Digital Parking Lot

So, I'm having some difficulties with my Web Site.

Turns out, putting up a Web Site is a whole lot harder than putting up a blog. (Who knew? I have a dear friend who has had a blog for years. I've always been deeply impressed. I'm still impressed at her content, but I'm no longer quite so wowed by her technological prowess.)

Three weeks into Educational Technology, here's what I've learned thus far: Any nutburger can put up a blog. Putting up a blog is a cakewalk. Easier than doing a Powerpoint presentation. Everything that has to be done, Blogspot does for you. You just follow the icons and prompts, click away, and wham! Your mom in another state, and your daughter upstairs, and your husband at the office, all can see what you're doing right away!


Anyway. There are things-- concepts, images, links, stories-- that I would like to collect on my website, for class projects that are ultimately going to live there. Problem is, I'm currently experiencing such basic problems with... well, I don't actually know with what, exactly, or they wouldn't be such problems. I suspect my issues are around file linking and folder management and renaming vs. replacing and... whatnot.


But the Big Picture problem is that the level of my enthusiasm greatly exceeds the level of my current technological skills. The presumption is, I'll get there eventually, but for the moment, I need a parking lot. Once I figure out how to get things over there, the way I want them, I'll delete this whole post. (Because deleting a post on your blog is no problem at all. Whereas, deleting or changing something on your website, once you've managed to get it up there in the first place through sheer black magic, is a deep and as-yet unrevealed mystery.)


As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've selected Social Studies as my content standard. My idea is to integrate concepts from geography, archaeology, art, and history around folktales / myths from several different early civilizations, for each of the upcoming class projects. Mayan civilization will be one, since we're planning to visit Belize and Guatemala this summer and I think GP#3 will enjoy the art styles; Viking will be another, since Guinea Pig #2 and I have been reading a bunch of Viking books together; and I'm thinking maybe Greece, since Guinea Pig #1 and I are casting about for a play to read together on an upcoming trip, and I thought Antigone might fit the bill. (Check it out, GP#1, and let me know what you think. DO NOT PRINT IT OUT!)


Anyway. I'm starting to collect stuff, as is my wont. The real life stuff -- mostly books, also some art supplies, a few CDs, material for possible transformation into possible dress-up clothes, is currently Parked in my House, mostly in untidy piles in the library, as also is my wont. Maybe I'll take a picture of it all, soon, and post it. The virtual stuff, however -- mostly links -- is emerging as a problem. I work on several different computers in several different locations in little snippets of time snatched from my daily tasks, so just keeping my links together is a bit of a challenge. But beyond that, I also want to keep notes on things as I find them, so I can remember why I thought they were cool or what I thought I would use from them.


So here's a whole new use for blogs: an electronic parking lot, for works-in-progress.


(Warning: It may not make for especially interesting reading.)

Mayan links:

Cool Mayan folktales: Several of the Rabbit tales in particular are great, and might be the baseline for a digital story

More Mayan folktales: This site's navigation is loads better than the one above, and its design much better approximates Robin Williams' aesthetic imperatives... but the stories themselves aren't as good. (There's some sort of lesson in there, somewhere.)

Mayan art: This is a very well done National Gallery of Art site covering an exhibition that I regrettably did not see in 2004. You can click on some of the items of art and an audio clip tells you about the pieces.

Maya Adventure! This is a Science Museum of Minnesota site that highlights science activities and information related to ancient and modern Mayans. Geared for kids 7-10.

Mayan history: This is a basic overview with maps, photos, descriptions of daily life, and so on. It is available in Spanish as well as English.

More Mayan history: Another overview -- I think with better content, though I don't have time to really check it out just now...

Mayan religion: This is a reasonable, though somewhat breezily oversimplified, overview of Mayan religious beliefs and symbols. It also has too many ads! But for the moment, it'll do.

Mayan art, architecture, and science: This is an extensive and very informative site by the Canadian Museum of Civilizations.

Unmasking the Maya: Virtual exhibit at the Natural History Museum in Washigton DC.

Lifestyles of the Maya webquest activities: This is a nicely done webquest investigation by Dennis Oubre, designed for 6th grade social studies students.

