Category: history
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Good insights from Madeleine Albright
I listened to the podcast “The Mighty and the Almighty” by Madeleine Albright today in the car, and I found her reflections and responses to questions from the audience insightful and thought provoking. Her view that the decision for the U.S. to go to war in Iraq was a decision of choice rather than necessity…
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Images of and Reflections on 9-11
SC Eagle (a US soldier stationed in Germany who lived in NYC on 9-11-2001) has posted a home video to his blog of a video he and his wife took looking outside their NYC apartment building that fateful day. Close up footage, with the quiet voices of regular citizens responding to the most horrific terrorist…
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Suspension of a podcasting best friend
I was extremely saddened to learn this week (I guess I’m a bit slow on the news, since this was announced in May) that one of my favorite podcasts, “Talking History” from the Organization of American Historians, has been suspended because of budget cutbacks. I absolutely LOVE this weekly podcast series. It has been one…
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From Dust Bowl to Digital Highway: Celebrating 100 Years of Oklahoma
From Dust Bowl to Digital Highway: Celebrating 100 Years of Oklahoma Suzanne Sears, Tulsa City-County Library A presentation at Encyclo-Media 2006, Oklahoma City, OK 31 August 2006 is the gov’t documents librarian in her library system, has been there 22 years has done a lot of programming all over the state was just invited to…
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Discovery Times documentaries
Our family has switched from Cox Cable for TV in Oklahoma to Dish Network, and have opted for the “DISHFamily” lineup. This evening for the first time, I watched several amazing documentaries on the Discovery Times channel. What superb documentaries! These included: Addicted to Oil – A documentary about alternative fuel options to oil by…
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Thoughts on leadership, ethical decision-making, and identity from Tolkien
Last year I read the seven books in “The Chronicles of Narnia” by C.S. Lewis with my son over many months at bedtime, and afterwards we decided to read “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien. We started with “The Hobbit,” and this past weekend finished “The Fellowship of the Ring.” Tonight we finished…
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Let’s go digital
This article from the NY Times speaks to the need for textbooks and resources to be digital. The article refers to history textbooks which have identical language attributed to different authors: Just how similar passages showed up in two books is a tale of how the largely obscure $4 billion a year world of elementary…
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Empowering the pioneers
Brian Grenier blogged recently about a comparison of the way construction workers prepare an area for new buildings, and the ways we need to work with our teachers to help them approach instruction in novel ways. He wrote: In many ways I think we can draw a parallel to the change in teaching paradigms that…
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Wild Western Skies
I bought an outstanding children’s book today about the animals, landscapes, and plants of the American West titled “Under the Wild Western Sky”, by Jim Arnosky. Reading this to my daughter tonight, I really started looking forward to our upcoming family vacation later in the summer to Yellowstone Park! 🙂 This book also reminded me…
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Dan Brown: Historical obfuscator
I know, the title of this post may sound like I am prepping you for a challenging game of Scrabble, but bear with me… According to Dictionary.com, “obfuscate” means: To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand: “A great effort was made… to obscure or obfuscate the truth” (Robert…