Welcome to 2019!! Everyone at MCSS wishes you a Happy New Year, a prosperous finale to the 2018-19 academic year, and an abundance of exuberant students, good health, and restful weekends. MCSS has been very busy – thanks especially to the constant hard work of Gorman Lee, our Director of Professional Development, and Kathy […]
Maps, Maps and More Maps
Here comes a reason to actually use that fancy projector the tech staff had installed in your classroom. Go to the library if you don’t yet have one. The David Rumsey Map Collection is online, ready for you to use freely. This link goes to an article about the release of the collection, but go […]
The Boys in the Boat
Author Daniel James Brown met Joe Rantz only in the last weeks of Joe’s life, but asked Joe and his daughter if he could write Joe’s story. Joe said no, but that he could write the story of all the boys in the boat, the crew team from the University of Washington which developed its […]
YouTube in the Classroom
With the announcement of the release of 85,000 videos to YouTube by the British Documentary Film company, Pathé the question of districts blocking YouTube in classrooms takes on a new importance. YouTube has many videos which are of significant value for classroom use in many subjects, but this release of important historical documentary videos is […]
Sharing Local History?
Do your students sing “Jingle Bells” as the snow starts to fly? Do you have a plaque in your town like this one in Medford, MA? Natick, MA, where I live, has one for a small cobbler shop commemorating Vice President Henry Wilson. There’s a middle school named after him, too, I think. Do your […]
Full STEAM Ahead?
Is your school or district looking ever more intensely at STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) centric course offerings with Common Core overtones? Has the art department begun their argument that it should be called STEAM because the arts, after all, are at the center of creativity. Are social studies offerings falling outside the “preferred” list? […]
Making (Funding) History
History is sometimes in textbooks, nonfiction volumes or library shelves back in the “dusty” stacks. Hollywood has produced a lot of documentary or dramatized film and recently digital video you can find via the Intenet. However, much more often the actual visual records of history are in the photo albums of families. You can go […]