The World of the Ancient Maya: This is another webquest, by Carl Shutoff, designed for slightly older students, which has students put together a digital "time capsule" with examples of the civilization's sculpture, architecture, and science.

Sumerian links:

Creative Commons images of Gilgamesh: This is a selection of copyright-free images of Gilgamesh, mostly from relief carvings in stone or clay.  Most of the holdings are actually held in the British Museum, but searching is easier here.

British Museum: The British Museum has the largest collection of ancient Mesopotamian art in the world.  There is a truly astounding wealth of resources here, but finding what they have can take some effort.   Try starting with a virtual tour of one or the other of the two galleries devoted to ancient Mesopotamia; here is a not-terribly-navigation-friendly database of 222 images of their holdings with very good descriptions.  The Museum has also put together several digital stories for school-aged kids, including:

Gilgamesh and the Cedar Forest: This is an (almost) digital story on the British Museum's website, a retelling of part of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Aimed at kids 6-10 ish.

The Royal Tombs of Ur: Another (nearly) digital story by British Museum staff, describing the excavation of the tombs.

Ziggurats: Yet another (nearly) digital story by the British Museum, this one describing the little that is known and much that is speculated about ziggurats.

Metropolitan Museum of Art:  Images of Met's most valuable Sumerian holdings; plus very informative timeline which includes political and economic information along with links to art in each ear.

Egyptian Links:

Metropolitan Museum of Art - Egyptian Holdings:  These are images of 52 of the Met's most valuable pieces of Egyptian art.  Images may be reproduced for non-commercial educational use.  Also see the Met's timelines, which provide significant political and economic information in timeline form, along with links to art in each era. 

British Museum: There is a truly astounding wealth of resources here, but finding what they have can take some effort.   Try starting with one of the online tours of Cleopatra, Mummies, or the Old Kingdom; or take a virtual visit to one of the six gallery rooms devoted to ancient Egypt (each room has a link for an audio tour as well).   Images may be reproduced for non-commercial educational use.

Odyssey to Egypt:  This is a very nicely done site sponsored by the Carlos Museum at Emory University that has good information about ancient Egyptian religion, practices surrounding death and burial, daily life and more.  It's extremely easy to use and would be a great resource for anyone designing a webquest.

Ancient Egypt webquest: This is a nice webquest by Doreen Garvey, a second grade teacher.  She recommends launching into it by reading the Magic Tree House book on Egypt.

Ankhet:  This has a host of myths and legends, mostly from the Book of the Dead.  The Isis series would make a nice little five-part project.

Richard Deurer's site: Deurer is a contemporary artist inspired by Egyptian art; he's illustrated a number of ancient myths and stories and also collected a fabulous assortment of links to museum collections and story retellings.

Viking links:

Vikings evidently didn't create a lot of art for art's sake; what has survived is mostly highly decorated but useful artifacts.  Most of which appear to be housed in museums in Denmark and Norway, with navigation mostly in -- go figure -- Danish and Norwegian.  Here is what I did manage to find:

Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga: Neat site chock-full of history, geography, art and activities chronicling traveling exhibit (now complete) by the National Museum of Natural History.  Includes downloadable "family guides" suitable for younger children and teacher resource page with yet more resources and lesson plans.

Museum of National Antiquities (Stockholm) - English-text descriptions of Viking collection and some historical overview.

Jorvik Viking Center: This is a museum in York, devoted to Viking daily life.  (God bless those Brits.)  Very accessible to kids; good resource for Webquests.

Encyclopedia Mythica:  This has brief descriptions of each of the Norse mythological characters in alphabetical order, plus a family tree.  Not much on the many examples of Norse mythological influence on Western culture.

D'Aulaires Book of Norse Myths:  Less well-known than the Greek counterpart, this recently came back into print and is equally terrific.  Great to read prior to Lord of the Rings or the Sea of Trolls series.

Greek links:

Greek Myths:  This is a commercial site, with distracting ads; and it's certainly no substitute for D'Aulaires; but it gets the job done.  It has a lot of stories, including the lesser gods and the heroes.

Encyclopedia Mythica:  This has brief descriptions of each of the mythological characters in alphabetical order, plus a lot of nice family trees.

