Monday, April 28, 2014

Islamic Call to Prayer


So I suppose this is where I give you a disclaimer.  I am not Islamic but have been fascinated with the call to prayer since I was a small child and woke up to the chanting each day for four years when I was living in Iran.  Even visiting Islamic countries today it is still somewhat comforting and I really have no idea what is being said.

That being said when we tell our students that there is a call to prayer five times daily it is a little hard to really understand until you listen to the chanting in the video above.

When my family and I visited Istanbul last summer we stayed a block from the Hagia Sophia and got to hear three competing prayers at once from "overlapping" mosques as you can hear in the video below. 

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Babylonians and the Number 60

Why did the ancient Babylonians use a number system based on 60?  Thomas Woolley explains.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Cold War Site

The History Learning Site has a great page on the Cold War.  Here, for example, is its definition of it.  It breaks up the topic into a number of concepts so you can pick which ones you might want your students to use.  

Friday, April 25, 2014

9 Myths about Hinduism Debunked

Did you know that Hinduism, despite its many gods, is not polytheistic. Or, that Hindus do not worship cows.

Those are two of nine myths about Hinduism that  Moni Basu attempts to debunk in an essay for CNN Belief Blog.

This is a great background essay students might read when studying  or reviewing Hinduism.

I posted this on my religions blog. You might find other interesting posts on that blog about the religions we teach in world history. Just search for the religion in which you're interested in the search box.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Quick & Easy Student Videos

Here’s a great way for students to process important content with their cell phones. They created a short video documentary on one of the Cold War outcomes with their phones.

I put students in groups of three and assigned each group a topic (like destalinization in Russia, brinkmanship or Afghanistan). Next I showed them an example of what their video might look like. I used a clip that Kerry Gallagher posted on her blog.

Next, I showed them the instructions that Gallagher had developed-- choose a reader, draw symbols or images that will appear on the screen, rehearse moving your images on and off while your passage is read.

The actual recording did not take too long, about 15 minutes. Some uploaded their videos to You Tube. Here are a couple of examples of their work.
  

Aggregated John Green Page

Nerdfighteria has taken all of John Green's world history videos and but them on one page.  If  you click on a link you then see the video, a short description and for those who want it the entire video transcribed.  


Friday, April 18, 2014

The Cold War

It has been a while since I posted a John Green video but with all our snow days you might be going a wee bit quickly to finish the year and might want a quick review.  So above is a flipped video on the Cold War.    All John Green videos can be found here

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The Lost Empire that Ruled the Silk Road

Here's a great essay about the Silk Road city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan. The author, Annalee Newitz, notes that "its culture was a hybrid of Iranian and Chinese influences, its religion a mix of Zoroastrianism and other traditions, and it belonged to a now-vanished ethnic group called the Sogdians."

Newitz explains how the city became so multicultural and why the Silk Road was so vital to trade. For example, she notes that slaves and horses were some of the most valuable items that were traded.

The Silk Road is important not because it brought silk to the west but, according to Newtiz,  because "it brought immigrants to and from all parts of the world. And with them came new ideas, new scientific discoveries, and new political alliances between far-flung groups."

This is a great story to assign students when covering the Silk Road's development.


Texting Small Groups of Students in Remind101


I should have written about this a month ago, but if you have three or more students you want to reach, but do not want to connect with your entire class, then you can text that group only using Remind101. To do it go to the "To" box and start printing in the name of each student.  It will autofill and you can even add names from multiple classes.  

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Move Around the World


Albeit this is only eleven countries, but this video, which is getting tons of hits, is a quick way to show your students some of the differences in the world.  

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Changes in AP European History

I am on a College Board advisory panel for 6-12th grade changes and am sitting in a meeting right now and just found out about Advanced in AP which has the changes that are coming in AP European History.  Other changes in other subjects will be added to the site as they come about. 

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Pinterest on the Middle Ages


This is a tremendous Pinterest of the Middle Ages that George Coe put together.  It is great with lots of videos (such as the one above talking about the geometry of the Mona Lisa painting), maps, images, etc.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Napoleon's Invasion of Russia: Infographic

Here's a great infographic on Napoleon's invasion of Europe. It's definitely worth bookmarking for next year. Thanks to Brian Licata for tweeting the link.

Women of the Arab Spring

Here are two short videos about women and the Arab Spring. John Stewart of the Daily Show hosted a panel of Arab women recently. Both clips are short, each less than three minutes.

In the first clip, Nadia Al-Skkafa,discusses how women in Yemen helped shape and empower public opinion.

My AP World students did a project comparing the French Revolution to the Arab Spring last semester and some just saw The Square for extra credit. These two clips will add to their understanding of the revolutions.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Appeasement at Munich

Stanford History Education's Beyond the Bubble has a great new assessment using this image taken from the signing of the Munich Conference and  form the Library of Congress. The assessment includes a couple of questions about the image, a rubric and possible responses.