February 29 Tip of the Week – Using Web Images to Teach Regions

In this activity, middle schools students will think about how the regions in an area (in this case, the U.S.) are defined. They will map the regions from memory and will compare maps to see that regions rarely have clearly defined borders. The activity can be adapted for different grade levels or content.
Suggested Procedure:
Opening:

Show 6-10 [...]

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Amateur Education

If you haven’t had a chance to browse over to Students 2.0, you really need to check it out.
We are students: the ones who come to school every day, raise our hands with safe questions, and keep our heads down. Except, now we have a voice—a strong voice—to share our ideas through a global network.
As [...]

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What’s “do-able?”

Six of us spent the morning at Turning Point Learning Center in Emporia with Ginger Lewman and her kids. TPLC is a charter school focused on problem-based learning. Some very cool stuff going on!
Obviously the charter school situation allows for a lot of freedom to experiment but when we sat down to reflect on [...]

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February 21 Tip of the Week – Visual Learners and the Boston Massacre

(All Tips of the Week can also be found on the Social Studies Central site.)
We all know that many of our kids are visual learners. How can we engage those types of learners with content at deep levels? The problem is that most of us are not visual learners so it becomes difficult to think [...]

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Say it isn’t so!

Okay . . . I know that other issues may seem more important. You know, the trillions being spent in Iraq, the economy here in the US, rising health care costs and steroids in baseball. But according to GamePolitics.com, what we really should be concerned with is Barack Obama’s view of video games.
“His speeches, however, [...]

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