pre-2011 web resources

[Anonymous]

Here is another website that I have used often with my middle schoolers. We do a big unit with Chinese Cinderella in one class and a fairy tale unit in another - it has been helpful for both.

http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/china.html

[Anonymous]

Here is a great website regarding the upcoming Olympics in Beijing

http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/beijing/index_uk.asp

[Anonymous]

Here's a great site full of information and documents relating to the Silk Road. Some of the passages are dated (ten years old) but the organization of the page makes up for that. Students could easily navigate and mine for information from this site.

http://www.silk-road.com/toc/index.html

[Anonymous]

Here is a great site regarding the Ming Dynasty explorer Zheng He. There are many visuals and clickable links. Students could find many facts and details regarding this topic covered in the standards.
http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/journey2001/intro.html

[Anonymous]

This is an excellent PBS site regarding China from the Insiders perspective. It has these four main issues: power and the people, women and population, growing environmental concerns, and Freedom and Justice. Each section has multiple pages with details and information.

http://www.pbs.org/kqed/chinainside/women/population.html

[Anonymous]

This site looks into the rapidly growing Chinese middle class. It is fascinating and a little frightening that there will soon be more middle class Chinese than there are Americans. Some of the issues addressed include disenchanted youth, conspicous consumption, and economic growth.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/05/china/middle-class/leslie-chang-text

[Anonymous]

"Asia for Eduators" http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/modern

Prompted by research on silk by our sophomore class based on the core novel called Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama, I am always looking for resources to support the study of silk, silk factories, the Silk Road, etc. There is a helpful site at the "Asia for Educators" site. I think the site is too overwhelming for students unless they are directed to a specific site or are advanced high school students (Honors, AP). The site is intended for Educators, anyway.

By clicking on the "Modern History: Farmers and the Chinese Revolution" link, there is a primary source article called "Spring Silkworms" on a rural farmer's attitude toward silk with discussion questions that follow. I had to look up the word "filature" which appears in the work. I learned that it can be the factory for making silk. The article is actually an excerpt from a larger translated work. The teacher can either print copies of this article or navigate students to the article at the site.

There are many other sources of information on the Silk Road, too. One can spend hours searching through this site.

What I found particularly wonderful and rather unique about this site is that there is an Index.

There is another great resource under Society and Culture: China- Teaching Units. In it, there is a Teacher's Guide to the "Heart of the Dragon," a 12 part video series, which may be a possible purchase with our library grant money. One of the segments is on "Marrying" and it is described as "accessible and informative for high school students." Again, this information will support our sophomore research associated with the Women of the Silk novel since one of the research topics is "marriage customs."

[Edit by="willoughbyak on May 18, 2:36:13 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

http://afemuseums.easia.columbia.edu
Online Museum Resources on Asian Art (OMuRAA)

This site has a focus on the arts, but it includes valuable resources on the Silk Road. There are currently 11 topics to choose from (Kabuki, Music and Instruments, etc). There is a link to the "Silk Road Encounters Education Kit" which I thought would be useful for teachers with a need for resources on the Silk Road. It has a downloadable Teacher's Guide and Sourcebook. This is all part of the "Silk Road Project," which also has information on another curriculum guide called "Along the Silk Road" which includes a walll map, DVD, CD with audio clips). This page has links to: Music, Events, Calendar, The Silk Road (info)). This curriculum guide is available for purchase through SPICE and is a kit that our PVHS teachers were considering to add to our library collection through the grant. The curriculum guide is appropriate for middle school and high school.

When I tried several of the other topics such as Kabuki and Music and Musical Instruments, the links did not work for some reason.

[Anonymous]

Teacher Resource Guide: Chinese Art and Culture Outreach Kit
http://www.uoregon.edu/~uoma/education/teachers/i/ch_curriculum.pdf

This TRG was put together by The University of Oregon Outreach Dept under the University's Art Museum under a grant from the PGE Enron Foundation. It is a 55 page resource guide which includes a Glossary of Terms, Related Web Sites and a Resource Directory. There are four units of study: Chinese Festivals and Celebrations; Traditional Chinese Costumes; Painting, Calligraphy and Papercuts; and Chinese Puzzles, Math, Devination and Symmetry. Topics with short explanations included are Silk, Foot Binding, Abacus. The book resources appear more from elementary age-level books as do the activities for students, but there is valuable information that can be gleaned from this TRG for the high school level. The Related Web sites and Resource Directory would be valuable for high school students in finding other sources of information.

