Now that I’ve left schooling, it’s wonderful to explore things for teaching. Case in point: Annenberg Media / Learner.org’s A Biography of America series.  It’s an astonishingly media-rich 26-part series - count ‘em, 26 half-hour PBS episodes featuring leading US historians, plus transcripts of each episode, plus interactive maps, photos, primary sources, and more for each episode - that covers US history from pre-Columbian times to the present.  And it’s free.

(Click screenshot for full-size view, including “chapter” headings.)

Can somebody remind me why, with free online resources like this, schools are spending tens of thousands of dollars on short-shelf-life textbooks, often dumbed-down and intellectually neutered (or worse, downright propagandistic)  due to the textbook industry’s fear of alienating their biggest markets in conservative Texas and California?

[Update: I should have mentioned that the US History resources are only one example of Learner.org’s offerings. They have full-year courses in just about every subject area imaginable, k-college, plus professional development courses for teachers. Browse them here. Amazingly good use of US tax dollars at work via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.]

12 Comments

• At June 24, 2008, ehelfant wrote:

  Thanks for passing on a great resource. We gave up History texts last year in favor or primary source documents and a database of Opposing Viewpoints. We used this online text as a reference http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/. We also bailed on teaching US history chronologically and taught it thematically. THe course and much of the student work was available online (http://micdsus.squarespace.com/)We also bailed on biology and chemistry texts although in those courses we have had text in the bookstore if a student wanted a resource. This year as we go 1:1 we did purchase a teacher created text (http://www.mpcfaculty.net/mark_bishop/default.htm) to put on chemistry students tablets as a resource.

  I'm all for teaching with materials that are readily available for free and allow teachers to be more creative, flexible, and spontaneous in response to student learning than a canned textbook curriculum. We found we could do a better job teaching relevancy, reliability, bias with online materials in lieu of traditional texts.

  Again, thanks for sharing a great resource.

• At June 24, 2008, Tom wrote:

  While it's about 13 years old (and you've probably read it), a very good answer to your question can be found in "Lies My Teacher Told Me." I even at one point devised a lesson wherein students analyze and hopefully challenge a textbook account of 9/11 vs. the actual events.

  Toms last blog post..A step in the right direction

• At June 25, 2008, M. Walker wrote:

  Clay,

  Thanks for the great resource! It does mention something on the main page about the Annenberg Channel going away October 1, but the Web resources should still be available. I'm adding this to my resources for One to One!

  M. Walkers last blog post..Revenge of the Right Brainers: Daniel Pink at the U of M

• At June 25, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  @ehelfant - Thanks so much for adding to the goodness. Look forward to checking out those links. Are they free? (Funny, though - I'm a huge believer in the chronological approach as the foundation, and the thematic approach as a layer above that. But I'm not claiming to know which has the research backing it up as better. Do you happen to know of any studies comparing the two approaches?)

  @Tom - never read the actual book, but I have used interviews with the author online to frame the entire year's study of every history class I've taught. Students love being shown that history textbooks (and all other forms of media) should be held suspect.

  Thanks for adding that.

  @M. Walker - You scared me! The web resources (including video) will indeed remain available. It's only the broadcast program of new content that is ending. Good call. (PS. You can do interesting things with Quicktime Pro and the online videos.)

• At June 25, 2008, OLDaily ~ by Stephen Downes wrote:

  [...] of his blog title and just "left schooling". -HJ Clay Burell, Beyond School, June 24, 2008 [Link] [Tags: Schools, Patents, Books, Web Logs] [...]

• At June 25, 2008, anon wrote:

  "Can somebody remind me why..."

  Because the education industry conference our decision makers attend each year hasn't had a presentation on it that included shiny objects? Because it's easier to let the schools bear the budget cuts? You've got to remember, there's the people who are getting constant professional development online, and there are the people who can't fathom that they would learn anything from an online diary by someone they don't even know in real life.

• At June 25, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  @anon - Not clear on your meaning - especially the "online diary" part. Who's talking about online diaries? The rest of the comment is fairly unclear too, if you'd care to clarify in indicative assertions instead of rhetorical questions.

• At June 25, 2008, Paul C wrote:

  Wow. I've bookmarked learner.org. I remember Kenneth Clark's Civilisation series from the early 70's. It hooked me on intellectual history for my Master's work and over the decades.

  Learner.org , for example,offers Art of the Western World: it's bound to get high school students started on their quest for meaning and beauty. What a rich resource. Thanks,

  Paul Cs last blog post..Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty

• At June 30, 2008, Estelle wrote:

  Thank you for the link to this great tool. I will definitely share it with my ESL colleague who teaches Social Studies to Newcomers and will use it myself to review whenever I take my citizenship test!

• At July 1, 2008, Michelle Bourgeois wrote:

  Learner.org is a great resource for teachers of history, thanks for sharing it on your blog! Another resource I've shared with my teachers (also free) is http://hippocampus.org where you can find curriculum materials for studies in US History, Math, and Science. They're even correlated by textbook if you're still using a traditional text organization in your class.

  Michelle Bourgeoiss last blog post..Plurking your PLN

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• At July 11, 2008, ed4wb » Blog Archive » Textbook Scam wrote:

  [...] dumbed-down, controversy-free, high-fructose filler for the masses. Clay Burell points us to an example of excellent, textbook-free content. It seems like in 2008, any professor or teacher worth their [...]