Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

I just agreed to teach two classes of United States History next year to English Language Learners. It will be an interesting experiment, since one class will be done almost entirely in the computer lab and the other will be mostly in my classroom. I’ll be doing a number of different assessments with both groups over the year (including self-assessments) to compare results between the two.

Given these upcoming classes, I thought it would be helpful for me to develop another “The Best…” list, this time focusing on U.S. History sites.

I have an extensive collection of U.S. History links accessible to English Language Learners on my website’s Geography & U.S. History page, but many are fairly narrow in scope.

In order for a site to make it onto this list, they needed to be….

* …broad in the time periods they covered.

* …offer something “value-added” by being on the Internet over a hard-copy textbook.

* … accessible to English Language Learners.

* …. available free-of-charge (except for one).

I found surprisingly few sites that had all these elements.

Here are my choices for The Best Websites For Teaching & Learning About U.S. History:

Number nine is actually comprised of two different online glossaries of United States history words. One is a McGraw Hill audio glossary providing text support for both the word and its definition. The other is a Glencoe Multilingual Dictionary with translations into thirteen different languages.

Number eight comes from Holt Social Studies. Clicking on that link will lead you to the Table of Contents for a U.S. History textbook covering from the Civil War to the present. Next, if you click on each chapter, you will get access to chapter summaries in multiple languages. (This site, however, is frequently off-line).

The Voice of America Special English series on The Making Of A Nation is number seven. These short episodes provide audio support to the text covering important moments in U.S. History. The top of their main page also provides instructions on how to easily access back episodes.

Number six is U.S. History From Hippo Campus. Online movies cover the course of our continent’s history.

Awesome Stories is number five. You can find very accessible articles and interactive exercises at this excellent site, which has made several other of my lists. You have to register for your class or school, but it’s free and takes seconds.

Footnote is number four. It allows students to access millions of primary source documents and photos, and easily create online history reports. Their urls can then be posted, and students can also leave comments on their peers’ reports.

Number three is the fabulous Digital Vaults from the National Archives. Not only is it filled with incredible materials, but you can use its resources to create your own poster or movie, too.

I’m ranking Brainpop’s U.S. History Movies at number two. You have to pay for student access, but it’s well worth the price, especially since they began to close-caption their animations this school year.

And now, my pick as the number one Website For Teaching & Learning About U.S. History is….Mr. Nussbaum. There are tons of resources, interactives, and games there that will engage students.

(I’ve posted in the past about iCue, the new site recently launched by NBC. They launched an extraordinary new section to the site focused on U.S. History. It’s so good that I’ve added it to The Best Websites For Teaching And Learning About U.S. History .The enormous number, and quality, of video clips (with transcripts), plus interactive games and exercises, make this a great site for English Language Learners and other students.)As always, feedback is welcome.

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