Teaching the Civil War with Technology

Don't forget to update your feeds

2009-09-14T08:16:00.002-04:00

Please remember to update your feeds to my new site

Teaching the Civil War with Technology Blog

Don't forget about Civil War Sallie over at http://www.civilwarsallie.com

Announcing ....

2008-09-27T17:27:00.004-04:00

I have finally made the leap and purchased a new domain to host my blog & combined website.

Please take a moment to visit my new website at: http://www.teachthecivilwar.com

I have may ideas for the site but currently it hosts my blog and links to my wiki.

I will no longer be posting to this feed but plan to update some posts from here and post them to the new blog. I will then be slowly removing the posts from this page.

The first post on my new blog is by my daughter Sarah about Mary Todd Lincoln.

Please update your feed to my new blog and any links that you may have.

Thank you for your continued support.

Jim

Another Great Resource

2008-08-26T21:34:00.000-04:00

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:

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...

Civil War in Four Minutes

2008-06-27T20:32:00.001-04:00

Hi,

Just a quick link today to show you this video called The Civil War in Four Minutes.

I'm off to the National Educational Computing Conference and hope to pick up some ideas there for more posts and discussions.

Enjoy...

More uses of Web 2.0 Tools

2008-06-14T07:46:00.001-04:00

Mr. T, an 8th grade American Cultures teacher at Hershey Middle School, is the author of the American Cultures 2.0 blog. While reviewing his blog recently, I noticed that he has developed two great uses of Web 2.0 technologies for teaching the Civil War.

The first one is called What stories do these Civil War photographs tell? In this short blog post, Mr. T uses a quick VoiceThread video to get students to look at a photograph and answer questions. There are even several student responses to this post. Very cool!

The second one is called Civil War Day and shows a very nice Animot o photo slide show. The photo slide show is a collection of Civil War era photographs from the Library of Congress and is set to some somber period music.

So, here are two more examples of how you (and your students) can create and share things you are doing in your classroom.

Create & Collaborate!!!

Until Next Time...

Civil War Webquest

2008-05-30T07:22:00.000-04:00

The concept of a WebQuest was developed by Bernie Dodge at San Diego State University in 1995 and they are inquiry based lessons that where learners obtain information from the Internet. These are very popular with teachers as a method for promoting inquiry while integrating technology into their curriculum.

While surfing the net for resources, I came across this Civil War Webquest from a school in Hawaii that I thought I would share with everyone. This webquest has all of the standard features and the Task is to create two distinct products: a Civil War portfolio and a song about the topic. The Process section provides very good guidance on how to complete the webquest while ensuring that resources are cited, that the Internet is not the only source of information and that everyone as role to play. There is an extensive list of resources ranging from songs and battles to weapons and medical related links. Finally, the detailed rubrics are provided so students know how their work will be Evaluated.

The coolest part of this particular webquest is the Student Work section that highlights the work of the students for the past three years.

So, take a moment to check out this webquest and let me know what you think. If you have your own or another favorite webquest, share it with me.

Happy webquesting...

Yet Even MORE Statistics

2008-05-12T07:57:00.003-04:00

Thanks to the Wig-Wags Blog for posting this interesting article on The Civil War's Last Veterans, Wives and Stats to bring us even MORE statistics to ponder. Yippee!!

According to the post, the following table comes from Fact Sheet: America's Wars by the US Department of Veteran's Affairs:

Civil War (1861-1865)
Total U.S. Servicemembers (Union)..............2,213,363
Battle Deaths (Union)....................................140,414
Other Deaths (In Theater) (Union)....................224,097
Non-mortal Woundings (Union).......................281,881
Total Servicemembers (Conf.) ...........1,050,000
Battle Deaths (Confederate) ..................74,524
Other Deaths (In Theater) (Confed.) (note 3, 4)......59,297
Non-mortal Woundings (Confed.) .................Unknown

Discussion questions for your class:

What percentage of Total U.S. Servicemembers were killed in battle?
What percentage of Total Confederate Servicemembers were killed in battle?
According to the website, the Confederate figures are incomplete. Why do you think they are incomplete?

Now let's add in some additional figures from the same website:

America's Wars Total
U.S. Military Service During War................41,891,368
Battle Deaths.................................................651,022
Other Deaths (In Theater)...............................308,797
Other Deaths in Service (Non-Theater).............230,279
Non-mortal Woundings................................1,431,290
Living War Veterans..................................17,484,000
Living Veterans (War & Peacetime)............23,532,000

Based on this table ask your students:

What percentage of soldiers fought during the Civil War when compared to all America's Wars?
What percentage of Union Battle Deaths make up the total for all America's Wars?
How would having more accurate Confederate data impact these figures?

