Learning History (and More!) with The Big History Project
JessicaAntretter
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Teq Supports District Implementation: Beyond funding guidance, Teq provides turnkey grant alignment, hardware staging, and certified PD coaching via OTISpd.com to ensure 100% classroom adoption.
What do you get when one of today’s greatest technology thought leaders and education advocates decides to start his own education website? An excellent (and free!) education resource that can be used by teachers and students worldwide.
The Big History Project, founded by Bill Gates and Australian Professor, David Christian, is a free online course that attempts to cover history, from the big bang to present day, using a variety of subjects to explain all the information.
Back in 2010, Gates became inspired by a DVD called Big History, which was created and hosted by Professor Christian. The DVD did not adhere to a specific subject matter; rather it equally combined history, mathematics, biology, chemistry, astronomy, and other fields together.
Inspired by Christian’s instruction style, Gates decided to pair up with Christian, and together they launched The Big History Project— an educational website.
The site offers students a free electronic textbook (appropriate for grade 9 and up) that consists of eight chapters, called thresholds. Within each threshold, the student can
- watch various videos that explain history via a variety of subjects
- read timelines to help explain the historical period that is being covered
- take comprehensive quizzes at the end of each threshold in order to assess their understanding
An added bonus to this website is that these videos are exciting, comical, and most importantly interesting. It’s also valuable to mention that these videos are rarely more than ten minutes long—great for students strapped for time or for students that struggle with maintaining attention.
Teachers also love The Big History Project because
- It’s flexible and adaptable to their curriculum
- All resources are available online
- It’s easy to customize —teachers can mix and match the content available from The Big History Project’s comprehensive library into their own SMART Notebook lessons.
- It is built to hit Common Core and state standards
Teachers can create a private account for their students, which will provide each student with a classroom code they can use each time they want to access their account.
To see it for yourself, visit The Big History Project, and register your class for free.
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