History – As We Know It
- At December 13, 2011
- By Quinn
- In Resources / Social Studies / Teaching
Have you noticed that OLE is currently visiting Italy? Our new pre-login page proudly displays a photo of the Colosseum now, and we are pretty excited about it. Check it out: Online Learning Exchange.
Why the Colosseum, you ask? OLE is always in the process of expanding its course libraries, and we can proudly announce the launch of new social studies content. We are eager to share this content and have provided a whole new set of slide shows, activities, documents, videos, and more! The new courses include American History, World History, and U.S. History. Find them here: http://onlinelearningexchange.com/content/products/social_studies.html.
I recently took a journey into history myself; I had the wonderful opportunity of being able to visit Italy, where nothing but antiquity surrounded me. I visited Venice, Florence, Pisa, Siena, and Rome and learned a lot about the culture, art, politics, language, science, and much more. I even had the chance to walk in and around the famous Colosseum. Did you know that the Colosseum was the first instance of what we call a modern sports arena? Stadiums these days are modeled directly from the Colosseum. The giant stadium held 55,000 spectators and even had a huge awning known as the Velarium, which covered the top opening to shade the audience below. The Romans also engineered the amphitheater to hold water so Roman citizens could be entertained by sea battles with huge war ships—pretty impressive if you ask me! If you want to see photos from my trip and more personal accounts, visit here: Quinn’s Italy Trip.
All this talk about history and our new social studies content is really exciting, and it’s perfect for your visual learners. As a student, I always retained more knowledge with the help of visuals. Today’s technology like the iPad gives students a great way to dive into the ancient world of Italy and other places with visually stunning apps like TourWrist and Virtual History.
TourWrist takes your students into modern-day cities with real-time panoramic, birds-eye views:
Virtual History gives your students a chance to time travel to virtually reconstructed ancient civilizations and capture a glimpse of what life was like then. Since we are already in Italy, here is one about Rome:
We are always curious about the tools that you use in your classroom and how you engage your students in learning—whether it’s OLE content or photos from your own trips around the world. Tell us what speaks to your students!
Links to Apps:
