PLN assignment

On my twitter account I have begun following three accounts. The first is called explore history and it seems really cool. It is an account that connects students to several onlince exhibits and activities from the Smithsonian. I have not looked through all of them of course but the ones I checked out seemed interesting so far. The second twitter I chose was the museum of Tacoma, WA. Since Tacoma is one of the places my wife and I are considering moving to after graduation in a year we thought it would be cool to follow what the historical museum of Tacoma offered. I think it would be a great place to take students to on a field trip. The final twitter account that I am currently following is capitol history. It explains what is being discussed in politics today in the United States and could prove useful in a governments course in the future.

On my google reader doc I am subscribed to a number of different accounts. Some of these include: This Day in History, the White House, American History blogger, PBS teaching, the Journal of American History, and a few others includding our class website and Diigo group.

The white house follows what discussions were made in the white house that day. It seems a little dense to read but is seperated by topics and could be useful in a political science course or government.

American History blogger is just that it a blog set up by a grad student and a list of helpful sources he has gained while studying history

PBS teaching offers, among other things, a list of what people in the country are saying about our teaching program and how it can be modified.

The Journal of American History is a collection of publications by academic scholars on american history similar to JSTOR offered at BYU.

While most of these seem like they may be helpful the one that really caught my interest at first is This day in history. Each day it gives a series of posts explaining what key events have taken place on that particular day in antiquity. I think this would be interesting for students to use in a history course. My wife said that when she was in high school her history teacher used a similar site to show what happened each day and then had students connect what happened in the past to what was occuring in the present. She said it was a really successful exersize that did not take much time each day to draw out the interest of the students.

I'll keep you posted when I find anything else new to add to these accounts .