Don't you just love math. :)

Until next time....

Civil War era Presidential Elections

2008-05-06T07:43:00.005-04:00

In this season of elections and how the current presidential primary and the upcoming presidential election I thought it would be interesting to share a website on Civil War era elections.

Harper's Weekly has created a website for researching historical elections from 1860 to 1912. According to the website, the Presidential Elections page features political cartoons from several different digital resource centers such as Harper's Weekly, the Library of Congress and Vanity Fair. The website also "provides explanations of the historical context and images of each cartoon, campaign overviews, biographical sketches, a review of the era's major issues, and other valuable information."

Let's take a moment to explore the 1860 election between Lincoln, Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell. First, each election contains four sections: Overview, Cartoons, Biographies and Events. From here you can learn about the events leading up to to the 1860 election, how the Democratic party split, the Union Constitution Convention, the Republican Convention and the Campaign.

One of the greatest part of this site for teachers are the political cartoons. Let's look at one and see how you can use it in your classroom.

The above image shows Abe Lincoln as a rail-splitter and is intended to appeal to the average voter. Before giving your students the full description of the cartoon, ask them to tell you what they see, what do they think is going on in the cartoon, what does the little child represent and why are the words "Democratic Party" listed on the rail?

You can then follow up by reading them the complete description: "In order to appeal to average voters, Republicans emphasized the poor, hardworking origin of their candidate through the myth of Abraham Lincoln as a rail-splitter. This cartoon in the Wide-Awake Pictorial plays on that image by joking that the last rail he split is th Democratic Party in 1860, which divided into the Northern and Southern Factions."

Then, have your students think about presidential campaign ads or commercials they have seen recently. Do any of those ads try to appeal to the average voter by making the candidate look like every hardworking American? I think so and can name a few but let me know what your students come up with as you review these cartoons.

Until next time....

Great Collection of Lesson Plans

2008-04-27T14:10:00.000-04:00

A quick post today just to share a resource that I found. I was doing some research for another blog post and came across this great collection of lesson plans related to the Civil War.

The collection is from Fitchburg State College and is called Teaching American History Program : Lesson Plans and Teaching Ideas for Sectionalism, Civil War and Reconstruction

Enjoy!

Free Resources Until April 30th!

2008-04-07T07:37:00.001-04:00

The Alexander Street Press is providing FREE access to their online Civil War Collections until April 30th.

You can access the following Collections:

Try this, click The American Civil War Research Database then Click on: Analysis at the top of the page then click on Confederate and Union Losses Chart. You can view graphs of various statistics related to the Civil War, research specific regiments and get statistics (oh my) on soldiers.

For example, the following graph shows a comparison of Union and Confederate Losses of those who died or were killed in battle.

Why do you think there was a large increase in the number of Union soldiers killed in the early months of 1864?

Making New Photos Look Old

2008-01-11T09:34:00.000-05:00

Here is something cool you can do with your students. Have them take modern photos and make them look old. For example, here is a photo that I took of some friends of mine from Sykes Regulars.

You can then take the photograph and put it into your favorite photo editor such as Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or GiMP.

Once you have it in your editor, start playing with the tone to make it look black & white using a sepia tone filter and then next you will want to blur the edges to give it that slightly unfocused look. Play with different filters to see the different effects they have on the image.

Now for some more advanced edits. If you know how to create layers in your editor, you could take the background from an old photograph and place the modern photo (that you have just revised) on top to give you the rough edges of the photo. This would require you to select a portion of the modern photo and then paste it on top of the new layer.

Here is what the revised image might look like:

Let me know what you come up with. This also leads me to consider creating a few short "how-to" videos to put up on TeacherTube on how to do some of these things.

Google Maps and Gettysburg

2007-12-20T08:20:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the Ten Roads Blog (actually done by a high school student) for sharing a link to a very cool website (more of a mashup really) that uses Google Maps and photos.

The Encounter at Gettysburg page is being developed by Chuck Kann and incorporates Google Maps to allow visitors to locate monuments, farm houses and other significant portions of the Gettysburg battlefield. To navigate the site, you click on the your search criteria on the left side of the page. You can select monuments and landmarks by type, by state or by location on the battlefield. Once you have selected your desired monument or location, you simply click Get Map and then depending on your selection, you could then choose from additional monuments or locations.

