Social Studies Resources on the Internet: A Guide for Teachers

The Internet may be the single best resource for social studies teaching. It provides an astonishingly broad collection of primary source documents, English-language newspapers from around the world, and multimedia essays that tour countries and explore historical episodes. The problem is finding the hundreds of hours necessary to plumb its depths.

In Social Studies Resources on the Internet, Barbara Cohen has already done that for you. Rather than offering broad suggestions on pedagogy, her book focuses solely on Web sites. It provides the tools middle and high school teachers need to incorporate the Internet into the existing curriculum framework, explaining first how to get started on the Internet and then annotating over 1,200 of the most useful resources. The book is divided into sections corresponding to traditional social studies courses-such as U.S. History, Global Studies, and Western Europe-enabling you to easily locate those materials that match your needs. Soon you'll discover electronic texts on Western Civilization, tours of archaeological digs, groups of academics discussing the role of women in Aztec society, archives with photographs tracing the history African Americans, and so much more.

The Web sites Cohen has selected are guided by a specific approach to pedagogy: students need to be informed about their history and the world around them; they need to develop critical-thinking skills; they need to recognize how an issue can be perceived reasonably from multiple perspectives. Social Studies Resources on the Internet can help you lead your students toward these objectives by providing a range of interesting and challenging resources.