Discovering Pompeii: This is a neat webquest that has kids research life before, and accounts of, the Vesuvius eruption; then write a newspaper account about it.  It says it's aimed at grades 3-5, although I think it would work for older kids too.  Well-guided with good links.

Odyssey Online - Greece:  This site, sponsored by the Carlos Museum at Emory University, is a sort of uber-Webquest.  It has a lot of information in it.  It's filled with the kind of busy graphics and loud distracting soundtracks that drive me crazy, but Guinea Pig #2 happened to be beside me when I was checking it out, and he thought it was great.  (He is 9.)

Art links:

Web Gallery of Art:  This is a database site linking the holdings of museums all over the world.  It's a good place to search for a specific painting if you know the artist.  Once you find the painting, the image is often clearer if you then go back to the site of the museum that holds it.

National Gallery of Art:  Has on-line tours, including audio, of current and prior exhibitions.  Easy to search either by artist or by subject.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Not as user-friendly to navigate as the above, but the holdings are worth it.  Images are replicable, if properly credited and not altered, for non-commercial use.

Artemesia Gentileschi:  There are of course hundreds of sites devoted to specific artists, but this one is so little known and under-appreciated that I just have to put in a plug.  Nice site that provides a good bit of biographical information as well as a nearly complete inventory of her paintings.

Election links:

New York Times Election Guide 2008:  Great site with delegate maps, candidate positions, calendar of upcoming events, and loads more

Rock the Vote: Simple site glorying in the 2008 "youthquake" (surge in 18-24 year olds comin out to vote in the 2008 primary season) 

Podcast Parking:

Volunteer Voices:  This is a collection of folktales around the world, told by Peace Corps volunteers.  There are also podcasts of the volunteers' daily lives, work in specific areas, etc.

Odeo: This is a vast podcast database, including a large number of folk and fairy tales.  Some are considerably better than others, so previewing (?pre-listening?) is key.

BBC's Thousand and One Nights:  The BBC has loads of other good stuff too, though the navigation works best if you already know exactly what you're looking for.

American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches:  This is the true value of the internet.  Free, downloadable versions of Roosevelt, Kennedy, Nixon, MacArthur, and King; also, Emma Goldman, Malcom X and more.  Annoying pop-ups. 

Links Recommended in Social Studies on the Internet:

Smithsonian Institution: This is a vast resource, with all kinds of cool stuff.  I was particularly surprised and pleased with the Silk Road storytelling podcasts in the Sackler, and the National Portrait Gallery's Presidential timeline.  Next election cycle we'll use these to make a timeline. 

New York Times Learning Network: Section for kids grades 3-12, with test prep question of the day, vocabulary word of the day, current events, and science question of the week; another section for teachers, with lesson plans based on current news summaries, links to archives, and much more.

Exploring Ancient World Cultures: Introduction to ancient world cultures, with several good essays exploring the impact different ancient civilizations had upon modern society, art images, and historical overviews.

Landmark Supreme Court Cases: Supports teaching of landmark cases, including substantial resources for teachers, including formats for debate, links to related cases and news analysis by judicial theme, and even links to political cartoons related to key cases.  Really, really good.

Other:

AT for Special Ed Populations:  I came upon this whilst looking for something else.  Almost unbelievably, it is a webquest, written by Susan English at Aquinas College's school of education, aimed at under- and graduate students of education, to disseminate knowledge of assistive technology for special education populations.  No kidding.

Artist Trading Card Project by Veronique Poulin: This is an interesting webquest which has students make something I've never even heard of, "Artist Trading Cards" (thereafter, the quest has students transform their cards into a digital story posted on YouTube).  It's really oriented to art students, but somewhere in the recesses of my brain an idea is percolating (that's "parallel processing" in action) about what a simpler but related activity having to do with the production of timelines might look like.  Hmmm. 

Digital parking spot for zunal.com's webquest creation tool, whose format I like better than the one linked through the syllabus; and Tom March's marching orders on what webquests shouldn't look like.  Gets back to Bloom's taxonomy and I'm not at all sure I'm fully on the same page, particularly for younger kids, but there ya go.

Digital parking spot for serendipitous article on "mindless" memorization