For example, I clicked on PA in the Monuments associated with State box then clicked Get Map. From the new list, I selected the 11th PA monument. The Google Map image tells me where the monument is located (I can even view it as a satellite image), I have a photo of the monument and then information that is written on the monument.

Until next time....

New Image of Lincoln at Gettysburg Found

2007-11-16T08:35:00.000-05:00

While in Boston this morning I opened my complimentary copy of USA Today to find a headline article about a new image of Abe Lincoln at Gettysburg being found at the Library of Congress.

The story discusses how an amateur historian was looking at photographs of the famous Gettysburg Address and found Lincoln in his famous top hat riding a horse to the speaker's stand.

You can read the entire article HERE.

Here is a close up of the photo from the article showing what appears to be Lincoln

Photo from USA Today.

I have posted before about using photographs in your classroom. The historian in the article had researched the events around the Gettysburg Address and was simply looking at photographs and made a terrific discovery. You and your students can do the same thing in your classroom. Who knows, you may be the one to find the next photo of Lincoln or other famous Civil War figure.

Researchers advocate instructional approaches that engage students in the processes of doing history (Friedman, 2005). This process includes building historical knowledge through the use of primary sources, conducting historical inquiry, and encouraging students to think historically. As part of this process, students must be active learners, by seeking answers rather than waiting for them when engaging in the analysis of primary sources. The reason for this is that the process of engaging in historical thinking is more than simply absorbing information; instead it requires seeking out answers to questions (Friedman, 2005). While viewing a primary source, students will examine the historical document and then construct a narrative based on that document. Through the process of constructing this narrative, students have begun to develop inquiry skills that they will be able to use throughout their life (Wineburg, 2001). According to VanSledright (2002), children as young as seven and eight years old are capable of thinking historically.

Good luck and have fun exploring those photos.

--------------------------------------------------------
References:

Friedman, A. (2005, May). Using digital primary sources to teach world history and
world geography: Practices, promises, and provisions. Journal for the Association of History and Computing, 8, Retrieved October 2005, from http://mcel.pacificu.edu/jahc/JAHCVIII1/articles/friedman.htm#037

VanSledright, B. (2002). In search of America's past. New York, NY: Teacher's College
Press

Wineburg, S. (2001). Historical thinking and other unnatural acts. Philadelphia, PA:
Temple University Press.

The "Best Civil War Lesson Plan" Contest

2007-10-21T08:25:00.000-04:00

Here is a quick post of a contest for everyone to enter:

The "Best Civil War Lesson Plan" Contest
Sponsored by The History Channel and the Civil War Preservation Trust

Do you have a terrific Civil War lesson plan to share - one that is challenging and relevant to today's students? Then enter the Best Civil War Lesson Plan contest for a chance to win money and recognition!

Prizes: First Place - $1,000; Second Place - $750; Third Place - $500. Prizes are generously donated by The History Channel.
Who May Enter: K-12 teachers nationwide - in public, private, and home schools
Deadline: All submissions must be received by December 1, 2007.
Guidelines: All lesson plans must include the following elements in order to be considered:

The teacher's complete contact information - including the name of the teacher's school with complete mailing address, complete home address, and preferred phone number and/or email address.
A brief description of the goals of the lesson and comcepts to be taught.
A list of the materials to be used, as well as copies of teacher-created handouts.
A brief description of the time involved.
An explanation of the methods to be used.
A list of correlating state standards for social studies or history in the teacher's home state, or the appropriate NCSS standards (www.ncss.org).
Use of at least one primary source - this could be an historic photograph, document, letter, diary, or artifact.
Inclusion of elements that are engaging and thought provoking for students with a variety of learning styles.

If possible, teachers are encouraged to introduce the concept of battlefield preservation within their lesson. However, lack of this component will not cause an entry to be disqualified. Teachers are also encouraged, but not required, to submit a method of evaluation with their lesson plan.

Submissions become the property of the Civil War Preservation Trust and The History Channel, and may be reprinted, posted on their respective web sites, or shared via other forms of media.

Winning teachers will be notified January 15, 2008.

Send your lesson plan to:

Education Department
Civil War Preservation Trust
11 Public Square, Suite 200
Hagerstown, MD 21740

Confederate Memorial Museum in Oklahoma

2007-10-12T09:09:00.001-04:00

Wesley Fryer of the Moving at the Speed of Creativity Blog recently visited the Confederate Memorial Museum in Oklahoma. While touring the museum he took photographs of the various displays and then used Voicethread to post a narrated slide show to his blog. Check it out HERE.

