“This Day in History” is the perfect website to have loaded everyday on your interactive whiteboard when students are entering the classroom. It presents a list of event that happened on that day in previous years. When you load the page, it automatically goes to the date of the day. You can click “yesterday” or “tomorrow” to see what happened in history the day before or day after today. At the bottom of the screen you can also enter a specific month and day. You can also search for birthdays or do a year-by-year search.

“Big Valley Then and Now” is a great website for history teachers who want to compare the lifestyle 100 years ago with today’s lifestyle. The comparison presents similarities and differences for the town of Big Valley. The comparison includes architecture, communication, education, fashion, government, industry, railroads and Mines, recreation, religion, technology and transportation. For each of these subjects, the website presents how it was in the early 1900 and how it is nowadays. This tools is provided by “Our roots” a website sponsored by Heritage Canada, Laval University and the University of Calgary.

If you teach black history in North America to your students, this Web Site produced by Parks Canada presents lessons about the Underground Railroad. These lessons target students from 10 to 14 years old. The five topics covered by the lessons are :

• Who am I? What am I? (Quiz)
• Deborah Brown – Free at Last, Free at Last!
• Underground Railroad Novel Studies
• The Underground Railroad Pattern of Settlement
• Secret Songs and Words of the Underground Railroad

Each lesson includes an overview, a purpose, the objectives, resource material, activities as well as expectations. Expectations are from the Ontario curriculum for social studies, history and geography, however these concepts could also be covered in other curriculums. Resource material includes all the texts that students will need to read. The page layout is better suited for Web browser than paper. Activities lack many pictures which are necessary with this age group. The information presented is very interesting and very appropriate for these students.

If you are teaching history in the United States, this US history site is an amazing resource. The site doesn’t contain much information but it is a great collection of links to other websites. It covers the history of the States from the early beginning to today. It includes topics such as the revolution, civil war, industrialization, World War I, World War II and the US presidents.

About the presidents, the site also includes some presidential quotes for each of them. There is also a timeline going from the Native American, the arrival of Columbus and the original 13 colonies, all the way to today’s history including the conflicts in the Middle East and global economy. There are also some lessons plans available specifically developed for teachers.

If you are teaching the Great Civilizations including the Egyptians to your students, this “Egyptian name translator” is for you. The tool is so simple, anyone can use it. All you have to do, is to click on the letters to type your name. As you click on each letter, an Egyptian hieroglyph appears on the top row. When you are done writing your name, you have the Egyptian “translation” on your screen. The maximum number of letters that can be entered is 11. If you have a long name, you may have to enter it in two parts. There is no export feature, but you can always do a screen grab. Have fun!

These videos are taken from the The Photographic Studio of William Notman and are available both in French and English on the McCord Museum Website. They are edited from still pictures and sound and are narrated. The topics presented in these videos include Canadian Confederation, Montreal in 1855, sports, Canadian winter, composite photography, genealogy and Western Canada. It is a very precious source of authentic documents that may be used by your students in history classes. Each video is about 2 to 6 minutes and is available in Quicktime format.

The Flash animation that I am presenting today is a little treasure for history teachers: « From the Warpath to the Plains of Abraham ». It is very appropriate for history classes in North America, but may also be useful in Europe. In fact, it presents the stakes of the war in Europe and its results on conflicts in North America. The site is sponsored by the National Battlefields Commission. Everything is so well design and illustrated and includes some short videos from time to time presenting actors impersonating historical characters. The activity is very interactive and students are invited to clicks on different parts of pictures to go through all the content.

At the beginning of the activity, students must choose among four characters: the French, the British, the Canadian or the Amerindian. These characters represent the four main chapters of the activity. By clicking on the French, we realize that the King of France, Louis XV was really in a catch-22. By clicking on the British, we get introduced to the king of England, George II and its desire to exercise his power and authority. We get to know him better and we learn about his desire to colonize land west of the Ohio Valley with the Amerindians being a barrier. That is how he realized that he had to fight and start a war to win North America!

By clicking on the Amerindian, we realize that they decided to team-up with the French and they were very useful warriors to support French troupes during the war. They obviously had different combat techniques. Traditional symbols related to the Amerindians are also presented as well as rituals that come with alliances. Finally, we get to see where each tribe were located in North America as well as the ones who were involved with the war in Quebec.

By clicking on the Canadian, we learn a lot about the problems brought by the war in New France and its impacts on Canadians. We realize that they were hungry, discouraged and harvesting was very poor. That is why food was not readily available. In addition, everyday, their chance of winning the war was diminishing. The colony was difficult to defend. On the other hand, rich people could celebrate, take part in festivities and had a lot of food.

This interactive game is a must for anyone who wants to learn more about this period.