Thursday, May 2, 2013

Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History

Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History

A collection of historical documents, photographs, maps and multimedia that enable users to investigate mysteries in Canadian History.

A link is provided to provincial curriculum for ELA, History and Social Studies at different grades.

Support for teachers:  "The Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History websites provide many different kinds of support for teachers using the Mysteries websites in their classrooms: materials that range from student-friendly lesson plans to teacher-oriented, philosophical discussions of the teaching methods advocated by the Mysteries project. Here is a quick overview of the seven kinds of support available to Teachers using the sites – more details are provided below.

  • Teachers’ Guides containing a series of detailed lessons, briefing sheets and evaluation materials are available for every Mystery website, and can be downloaded by registering on the site.

  • short, one-lesson, student-oriented MysteryQuest lesson plans, briefing sheets and evaluation materials are available for each Mystery. a series of scaffolding activities and briefing sheets to introduce students to Key Concepts in Historical Thinking.

  • a summary of the Foundational Ideas of history teaching that informs the Mysteries Project.
  • teachers have access to the password-protected historians’ Interpretations portion of the websites accessible through a Teachers' Login process."
Curriculum Connections:  "The following pages will assist educators/teachers in identifying the connections between the subject matter of the Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History and provincial and territorial curricula across the country. All project materials are available in English and French. To assist you with classroom teaching we have developed Teachers’ Guides for each of the Mysteries (grades 6-12, some suggestions suitable for college/university) as well as single-lesson MysteryQuests (ages 11-16). These materials and classroom posters illustrating each of the Mysteries are available online.
While this project was developed primarily as a resource for teaching history in Canada, educators around the world are using it for a variety of subjects in elementary school, secondary school, colleges and universities. Teachers and professors are using the materials to teach courses such as the following: history, social studies, law, native studies, geography, citizenship, drama, English and French, architectural research methods, art history, the criminal justice system, women’s studies, visual arts, language arts, anthropology, sociology, psychology, reading and developing skills in inference and persuasive writing, criminological theory, computer concepts, economics, and sociology."


Next Vista for Learning


Next Vista for Learning
This is a website that houses informational videos.  All videos are for a student audience, highlighting the creativity of students and teachers around the world.

a)  The Light Bulbs Collection  -hits the topics of careers, health & fitness, history & culture, literature & writing, Math, performing arts, science, technology, world languages, inspiration & creativity

b)  Global Views - messages about the world made by students to to help understand other cultures.  They are encouraged to create their own video from their part of the world and submit it

c)  Seeing Service - videos that highlight good deeds (ie microloans, volunteer work in various locations).  These are meant to encourage students to get involved in some sort of cause.

Unsplash - free photo gallery

Unsplash A wonderful collection of free photos. The photos below model good digital citizenship by giving attribution to the photographer....