Educators may also use virtual tours to accompany relevant lessons, making concepts and events more tactile to students. (Posted by K. Mauger)

**__[|EDSITEment]__**
This website has a variety and number of resources that teachers can benefit from using including K-12. There is also a variety of subjects all tying into the humanities and many ways to customize a search to find lesson plans that one is looking for. Lesson plans can be searched by topic, subtopics, grade level, and length of time measured in class periods. Each lesson plan varies in content but generally provides an introduction, learning objectives, preparation instructions, learning activities, guiding questions, assessment, and extending the lesson tabs. Social studies teachers can benefit from this resource in the classroom as the lesson plans can be used on their own as they include resources, worksheets, and readings or are versatile and can supplement or be supplemented by a textbook in the classroom. They also have a blog about humanities in the classroom, an e-mail list to get updates on new lesson plans and resources, as well as on Facebook as EDSITEment and can be followed on Twitter @EDSITEment where they post frequently including links to their lesson plans. (Posted by J. Murtiff).

=[|The Economics Classroom]= This website is a good resource for those of us who will have to teach economics. The site offers a number of videos that simply economic theory and terminology without being too dull. They also offer online flash cards, a dictionary on economic terms and quick links to reputable economic news all within an easily navigable website. The Economics Classrooms is a solid resource for both students and teachers who may need a little help in basic high school economics. The resource is very valuable to future educators simply because the subject lends itself to lecturing about theory and math formulas. This website offers some different ways to approach what others may consider a difficult subject.(Posted by M.Wise)

[|Explore PA History]

ExplorePAHistory.com is a great resource for teachers who might be looking to conduct lessons about the rich history that the commonwealth has to offer. It is likely that students will be excited about the fact that the history lesson being taught is from their region. The website is easy to use, it has been broken into different sections for either educators or history buffs. Lesson plans are offered as a starting point for teachers. Additionally, a list of historical markers with descriptions of locations are listed, which is a good resource for those interested in “seeing where it happened.” The website partners with credible institutions such as WITF and the William Penn Foundation. (Posted by J. Stradley)

Facing History and Ourselves
This is one of the best social studies and current issues resources available. It contains teaching resources on an array of historical and contemporary topics and issues that are designed to move us forward as a global community. The educator resources are excellent, offering to teachers plentiful teaching strategies, featured readings, and professional development opportunities. You can use this resource to help foster deeper dialogue in the classroom and engage students in different learning activities on variety of topics. And if you're on Twitter, follow them - @facinghistory. (Posted by M. Swogger)

Foundation for Teaching Economics
This website provides a foundation for getting students interested in economics and how to approach teaching it in a school setting. It provides lesson plans for teachers and “hot topics” to stimulate student interest. It also has programs for teachers to join to better train themselves to teach the subject of economics and it has programs for students to join should they show an interest in economics, business, etc. (Posted by K. Alquist)

=**[|Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History]**= The Gilder Lehrman Institute of America of American History is a leading history organization that has a developed its own online resource. One will find that lessons have history was been divided into themes and eras with supporting resources, they offer online lectures, museum exhibits, interactive timelines, and other multimedia resources. The flagship of this resource is their primary source collection. They have around 65,000 primary sources in their archive and many have been converted to digital. You can browse or search for source by era, themes, or type of source (letter, newspaper, photos, etc.). They also have taken some primary sources and recorded them to audio so those who are visually impaired can access it. (Posted by A. Bane)

Google Life Archive
This recourse is specifically for photographic purposes. Often times we are lead astray from what a historical figure may be portrayed as, so this resource could come in handy when wanting to show students different photographs of the figure you are discussing. There may be overlap from textbooks, but there will be more room for exploration than one or two photos show in the texts provided. (Posted by K. Adams)

History Resources for Teachers
This is a great resources for specifically the teachers to use, it is not exactly student centered. This resource is a "tool box" for the teachers to dig into and find what they are looking for to improve their classroom, their teaching, their lessons, and more. This resources talks specifically on diversity in the classroom and how to be culturally understanding of what is happening in your classroom; which we all should be aware of even before teaching. Although you are required to sign up as a user, it is free of charge. This resource also has scholastic downloads, and is linked to international students and learning if that is incorporated into your classroom. The last point I'd like to touch on is my personal favorite of this recourse; a goal center. I believe that it is very important to write down goals so that they are concrete-to some extent. This resource talks about educational goals, and digs deep into transforming as a person, and how to reach your educational goals. (Posted by K. Adams) = = =__[|iCivics]__= iCivics "exists to engage students in meaningful civic learning." The website offers teacher resources for lessons as well as interactive game experiences for students that will give them insight into civics. Under the Play tab, students can engage in three games: Win the White House, Executive Command, and Counties Work. Each offers a fun way of learning how these systems work and what it takes to fulfill these actions. Under the Teach tab, resource sharing is offered. This includes curriculum units, lesson plans, and more. This site works well for Social Studies classrooms as it offers creatively entertaining yet educational forms of learning. (Posted by C. Helock)

