Teaching the Civil War with Technology

Just a quick list of items that I’ll be adding to the wiki.  I hope to be doing these more frequently so stay tuned.

Harriet Tubman Interact Map from Harcourt School — A cute little interactive that allows students to learn more about Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Tubman Webhunt from Scholastic — A great resource that includes tons of links and resources related to Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad

Unraveling the Underground Railroad Webquest — Nice webquest where students  become individuals involved in the Underground Railroad (slaves, slave owners, conductors, Northerners) and will come together and discuss this important historical event.

Across Five Aprils Resources , Study Guide for Across Five Aprils and the Across Five Aprils Webquest — provides some good resources for those who use this book in their classroom

Free at Last: Slavery in Pittsburgh, Pa – The exhibit documents early slavery in Pennsylvania including slaves’ journeys from Africa, through the abolition movement and the aftermath of the Civil War. The website is divided into sections: the Middle Passage to Early America, The Freedom Papers, Fugitive Slave Laws and Escapes, Abolition, Civil War and Aftermath, and a Photo Gallery.

Lincoln:  Booth’s Last Days — great collection of videos and links to resources from the History channel on John Wilkes Booth

Posted under Miscellaneous, Websites

During the recent ISTE Conference, I had the opportunity to meet Karen Needles who is the Director for the Lincoln Archives Digital Project (LADP).

According the the website, “the Lincoln Archives Digital Project is providing unlimited access to the historic but fragile paper records of the administration of President Abraham Lincoln.”  This project is “identifying documents from the State Department, Treasury Department, War Department, Justice Department, and other federal offices from the period of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency.”

With a few exceptions, the time period covered by the project is March 4, 1861, through April 15, 1865.

While this site is primarily a “pay for access” website ($2,000 for schools for a unlimited access for a year or $150 for a single PC), it does have some access to free resources related to Lincoln.  Karen, was kind enough to provide me with a temporary login so I could explore the site in more detail.

The Lincoln Archive Digital Project is broken into several sections including Library of Congress, National Archives, Dictionary, Podcasts, Photographs, Lesson Plans, Maps, Cartoons, Newspapers and Timeline to name a few.

So, I thought I would provide a review of a few of the sections.  Let’s start with the Newspapers.

The above graphic shows the listing of the newspapers that users can access via the LADP.  Each of the papers has an overview and background information about the paper (available for free) and then you can drill down to view specific dates for the papers.

Another cool section of the LADP is the maps section. You can view Civil War Battle Maps, City Maps, State Maps, European Maps, Territory Maps, and US Maps.

What is really cool about the maps (and other parts of the website) is a feature called Zoomify.  This feature allows you to zoom in on the maps (or newpapers or photos) and look at the artifact in greater detail. The following two photos are of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Here is the map at normal magnification:

Here is that same map, at max magnification:

Check out the details!  This feature can be used to really get your classrooms talking.  For example, why was the reserved artillery placed where it was?

Another interesting section is the Political Cartoons where you can also click on one of several papers and get some background information about the publication.  From there you can view and examine various cartoons from the period.  One interesting thing that you could do is to have your students compare and contrast political cartoons from the Civil War to those of today.

Two of the free sections of the website that I especially like is the Lesson Plans and the Timeline.  The Lesson Plans section contains links to some really good Lincoln related lessons and resources for use in your classrooms.  The timeline is a very well done and includes events from the day Lincoln was born in 1809 up until his death in 1865.

I recommend that you check out the Lincoln Archive Digital Project and let me know what you think.  If you are a school this could be a great resource for you and your students.

Posted under Famous People, Primary Sources

The following is by far one of the best Civil War related websites for educators that I have seen.
MrNussbaums.com’s Civil War Page contains a wealth of activities and resources including:

• Interactive Battle Maps
• Civil War Timeline
• Cause and Effects of the Civil War
• People of the Civil War
• Union and Confederacy
• Civil War Activities
• Civil War Clip Art
• Civil War Videos

Let’s take a look at a few of these pages in more detail.

The Interactive Battles Map allows students to click on the name of a battle and it will pop up a brief description of the battle on the right side of the page. The map also shows Union vs. Confederate states, which side won a particular battle and more.

The People of the Civil War page provides some great information on many of the major players of the war including Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Harriet Tubman and Matthew Brady.

The Civil War Activities page includes “reading comprehension exercises, cloze reading exercises, sentence surgeons, word searches, jigsaws, crossword puzzles and much more.”

Be sure to take some time to explore this site and I’m sure you will want to share it with your class.

Until next time…

Posted under Lesson Ideas, Websites

As you know, my daughter has her Civil War Sallie project that is traveling around teaching and learning about the Civil War.  Well, my son CJ has created his own project named Patriot Pete.  As the newest member of the Follow Me Project family, Patriot Pete was created to get kids to learn more about how we as Americans show our patriotism and support our armed forces while teaching about using technology.

Pete is traveling around  looking for classrooms, famous American landmarks, military bases, and other places around the country that are important to our history.  He would love to come visit you in order to learn more about patriotism while sharing his experiences on his blog and Flickr page.

Please go and check out Pete’s home page and if you teach about some aspect of patriotism, live or work on or near a famous American landmark, military base or museum I hope you can sign up to have Pete come visit you.

Posted under Lesson Ideas, Miscellaneous, Websites

As many of you already know, Google has begun to scan and make books available online, including full versions of books. These books are copyright free and can be downloaded for your reading pleasure.

In addition to these books, there are also some books where the copyright has not expired, however you can read sample pages from the book. Not free to download, but nice to “try before you buy.”

So, for example, a quick search for the word “Gettysburg” and you get a list of books of some really interesting looking texts such as:

• Gettysburg: Description of the Painting of the Repulse of Longstreet’s Assault by John Badger Bachelder – 1870
• Gettysburg Made Plain: A Succinct Account of the Campaign and Battles, by Abner Doubleday – 1888
• The Attack and Defense of Little Round Top, Gettysburg, July 2, 1863 by Oliver Willcox Norton – 1913
• Did General Meade Desire to Retreat at the Battle of Gettysburg? by George Meade – 1883
• Hospital Scenes After the Battle of Gettysburg, July, 1863 by Patriot Daughters of Lancaster (Pa.) – 1864

There are also numerous autobiographies and biographies of Civil War Generals that are also available for download. Try searching for Civil War or Civil War general and see what you come up with.

Finally, Google Books also has a feature where you can find a library near you that has a copy of a particular book, and for you researchers out there, a “cite this item” link which gives you the proper citation for a book for publishing purposes is given in several different formats .(APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA and Turabian.

Try it at http://books.google.com especially the “full view books.”

In addition to Google Books, you may also want to try searching the following websites for Civil War books:

http://www.archive.org and http://books.live.com

and

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/

Happy Reading.

Posted under Miscellaneous