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AAM Electronic Newsletter
Published by An Adventure of the American Mind at Mars Hill College
Vol. 8 Issue 29 - April 27, 2007
Captain Pearl R. Nye: Life on the Ohio and Erie Canal
"Captain Pearl R. Nye: Life on the Ohio and Erie Canal" captures the culture and music of the men, women, and children who worked and lived along the Ohio and Erie Canal. Nye, who was born and raised on a canal boat, never lost his love of the "Big Ditch." After the canal closed permanently in 1913, he devoted considerable time and energy to preserving its songs and stories.
This presentation contains recordings of 75 songs, sung by Nye. The recordings were made by John, Alan, and Elizabeth Lomax, and Ivan Walton between June 1937 and September 1938. Lyrics for the recorded songs have been transcribed by Library staff and are available on the Web site as are song transcriptions, photographs, and personal letters Nye sent to the Library from July 1937 to October 1944.
Also included in this presentation is an essay called "An Informant In Search of a Collector: Captain Pearl R. Nye of Ohio" and a timeline that identifies significant events in the life of Nye and the history of the Ohio and Erie Canal with which his life was so closely associated. A radio program excerpt from "Two Sailors: Sea Shanties and Canal Boat Ballads," part of the Library's "Ballad Hunter" series, provides additional insight into Nye's life.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/nye/index.html
Smart is Fun!
You don't have to live in South Carolina to love Knowitall.org.
Created by SC Educational TV K-12 students, teachers, and parents, this is a free online collection of resources designed for classroom use. This educational web portal contains interactive sites, simulations, image collections, virtual field trips, and streaming video that support and provide quality inquiry-based experiences for students on the Internet.
There are resources for art, math and science, natural history, social studies (including a look at the struggle for Civil Rights in SC) and more. Although some of it is geared to the Palmetto State, most resources will work in any classroom.
http://www.knowitall.org/
Thanks to Oran Mosteller, AAM Digital Preservationist, at Western Carolina University
Sharing Resources
May is a great month. The school year is winding down and your students may have less concentration that they did in October, but the deadlines are being met. Time to look back at this school year and start planning next year. One way to get next year off to a great start is to look at valuable resources that you have used and want to share with your colleagues.
For those of us who teach with primary sources, May has been declared Free Stuff Month!
Send me your links to free resources you like and that other teachers might want to know about and use. Many museums, libraries, and foundations have materials that they want to get in the hands of teachers. Share what you have found and we'll pass it along to other teachers who read this newsletter.
Send it to the AAM Newsletter staff at awalter@mhc.edu. I'll pass it along in upcoming issues.
Magazines, Journals, and 'zines, Oh My!
I admit it. I like magazines that I can pick up and read. While online editions are easier to search and frequently contain extra content, nothing beats the portability of a copy that you can read at lunch, pass along to a colleague, or leave in the teacher's lounge to share with everybody. Here are just a few.
Edutopia
Funded by the George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF), Edutopia looks at great schools, what they do and how they do its. There's no one recipe, so you'll find lots of different takes on the common traits that make schools and teachers great. They also send e-mail alerts when they add new copy to the website, and you can subscribe by topic. I get the Project-Based Learning update.
You'll find a number of short video documentaries and interviews, free professional development modules, and interactive case studies that explore the nuts and bolts of school and school district change. Topics include online learning, system-wide change, redesigning learning environments, one-to-one computing, and expeditionary learning.
It's on line and in print. To learn more, go to http://www.edutopia.org/.
Technology and Learning and Educator's eZine
These technology-related magazines are ad-supported, sharing technology tips as well as good teaching practice. Here are a couple of recent articles, with links to their websites.
Ten Cool Ways To Use MS Word In Your Classroom
http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=196604183
Blogs are Not the Enemy
http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=196604374
Web 2.0: A Guide for Educators
http://www.techlearning.com/showArticle.php?articleID=196604380
Find even more at...http://www.techlearning.com/index.php.
eSchool News
Also available online and in tabloid format, eSchool News keeps you informed of technology news for K-20 educators. I like the hard copy version, but online, you'll find very searchable archives and more in-depth and up-to-date coverage. Features like "the site of the week" (See Quizlet below), e-mail updates, and news on national and international issues make this worth bookmarking and reading.
http://eschoolnews.com/
Quizlet
Created by a high school student in the San Francisco Bay Area, Quizlet is a free, web-based tool designed to help students learn and practice vocabulary. Users enter the vocabulary terms and definitions they're trying to learn, and the site creates flashcards and other study tools, including collaboration tools so students can share, edit, and discuss word sets.
After entering their vocabulary words, students are presented with three study methods: the flashcard method; a configurable test page that includes written, matching, multiple-choice, and true-false questions; and a specialized "learn" mode that tracks the user's knowledge of individual words and re-tests the user only on unlearned words. The site also features a live chat box for discussing vocabulary usage with other students, the ability to import information from other web sites and documents, and the ability to combine word sets.
Although the most obvious application of Quizlet is for English terms and their definitions, students also are using the site to learn foreign-language translations, history dates, and scientific terms. Check it out at http://quizlet.com/.
Spread the Word!
If the teachers in your school or AAM program are not receiving this newsletter, please send me their names and e-mail addresses. Also, feel free to share this newsletter with a colleague. And we encourage new readers to get their own subscription.
More input + greater diversity = better newsletter. Be part of the equation! Thanks to everyone who has sent submissions to me. Please continue to send your favorite resources and successes to your either of your editors, Liz Lang at elang@mhc.edu, or AnneMarie Walter at awalter@mhc.edu. I will feature them in coming newsletters and on the AAM program Web site.
Don't forget to contribute your favorite links to the Useful Links section!
Contact aam-teachers@aweber.com to be added to the mailing list.
AnneMarie Walter
AAM Associate Director
Mars Hill College
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