Tag Archives: movies

September 16, 2014 · 8:43 pm

Videos for the Classroom: Disease! from CrashCourse World History

I know that it’s been quite a while since I post anything on here anymore. Let’s just say the multi-headed hydra of life keeps ensnaring me, allowing less and less time to devote to the Neighborhood.

This year, with a lot of the bulk of lessons and materials already developed, it’s important to get back on the horse and do what I do best: pontificate on history and education…and possibly say something intelligent in the process.

It’s baby steps, though, getting back into things, so let’s start (or re-start) with a recent favorite of mine. Crash Course World History by John Green–the author of The Fault in our Stars among other works–has been an interesting and entertaining series of web videos condensing the large ideas of history into manageable chunks with just enough insight to keep high school students engaged. I’ve attached a recent episode on Disease for your enjoyment.

Don’t worry: more substantive posts will be coming soon.

Videos for the Classroom: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Today marks the 149th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Maybe outside of the JFK killing, it is probably the most documented single homicide in American history. It has been written about to death–and also in reel after reel of film.

Sometimes it’s difficult to weed out the grain from the chaff.

Attached is a PBS documentary about the assassination that gives a pretty good primer about the basics: the planning, the conspirators, the moment at Ford’s Theatre and the aftermath. Just in case the film doesn’t download (as often happens with YouTube) I’ve downloaded a copy: Please email me if you want one.

Video for the Classroom: A Tour through Ancient Rome, courtesy of Khan Academy and Rome Reborn

This is the type of history video Khan Academy needs!

A Tour Through Ancient Rome is a collaboration between Khan and the Rome Reborn project, an initiative to create digital models of Rome from its foundation settlements to its depopulated self during the 6th century CE. This tour is narrated mostly by Rome Reborn director and University of Virginia professor Dr. Bernard Frischer.

The video juxtaposes a magnificent digital rendering of ancient Rome around the year 320 to various modern and ancient images of artifacts, buildings and ruins. Dr. Frischer’s narrative contains none of the boring, linear, rote stock pedantics of other Khan humanities videos. In fact, for a 14-minute video lecture, it’s surprisingly fun to watch.

Khan Academy had better take note: if it wants its history and humanities videos to get the same hits as its math and science films, it had better quit the light-pen Chinese takeout menu-look that it thrives upon and make the videos actually ENGAGING.

…I mean, God forbid kids actually ENJOY learning about history.