Library of Congress
This is a go-to website that will easily provide any teacher, or student teacher, lesson topics, activities for students, and ways of presenting the given information. This website begins with the teacher picking the grade, subject, and state that they are teaching. Once the correct fields are filed then the teacher is led to the state's standards of the grade and subject level; which we all know is beneficial. On the right side of the state standards are the materials needed to teach the given lesson. A first year teacher may find this website beneficial if they are concerned with meeting the standards, and may need a helping hand in creating a lesson throughout the semesters. I also enjoy that the teacher can navigate through other subject areas. There is potential for the teacher to incorporate other subject areas into their pre-existing lessons if they wanted to go the extra mile. (Posted by K. Adams)

National Archives
This is an excellent resource for educators and students to access primary sources. There is an option to research the general online archives and from here documents can be used to take a further look into various events and eras throughout United States history. There is also a resource called DocsTeach in which educators can access a large array of primary sources with accompanying lessons and activities that can be used in alignment with said sources. There in an option in which educators can access a guide to creating activities based in the use of primary sources. There is also a teaching blog for educators to follow if they would like; this discussed new teaching tools, lesson plans, field trips, professional development, and recently added primary sources. Teachers can use this site to help develop primary source based lessons and activities for their classroom. They can use already created lesson plans and mold them into lessons that may be more relevant for their class and their subjects of study. (Posted by K. Mauger)

=[|National Geographic]= National Geographic is a wide ranging content resource for the social studies Discipline. Anthropology, Archaeology, History and Geography are all subjects the website covers along with some great attention getting imagery for the classroom.The site itself is easy to navigate and offers a VERY wide range of material. Not all of National Geographic directly relates to the social studies discipline but a large majority ties in to what we will be teaching. (Posted by M. Wise)

[|National Park Service]

The National Park Service provides a gem of a resource for educators and students alike. The deeper one digs into this website the more treasures there are to be found. Not only does the well-organized site offer quick suggestions on parks that are located close to the user, but it also has vast background information on the material and sources for further research. They have an initiative at the park where “every park is a classroom.” Educators will find this site useful: use the dropdown menu to navigate to “learn and explore,” select “teachers”…what follows is a customizable resource with lesson plans, professional development, lesson materials, and field work suggestions. There are even search features for grade specific lessons and also common core specific lessons. (Posted by J Stradley)

[|Pennsylvania Alliance for Geographic Education]
The Pennsylvania Alliance for Geographic Education is a PA based institution that partners with the National Geographic Education foundation and also Shippensburg University to promote geographic literacy in the commonwealth. The website offers some free information, but membership unlocks the full potential of the website. Resources for educators include lesson plans, imagery, and maps. Professionally, this is beneficial to social studies educators as is provides a simple social networking resource that can be used to connect with a rather niched group; PA Geography Teachers. Additionally, the website regularly produces a newsletter that educators may find useful in keeping up to date on state-specific geographic issues. (Posted by J Stradley)

Smithsonian's History Explorer
This source is great for interaction and media in the classroom. The website itself can be filtered to different age groups which would be very helpful for students who have no prior knowledge of the subject. If the students are in tenth grade, but are on a seventh grade level of knowledge for this subject then the teacher still has ability to find interactive lessons for those students. In fact many of the lessons provided have a K-12 grade range, which makes it easier for the teachers to teach to a wide range of students. This website is up-to-date with the technological aspect, as they are providing video games for the students to be involved in as they are learning (this could be a big hit for some students). The interaction is not limited to just technology, but also worksheets, artifacts, primary sources, and more. (Posted by K. Adams)

[|Stanford History Education Group]
This is a great resource for history materials and includes 73 stand-alone U.S. History and 37 stand-alone World History lesson plans. There are also materials provided to accompany the lesson plans. These include photos, videos, readings and there are also separate teacher materials and student materials download links located in each lesson along with a short overview of the lesson plan. As well as lesson plans, this resource also offers an assessment tab that links to the SHEG's "Beyond the Bubble" history assessments regarding sources. (Posted by J. Murtiff)

=[|Teachers Pay Teachers]=

This source allows teachers to support each other by sharing sources, both free and for money. Educators can make money by sharing their original lessons and resources, and the consumer supports the educator by purchasing their products. When searching for information products can be separated by grade and content level, and makes searching for information easy. (C. Wolfgang)