This is a great way for you to see the exhibits in a museum that may otherwise be in accessible to you as a teacher. You can also check out the museum's website at: http://www.civilwaralbum.com/atoka/

Question is: How can your students do something like this? Do you live near a Civil War museum or a location associated with the Civil War? Does your local historical society have artifacts from soldiers who may have fought during the war? If so, take some digital photos and create a virtual tour for everyone to share.

Another thought...look up museums and historical societies in other towns with ties to the Civil War. Then find the local schools and get in contact with the district. Once you get in contact, ask them to collaborate on a project. Have their students go and take pictures and have your students write up the narrative.

Lots of ideas...

Congratulations Eric Langhorst

2007-09-16T06:44:00.000-04:00

Eric Langhorst of the Speaking of History Blog has been named the Missouri Teacher of the Year.
Please join me in congratulating Eric on this terrific achievement.

Here is a story about Eric from a Kansas City newspaper.

Take a moment to check out Eric's blog and podcast at http://speakingofhistory.blogspot.com and be sure to leave him some feedback.

Again, congratulations Eric on a great award.

Until next time...

So many statistics....So little time

2007-09-06T06:48:00.000-04:00

According to John Busey's "These Honored Dead: The Union Casualties at Gettysburg", the following is a list of the number of soldiers killed during the Battle of Gettysburg.

Army Of the Potomac :

New York	978
Pennsylvania	745
Massachusetts	200
Michigan	200
US Regulars	182
Ohio	139
Maine	119
Wisconsin	105
Indiana	96
New Jersey	80
New Hampshire	67
Vermont	58
Minnesota	50
Connecticut	45
Maryland	29
Delaware	21
Rhode Island	14
West Virginia	11
Illinois	9
Total	3,148

Army of Northern Virginia:

North Carolina	1452
Virginia	1012
Georgia	774
Mississippi	393
South Carolina	295
Alabama	254
Louisiana	141
Texas	111
Florida	80
Maryland	65
Tennessee	55
Arkansas	41
Total	4,673

Total number killed: 7,821

Based on these figures, you can easily have your students working on some math concepts. Have your students answer questions such as:

What is the average number of soldiers killed for both the North and the South?
What percentage of the total number of soldiers killed were from Ohio?
What percentage of those killed were from the South?
How many more soldiers were killed from North Carolina versus Pennsylvania?

Or, how about some critical thinking skills...

Why do you think New York and North Carolina had the highest number of soldiers killed?
During what day of the battle do you think Minnesota lost the greatest number of soldiers and why?

Until next time. From just north of Gettysburg...

More on Using Blogs to Teach the Civil War

2007-08-17T06:48:00.000-04:00

I have talked about Eric Langhorst's Speaking of History podcast and blog in the past. While searching TeacherTube recently, I came across this video that he created about how he is using Web 2.0 technologies to teach a book that deals with the Civil War called Guerrilla Season by Pat Hughes.

Be sure to check out Eric's website for some great information on how to use technology in the History classroom.

A soldier from Wildcat Regiment

2007-07-31T22:33:00.000-04:00

An interesting way for students to experience the Civil War is to personalize it for them. One way to personalize the Civil War is to allow students to experience the war through the eyes (or in this case letters and documents) of a solider. The Library of Congress has created A Solider from the Wildcat Regiment that details the life of a Union solider in the 105th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. This digital resource center contains documents, photographs and letters related to Capt. Tilton Reynolds combined with ideas and suggestions on how you can incorporate the information into your classroom.

The following is from the Library of Congress Website:

A Civil War Soldier in the Wild Cat Regiment … a Collection Connection from the Learning Page

Help your students make personal connections with history by considering the lives of a young Union soldier and his family during the Civil War. Through letters and other documents, the collection describes the drudgery of life in military camps, details of troop movements, experiences of a prisoner of war, a soldier's view of politics, and feelings of homesickness and familial love.

Until next time...

Which Civil War General Are You?

2007-07-24T19:53:00.001-04:00

Hmmm... Could be worse.

You scored as General Ambrose Burnside, The good news is, you're considered a person of scrupulous honor and well liked by no less a personage than Abe Lincoln. The bad news is you're pretty much inept, the worst high-ranking general of the war. Cheer up, though; you might have a future in politics.

