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Here's a terrific short (about 5 minutes) animated introduction to Martin Luther and the Reformation from National Geographic. Thanks to my colleague, Heather O'Grady, for the link.

Current events and history came together last week when President Trump first talked about privatizing the war in Afghanistan. Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, an American private military company, suggested that his company could handle the war in Afghanistan more cheaply than the government and pointed to the British East India Company as an example . Some writers reminded readers that the East India Company was involved in colonization. Historian Ali Olomi, a scholar of Middle East and Islamic history and the host of a history podcast called Head on History , tweeted a fascinating history of the East India Company in Afghanistan. World History students might enjoy the short history and its tie to current events. I used a thread spooler to embed the tweet thread which is why its subscription advertising is so prominent. Thread by @aaolomi: "Disturbing development: Trump is considering Erik Prince’s proposal to privatize war in Afghanistan for a while. If he does so, all pret

Professor Monica Green, a specialist in medieval European medicine at Arizona State University, argues that we should change the way we teach about the Black Death. ( pdf copy here ) She lays out four new "truths' about the Black Death that she believes should be taught in middle and high schools. Genetics has given us a "unifed evolutionary history" of the plague. The Black Death was probably more devastating than previously imagined Sources are not always reliable The Black Death never ended. Professor Green challenges William McNeil's argument that the plague spread from southeastern China to the Crimea in the decades between the 1330's and 40's. She notes that McNeil's map that you can find at World History for Us all and in some AP World textbooks is wrong. New evidence shows that the "s trains involved in the two areas would likely have had no direct relationship, other than both being the result of centrifugal spread out of a central Euras

My school will go one to one in 2019.  I'm on the school technology committee and our principal wants us to design professional development to help teachers migrate from Blackboard to Google Classroom and to think about ways to help teachers infuse technology into some of their lessons. The SAMR model and TPACK are two terms about which I hear a lot.  I had to look them both up to understand them. Here's a brief overview of what they are and how they can help you engage students more effectively. SAMR is an acronym for the following. S-Substitution A-Augmentation M-Modification R-Redfinition Simply moving a written assignment to a digital assignment  is  substitution while sharing a digital assignment with a partner is augmentation.  Modifying or redesigning the assignment is called modification.   For example, let's say you substituted a written timeline for an online timeline and modified it to include images and videos, and quizzes using an online platform like Sutori . 

This weekend AP teachers learned tips on how to score the LEQ, SAQ and DBQ at a virtual summit. One presenter explained how students might tackle the multiple choice. And world historians like Ross Dunn, the founder of the website, World History for Us All , and the author of a number of world history textbooks, and Dr. Laura Mitchell,  Professor at the University of California at Irvine and the president of the World History Association , spoke about teaching the big questions in AP World History. If you missed the August summit, you can still sign up for other summits during the school year. And for $49, you can access the archived materials from this weekend which include presenter videos and slides. Click here and scrolll to the bottom. An organization called Fivable , founded by Amanda DoAmaral, an AP World and US teacher, organized the summit. DoAmaral started Fiveable last spring to virtually tutor AP students before the AP Exam. Students reviewed the different essays as well a

Some teachers are moving away from the traditional 100 point grading scale to a four or five point scale that measures mastery of essential standards. Homework, classwork, projects, and formative assessments might be recorded but not graded because they do not reflect mastery of a standard. Proponents of standards based-grading argue that a small scale based on four or five and mastery of specific standards make grades more accurate, consistent, and meaningful. In the video clip below, educational consultant Rick Wormeli, argues that the 100 point scale is confusing. Is 89% almost proficient or is 87% almost proficient? Maybe 92 is almost proficient. Instead, grades should be tied to specific evidence, or standards. "The smaller the scale," Wormeli argues, "the higher the inter-reliability." How does standards-based grading work in the classroom? AP world history teacher, Kathryn Byars, presented her reflection on implementing a standards-based grading system  at a

How the Shang Dynasty , which began around 2000BCE, develop bronze vases. Here's an awesome interactive from the Princeton University Art Museum  that shows how artisans made  these Shang vases. Click "start the process" and you can begin decorating the vase with a special carving tool. Next, you get to make a clay mold and fire it in the kiln. The process continues until you pour molten bronze into the mold. Thanks to to David Korfhage for tweeting the link.