Special Offer from C-Span!

Get this huge Presidential Timeline from C-Span - free to teachers and yes, they are including homeschoolers!

 

This is the C-Span Classroom that offers free primary resources to social studies teachers. Under one tab is a list of subjects like Campaigns and Elections, Civil Liberties, Economics, Rule of Law and World History. When you click on a subject, you get a long list of videos relating to that subject. Right now I am listening to Last Call: the Rise and Fall of Prohibition, where the author of a current book of that title, Dan Okrent, is addressing a group at the Chicago History Museum. It is very interesting so far, in the nature of a lecture. I am browsing through other topic areas and I am seeing a range of videos across the political spectrum. This could be an amazing resource especially for those with jr high and high school students.

There is a pdf on how to use the C-Span video library that details:

The C-SPAN Video Library is a unique, free, and searchable public service that lets you watch C-SPAN programs whenever you want. It records, indexes, and archives all C-SPAN programming for historical, educational, media, research, and archival uses. Every C-SPAN program aired since 1987 is contained in the C-SPAN Video Library and is immediately accessible through the database and electronic archival systems developed and maintained by C-SPAN.

Can I just say, WOW? I had no idea that this existed in this form so readily accessible! The pdf goes on to explain exactly how to use clips or parts of clips and how to find specific programs. There are lesson plans and handouts at the C-Span Classroom. These will be designed for classroom use obviously, but you can often get good ideas from plans like these and the handouts could be very useful. Here is one about the Bill of Rights which is essentially just a one page listing of the rights. Here is an interesting one about the Role of the President that includes current events questions.

This website also includes a Congressional Chronicle:

The C-SPAN Congressional Chronicle is an index to the C-SPAN video recordings of the House and Senate floor proceedings. The video recordings are matched with the text of the Congressional Record as soon as the Record is available. It only includes members who appeared on the floor to deliver or insert their remarks. The text included here is what the member submitted. Each appearance has a video link where users can watch and listen to the actual remarks.

Last, but not least, is a listing of quite a few other C-Span website including American Presidents: Life Portraits. This was created as a companion to their 20th Anniversary program and so provides links to those programs. This would be a nice adjunct to the free timeline offer.