by fifer1863 on February 7, 2012
Kevin Honeycutt has developed an excellent website for integrating technology to teach the Civil War. This collaborative learning project is focused around the H.L. Hunley, the famous Confederate submarine. This website is provides an in depth look into the history of the H.L. Hunley along with providing a great collection of links, photographs and videos. Let’s take a look at some of the different pages and sections of the site.
According to the page, the challenge for students is to “Partner up with another classroom and create a ten minute documentary telling the story of the H.L. Hunley.” The photos section of the website provides a nice collection of photographs related to the Hunley along with some additional links to Hunley related lesson plans. The Starter Videos Section provides links to a few videos related to the Hunley along with a great article about how Archeology Meets Technology. Finally, the Hunley Blog page contains a place where students place their artifacts, discuss their projects, share photos along with sharing their research and findings.
There is a great quote by Kevin on the website that says, “By allowing kids to collaborate with others online we allow learners to build and flex new muscles. These muscles will serve them well for the rest of their lives!” I could not agree more.
Here are some additional websites related to the Hunley for your viewing pleasure:
UPDATED: Check out Kevin’s Tell the Story of the Hunley PBL site
Until next time…
by Jim on November 18, 2011
Ever wonder how newspapers during Civil War covered the battles? Are your doing any research into an aspect of the Civil War and need a great primary source? Well, the Son of the South website has digitized versions of Harper’s Weekly online for your review. According to the website, they have “over 7,000 pages of original Civil War content, and is full of incredible photographs, original illustrations, and eye-witness accounts of the defining moments of this Historic Struggle.” They have even organized the information based on each year of the war, different battles, generals, slavery, medicine and the Lincoln Assassination. How can you use this collection in your classroom?
- Have students use this as research for a paper or report
- Have students create their own newspaper with accounts of a battle
- Have students read the July 18, 1863 and the “First Report from Gettysburg” and ask why did it take 17 days to get information out in the paper?
- Have students review and reflect on the ads in the papers
- Have students review and reflect on the cartoons in the paper and what impact they may have had on attitudes toward the War.
- Check out the sketch of the Maryland Battery at Antietam, then have students research where the Maryland Battery was located at on the Antietam Battlefield. You may even want to contact an Antietam park Ranger or two? (talk about Subject Matter Experts!)
Let me know your thoughts on how you can use this great resource. Until next time…happy reading!
by fifer1863 on May 24, 2011
As part of the 150th Civil War celebration, the Washington Post has created a special Civil War 150 website to share articles and resources related to the Civil War. One of these is resources is an interactive map that shows battles and casualties from the war.
Once you play the movie, you start to see red dots appear on the screen indicating where a particular battle took place and the extent of the casualties. The size of the red circle displays the number of casualties from less than 250 to 50,000. At any time during the movie you can pause the movie and then hover over a red dot to learn more about the particular battle the date of the battle and the casualties. If you notice the bar graph at the top of the page, you can also hover over the different bars to learn about the number of battles and casualties in a particular month / year. You can also view the red dots by year.
Applications for the classroom:
- Have groups of students pick a particular year and write a summary of different battles and stats from that year
- Ask probing questions like why were there fewer battles in December, January and February?
- Have your students pick some battles based on different criteria and located them in Google Earth
- Based on information by year or over all four years, talk about why particular battles were fought in certain geographic locations. For example, why were there so many in Missouri in 1861?
Just a few ideas. Be sure to explore the rest of the Civil War 150 website for more resources.
Until Next time…
