Civil War in Four Minutes

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...

Confederate Memorial Museum in Oklahoma

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...

More on Using Blogs to Teach the Civil War

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.

More Videos on the Internet

Today, I am sharing some links to some additional videos available via the Internet.

Antietam - Civil War Artillery Demonstration (1:31)
• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8644295898597328453&pr=goog-sl
Civil War (2 Parts – 1:27 & 1:26)
• http://oechw.xmu.edu.cn/hanyu/avi/eng/encyclo/Civwar1.rm
• http://oechw.xmu.edu.cn/hanyu/avi/eng/encyclo/Civwar2.rm
Civil War and St. Augustine (2:53)
• http://real.morriscomm.com:8080/ramgen/staugustine/video/visit/territory56k.rm
Civil War Battle Reenactment, Spokane, WA (4:15)
•http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=9f54b9fbaea3edff92523da5476cc7e9.681072&fr=yvmtf
Civil War Content Videos (9 videos of various lengths )
• http://eportal.guhsd.net/jmdb10/US%20History%20Quarter%201-3/?D=A
Civil War Movie Resources (24 videos of various lengths)
• http://www.webster.k12.mo.us/~fagin_kristin/civilwarresources.htm
Civil War Reenactment (3 Parts)
• http://clips1.vimeo.com/video_files/2005/11/21/vimeo.29380.mov
• http://ia300202.us.archive.org/0/items/BoycottSocietyCivilWarReEnactmentPt2/18civilWar_02om.mov
• http://ia300240.us.archive.org/0/items/BoycottSocietyCivilWarReenactment/18civilWar_03om.mov
Civil War Reenactment (3 videos of various lengths)
• http://www.interruptproductions.com/history.html
Civil War Reenactment (37 videos of various lengths)
• http://www.wrightwood.com/civil_war.htm
Divided and Torn (12:15)
• http://castor.state.mo.us:8080/ramgen/dese/findmo_unit11.rm
Family Stories of the Civil War (15 videos of various lengths)
• http://www.gpb.org/programs/civilwar/familystories.htm
Georgia's Civil War (4 videos of various lengths)
• http://www.gpb.org/programs/civilwar/index.htm
Ghost Writers from the Civil War (Story and Video)
• http://www.wusa9.com/rss/vodcasting_article.aspx?ref=Vodcast&storyid=53964
• http://www.wusa9.com/video/player.aspx?aid=37948&bw
Historical New York Times Project: The News in the Civil War Years (14:08)
• http://www.nyt.ulib.org/index.cgi
Medical History of the Civil War (1:02:08)
• http://www.utmem.edu/telemedicine/viewmovie.php?moviename=gr110503surgery.rm
PBS: The Civil War (5 videos of various lengths)
• http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/film/video.html
Shiloh Reenactment (14:08)
• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7235204575581970735&sourceid=popularfeed
The Civil War (14:37)
• http://www.archive.org/details/CivilWar1954
The Civil War at Home (10 videos of various lengths)
• http://www.wisconsinstories.org/2001season/civilwar/civilwar_video.html
The Civil War Experience: Gettysburg (2:02)
• http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol3/civilwar/gettysburg-vid-t1.ram
The Civil War Experience: Baseball (1:14)
• http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol3/civilwar/cw-baseball-vid-t1.ram
The "First" Shots of the Civil War? (2:45)
• http://www.pensacolahistory.org/videofiles/ra_metafiles/civil-war.ram
United Streaming Videos: Civil War (5 videos of various lengths)
• http://www.fayar.net/vandergriff/5th_video.html

Watch Gettysburg Battlefield walks on PCN

The Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN) will be showing it's annual coverage of ranger led battlefield walks on July 1, 2 3. These shows can also be watched live using the PCN Online Link from their website.

The complete list of walks is available at:
http://www.pcntv.com/6_26_07.htm

Additionally, you can view clips from previous years' walks at:
http://www.pcntv.com/gburgtourlist.htm

These clips can easily be used to help supplement any classroom discussion on the battle of Gettysburg.

Portrait of Robert E. Lee

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

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

Another Good Movie

While searching for some content for a project, I came across this nice video. The 2001 video features Rea Redd from Waynesburg College (where I'm an adjunct professor) and was filmed on location at the Soldiers and Sailors Hall in Pittsburgh. Corporal Redd mentions that he is a member of the 9th Pennsylvania Reserves, a Civil War Reenactment group.

Check out the video, I think you will enjoy it: http://www.nyt.ulib.org/nyt320.mpg

4/6/07 -- Update
Someone shared the following video with me about the Pennsylvania Reserves. It was produced by a member of the 9th Pa Reserves so I thought I would add it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6q7MdqlIbI

Two Quick Links

I came across the following two links and thought I would share:

The Historic New York Times website now has copies of the newspapers from 1860-1865 online for your viewing pleasure. They also have a short video on the newspapers for you to watch.

The next one is from the HarpWeek website and has over 400 political cartoons on the Lincoln presidency. Check out the Abraham Lincoln Cartoons and let me know what you think.

Teaching the Civil War with YouTube.

I have to admit right up front that I am not a big user of YouTube. I have viewed some clips that people have sent me but I'm not a regular user. That being said, someone sent me a link the other evening to a video of a Civil War Fife & Drum group playing and I thought, "hmm, how can this be used in the classroom"?

So, I started doing some searches on YouTube for Civil War related videos and came up with some interesting results that I thought I would share. These videos are a unique way to show clips of various topics on the Civil War to your classes that may otherwise be inaccessible. The following is a list of a few videos and how you may want to integrate them into your classroom.

Fife and Drum: Here is a nice video of the Excelsior Brigade Fifes & Drums playing a medley of several tunes. This video provides a pretty good view of the corp playing. Take notice of the drummers and ask your students if any of them are drummers in a band. There are four snare drums and a bass drum. How about those fifers? Loud and clear over top of the drums and there are only two of them.

Antietam: The following videos were created by a park ranger from the Antietam National Battlefield. This ranger also has a blog entitled My Year of Living Rangerously which I really enjoy reading. The first video is from the 2006 Antitem Artillery Weekend and it shows pictures and video clips of how cannons are loaded and fired. The next video shows the 27th Virginia, a Civil War reenacting group, demonstrating how soldiers would load and fire their muskets as a unit.

Gettysburg: Simply doing a search in YouTube for the word Gettysburg yields pages and pages of videos. These videos range from school projects to vacation videos. There are several that show brief tours of the battlefield or are slide shows of the monuments. I found a few with clips from different movies including Gettysburg, ones of ghost tours and one of a GNMP tour guide.

My favorite is from the 2006 Remembrance Day ceremonies in Gettysburg. This video shows a great representation of the different types of uniforms that both Union and Confederate soldiers would have worn. There are several fife and drum groups shown (including members of Camp Chase Fifes and Drums around the 5min mark) and even a brass band. Best of all is starting at about 5:25 of the movie you can hear a great fife and drum group playing the tune Garry Owen. That group is made up of fifers and drummers from reenactors including yours truly.

As a follow up to this, there is a video of the Gettysburg Address from the ceremony as well.

So, as you can see, there are many videos out on YouTube for viewing. Try some different searches for different battlefields and see what you can come up with to share with your students.

Next time: uniforms and equipment.