Teaching History With Technology- Virtual Tours
This website has compiled a list of virtual tours to take students on “field trips.” Virtual tours provide teachers the chance to spark students’ interest in a topic as well as provide them the ability to visit places that would never be possible for a school trip. Helping student engagement is one thing, but it also enables students to look at locations as a primary resource and to examine the history of an area whilst seeing it. This will also help students form a mental representation of the regions and locations that they are studying. (Posted by K. Alquist) = = = [|Voting America] = This source provides information about long-term patterns in American political elections, allowing for a better understanding of the political process. This website is great because it uses maps to explain topics such as why the President with more votes didn't win the election. Using these maps in the classroom would be a great way for students to visualize the election process. (Posted by C. Wolfgang)

=__[|Vox]__= This website is one of the most up-to-date and informational media sources out there. Though not your traditional resource base, the website is easy to navigate and find compelling stories. Vox matches that of the mainstream media but sticks more to the facts and lets the reader/viewer decide for themselves what to make of the information. They offer strong arguments for both sides of a story, leading to compelling arguments. The highlight of the website is their videos, which can also be found on their YouTube channel. These are excellent for breaking down tough concepts and really helping the viewer understand the story. Some of the best videos for a Social Studies class include The War in Syria, Explained, and How the Republican Party Went From Lincoln to Trump. (Posted by C. Helock) =[|Bill of Rights Institute]= This is a great resource for social studies teachers and students alike to find civics related information that can be integrated into various social studies lessons. Resources include lesson plans, webinars, interactive games, videos, and articles. One of the most valuable items that the Bill of Rights institute offers is a free lesson plan called Documents of Freedom. This lesson plan is organized into nine units, and methodically explains the founding documents and their implications in a comprehensive, easy to understand manner. (Posted by S. Smith)

=[|The History Learning Site]= This is an excellent resource that gives summarized versions of key historical topics and events. The value of this website for teachers is that the articles serve as great outlines for planning history lessons. The articles on this website can serve as a great student resource as well. (Posted by S. Smith)

=[|GeoGuessr - Game]= This virtual game is great resource to enhance geography lessons. How it works – using the street view feature on Google maps, the player is virtually placed in an unknown location. By using context clues such as physical geography, cars, street signs, architecture, etc, the player is tasked with locating on a map where they think their virtual location is. After the player selects the location, the correct location is shown, and the player is awarded points based on how close they were to the correct location. The game also gives teachers the ability to create their own locations for students to view. This is a valuable tool to demonstrate to students the many facets within the study of geography. It also encourages students to develop critical thinking skills, in a fun and memorable way. (Posted by S. Smith)

= [|Zinn Education Project] = The Zinn Education Project is a website based on the writings of Howard Zinn, the writer of //A People's History of The United States.// This website focuses on historical content throughout much of American history, which is provided through a clearer lens or more accurately than often times history gets presented. All of the content is designed for the teaching or integration into the classroom of k-12 students. From 1492 to the present, anyone can search through and select teaching materials to supplement one's own lesson planning, and articles are provided regularly for "how to's" on such things as teaching politically or socially difficult subjects. This can be used to greatly compare or counter information from text books or our own misconceptions and aid in providing a more truthful telling of our nation's history to our students. (Posted by M. Renfrew)

Ushistory.org is a website that was developed by the Independence Hall Association who's purpose is to is to provide a forum for learning and discussing American history and values. They offer three courses written by a former Pennsylvania history teacher of the year as well as other historians as a resource to visitors of the website. The website offers free text books and many links to secondary sources. It is good if you need to find secondary sources to back up your content. (Posted by Richard Muldrow)
 * [|USHistory.org]**

This PBS link is a very helpful and useful resource.It offers a timeline of significant events that occurred during slavery. It also offers a Slavery memories link were you can listen to many different accounts from slaves. They also offer links to secondary sources where you can get valuable information and activities for your classroom. Also they have a cool link called //The Slave Experience// where you can explore different subjects such as: //Legal rights and Government. The Family. Men, Women, and Gender. Living conditions. Education, Arts, and Culture. Religion.// To name a few. It is a very good source. (Posted by Richard Muldrow)
 * [|Slavery and Making America] **

NMAAHC provides teachers with a trusted location to access materials -- including tons of primary materials and media -- to support their teaching of African-American history and culture. the online museum is full of rich content that can easily be integrated into the curriculum. Teachers have access to the museum's collection of close to 37,000 historical artifacts to find materials that fit into their area of study. The artifacts would easily fit into teacher-led presentations or a student-centered primary document analysis activity. In addition to the large collection, students and teachers can explore the exhibitions (presentations of objects from the museum's collections) and stories (curator-led and contextualized tours of topics) to dig into the NMAAHC's materials in more guided ways. Teachers also have the opportunity to attend professional learning events that cover strategies for using African-American primary sources in the classroom and methods for discussing issues around race. (Posted by Richard Muldrow)
 * [|Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture] **