NARA's New Online Resource!

I just learned about an amazing new resource from the National Archives and Records Administration. I usually feature innovations like these in the monthly enewsletter (which you can get by giving me your email address here), but this was too good to wait for the October issue. Here's the scoop, pulled directly from NARA's press release.

"Just in time for the start of a new school year, the National Archives announces the launch of www.DocsTeach.org, a new online tool for teaching with documents.

"Not only does the site invite educators to explore thousands of documents in a variety of media from the holding of the National Archives—items such as George Washington’s draft of the Constitution, the cancelled check for Alaska, Chuck Yeager’s notes on the first supersonic flight, and President Richard Nixon’s resignation letter—but it also allows teachers to combine these materials using clever tools to create engaging activities that students can access online.

"The seven tools featured on the site are designed to teach specific historical thinking skills—weighing evidence, interpreting data, focusing on details, and more. Each employs interactive components including puzzles, scales, maps, flow charts, and others that both teachers and students can tailor to their needs.
On the site, teachers can

1) browse or search for documents and activities,
2) customize any activity to fit the needs of a unique classroom,
3) create a brand new activity with its own web address from scratch, using one of seven distinctive tools, and
4) save and organize activities in an account to share with students.

"After participating in an activity, the site even allows students to submit their work to their teacher via e-mail.

"DocsTeach is revolutionary because the interactive is the lesson; teachers can create lessons from scratch, adapt lessons from others, or even let their students create the lessons; and a single suite of tools can be applied to a broad range of subjects and skill levels."

I played around on the site a little today, and I think its an amazing tool for students and teachers. If you are the kind of history fan that likes the challenge of sussing out historical information from political cartoons, symbols, letters, and other documents, I encourage you to try some of their activities. It's like a scavenger hunt for history!

Enjoy!