General Ambrose Burnside

90%

General James Longstreet

75%

General George McClellan

70%

William T. Sherman

70%

Robert E. Lee

65%

Stonewall Jackson

60%

General Nathan Bedford Forrest

45%

U.S. Grant

45%

General Jeb Stuart

40%

General Phillip Sheridan

35%

Which American Civil War General are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

Gettysburg Cyclorama

2007-07-17T13:52:00.000-04:00

The Gettysburg Cyclorama, officially known as the "Battle of Gettysburg" Cyclorama, is a 360 degree circular painting that depicts Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863. According to the Gettysburg National Military Park, it's one of the last remaining cycloramas in the United States.

The Gettysburg Cyclorama was created by the French artist Paul Philippoteaux. Starting in 1882, Philippoteaux spent several weeks sketching the battlefield in order to accurately depict the climatic charge. Philippoteaux also had the opportunity to interview several veterans of the battle in order to obtain their thoughts on how the battle transpired.

Over the next 18 months, Philippoteaux and his assistants created the massive work and finally the "Cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg" opened in Chicago in 1883. He then went on to paint a second version to be shown in Boston in 1884 again to tremendous acclaim. This Boston version of the painting would eventually come to reside in Gettysburg in 1913. The National Park Service in Gettysburg purchased the painting and placed it in the visitor in 1962. The Gettysburg Cyclorama is 359 feet long, 27 feet high and weighs an estimated 3 tons.

Currently the Gettysburg Cyclorama is undergoing restoration and will be moved to the new visitor center in 2008.

Thanks to the Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum Foundation, you can download hi-res TIFF images of the painting and restoration project. These hi-res images allow you to zoom in and see parts of the painting in great detail, including some of the damage and the on-going restoration.

Ideas for the classroom:
Have your students think about if they were Philippoteaux in Gettysburg in 1882, what types of questions would you ask, what would you be sketching, what would you be looking for?

What would be some of issues related to creating a painting of this size?

Have your students view a portion of the painting and have them sketch a section.

These are just a couple of ideas. What ideas do you have for integrating this into your classroom?

Until next time...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
References:
Heiser, J. (2005, Dec). The gettysburg cyclorama. Retrieved July 17, 2007, from Gettysburg National Military Park Web site: http://www.nps.gov/archive/gett/gettcyclo.htm

Portrait of Robert E. Lee

2007-06-27T14:24:00.000-04:00

As I am preparing some posts for the upcoming anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, I thought I would share this quick link.

The Library of Congress sponsors discussions on various books and broadcasts them via their website. One of the recent webcasts was about Robert E. Lee and features the author Elizabeth Brown Pryor. The author talks about her research into Robert E. Lee and provides a unique insight into this famous historical figure.

Check out the webcast HERE

Photo credit: Selected Photographs of the Civil War

Coming Soon... Prelude to Gettysburg

Middle School Students have LIving History Weekend

2007-06-20T09:20:00.000-04:00

Vaughn Dailey is a social studies teacher at Peters Township Middle School in McMurray, Pa. Mr. Dailey is an incredible teacher with a deep love for history that fills his classroom. Mr. Dailey has been honored as National History Day Teacher of the Year and as a teacher of excellence. Mr. Dailey engages kids in "doing history" by role playing, exploring primary sources and engaging kids in history, including the Civil War.

When I was employed at Peters Township School District, I would give talks to his students about military or civilian aspects of the Civil War. In addition to learning about the Civil War in the classroom, the students also get the opportunity to participate in a Civil War Living History weekend where they learn more about the life of a Civil War soldier. The event is lead by Civil War reenactors and Mr. Dailey portrays Pennsylvania Governor Andrew Curtin.

Here is a video from the 2007 encampment from the Observer-Reporter newspaper.

Photos from the encampment are available HERE

Lincoln Museum Podcast

2007-06-14T09:02:00.000-04:00

Eric Langhorst is an 8th Grade History teacher from Illinois and is the host of the Speaking of History podcast.

Eric recently made a trip to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and recorded a podcast of his thoughts on the museum.

You can view pictures from his trip and listen to his podcast on the visit on his Speaking of History Blog.

He also recorded a podcast about some of the historic locations in Springfield, Illinois related to Abraham Lincoln that you can listen to HERE.

Be sure to check out all of the links Eric has included in his show notes. I'll try to cover some of them in upcoming blog posts.

Until next time...