Great Video Resource - The Cloud Biography

As my classes are finishing up our content before state assessments begin and moving toward more reviews. A great resource for short video biographies is the Youtube channel of The Cloud Biography.

Each of their videos are between 2-4 minutes and highlight the essential things students need to know. They seemingly have hundreds of videos on almost every major person from World and US History - including some that are hard to find good information for.

For example, here's one on Robespierre for my World History II students:

Or Susan B. Anthony for US History:

I posted a bunch of them to my class' Blackboard site for students to view at home and will show a couple on the most important people in class. Fantastic because they take up very little class time, but are focused on good content!

Great Video on the Berlin Wall

From the History Channel comes this awesome short video on the Berlin Wall (which I'll be covering this week in US History). Includes some very cool animations combined with historic footage:


Prior to showing this video, we do a lesson on the Berlin Blockade as a prelude to the wall being built and I include this great story about the American pilot Gail Halvorsen, nicknamed "Uncle Wiggle Wings the Candy Bomber" because he parachutted bags of candy to the children of West Berlin. A great little history story for students!

Animated Battle of Antietam Map

The Civil War Preservation trust has a lot of incredible resources for helping teachers cover the Civil War. This includes iPad, iPhone, and Android apps for each major battle, an entire curriculum for elementary, middle, and high school, and a ton of other resources for teachers.

To me however, the best resource they have created is this animated map and video of Antietam. Created in honor of the battle's 150th anniversary, it does an amazing job of showing how the death toll mounted so quickly and terribly. The flash video mixes in reenactments and video footage with the animated troop movements on computer-generated maps for a truly amazing multimedia experience. This is exactly the type of media that Students of History supports - it uses technology effectively to support learning, makes the content relevant and engaging, and is effective for all learners.

Definitely recommend you check this out when you cover the Battle of Antietam in your classes!

Video on the American Revolution

This was the 2nd video Students of History produced and features 3 more high school students explaining essential state and Common Core Standards in American History. This episode focuses on the American Revolution - why it happened, key events, and the results. Again, it was written and narrated entirely by students - in a way the "flipped classroom" model, but in a more fully developed way.

Enjoy!

The Early American Colonies Video

Here is one of our first Students of History videos! This one covers the early American colonies. The video was written and narrated entirely by high school students. The concept of the "flipped classroom" is that if students watch videos like this at home before coming to class, it leaves more class time for questions, debate, and higher level discussion. We also believe that sometimes students can better explain topics to their peers better than historians, authors, or even teachers. 

Hope you enjoy it and please let us know in the comment section if you have any feedback!