3andme Posted November 10, 2013 Share Posted November 10, 2013 Big History seems to be a burgeoning area of history and I've noticed a number of new resources available in this area. This weekend I was watching a new series aptly called Big History on the H2 Channel. These are half hour episodes which cover one unifying theme or item (e.g. salt, horses) and its historic interconnections across wide spans of time and geography. The episodes are very fast paced and dynamic using appealing graphics and reenactments. Personally, I think they are a little too fast paced and they'd be better as one hour episodes. H2 is also offering free teacher resources on a USB drive to support the series to all teachers including homeschool teachers. These episodes seem to be based on books like Salt, History of the World in 6 Glasses, and Guns, Germs and Steel. I think they'd be a great starting point for discussion or a big picture review of history. These would also nicely complement The Big History Project which offers a course on Big History for high school covering themes and connections across history. I can also recommend Coursera's A Brief History of Humankind. I"m not sure if this qualifies as Big History per se as it follows a more traditional chronological approach to history. However, the instructor does a great job of highlighting the big themes in history. You can watch the videos or download them without doing the rest of the course. These lectures could work for middle schoolers and up. The instructor provides many analogies to current culture which make many of the concepts more accessible. Watching these videos has really enhanced my historical understanding and modified my approach to teaching history to more deliberately emphasizing the thematic links between periods and civilizations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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