[clay dube]

Two new web documentaries are available at the SPICE website:

http://spice.stanford.edu/docs/road_to_beijing

Go to the NBC Documentary and the Silk Road Ensemble links to see the videos and download pdf versions of the teaching guides. There is an email address to use if you'd like to get a dvd with the documentaries on it. [Edit by="Clay Dube on Jun 3, 11:41:31 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

http://www.internationalrivers.org/node/356
Page Title: Three Gorges Dam
Site: International Rivers: People, Water, Life

I came across this Website while searching for information about the Three Gorges Dam. I thought this was interesting because (1) it had useful information for a student researching the dam, and (2) it has some very biased information about the negative impact of the Three Gorges Dam. I think it is an excellent site to use in teaching students about Web Site evaluation. The teacher could point out words like, "notorious dam," "plagued by corruption" "model for disaster." While the information could be true, students still need to learn to be alert to evaluating the purpose of the site (does the organization have an agenda for the reader/user?), the source of the information, which in this case is a nonprofit organization that is trying to protect international rivers that people depend on, and the authenticity or validity of the information. I think very few students in high school ever learn about evaluating Websites.

The site has links on Problems, Key Documents, and there are many links to newspaper articles about the Dam (including the Wall Street Journal, NY Times). There is a place for blogging, photo images, and an article about a new book about the dam. So, it can be very useful. Readers need to learn to use other sources of information to authenticate the information here. But the information is certainly disturbing!

I thought that a lesson on the Three Gorges Dam would be an interesting piece to include for students in learning about China and the environment. [Edit by="willoughbyak on May 31, 12:08:40 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

http://shanghaiist.com/2008/04/01/current_tv_thre.php
Website: Shanghaiist
Article: Current TV - Three Gorges Dam Journal

This is a website about Shanghai and things happening in and around it. It accepts articles from anybody, it seems. This particular page is written by a writer/journalist from Current TV, Sherif Soliman, who appears to be living in Shanghai for the past several years. He was invited by a Chinese friend to visit the area around the Three Gorges Dam to see for himself how the construction of the dam has affected the lives of the people who had lived along the river.

Students can view a video clip of Sherif's journey (traveling on the buses) and his interviews with the people who were displaced and moved to other areas, particularly Wuhan, a new city on higher ground. I think his video journal captures both sides of the impact: people who found a better and improved life after being moved by the government and those who were embittered because they found little financial compensation for their loss of home and job. Sherif doesn't really editorialize, but through his camera lens and his interviews, students can make judgments for themselves. This is a good video clip to show to students sutdying the impact of the building of the Three Gorges Dam.

[Anonymous]

This website could also be used in an earth science or geography class to illustrate how physical geography affects social systems. You are absolutely correct on training our students to be critical thinkers , and to evaluate web resources---which is not so different from reviewing any point of view resource. Regarding this website, although the source is bias what they are stating is probably valid and true. See the recent film "UP THE YANGSTEE" on the Three Gourges" and have your kleenex readily available.

[Anonymous]

The link contains a typo. It should read:

http://spice.stanford.edu/docs/road_to_beijing

I was unable to get the 'LINK' function to work.

[Anonymous]

I am putting together a series of lesson plans for teaching THE TALE OF GENJI in the Fall in my Humanities classes. I came across a fantastic website...

Tale of Genji

The site gives a background and setting for the tale, then has a summary of the 54 "chapters."

The thing that I loved most about the website is the "Genji's World" section. This section of the website lists many things, places, etc... that appear in the novel. Each link has beautiful color pictures, along with explanations, of the various things, locations mentioned in the novel.

This site will make it so much easier for me to bring the novel to life for my students. I am building Powerpoints for my lectures on the novel, and I have found myself incorporating many of the links into my presentations. The other very cool thing about the links in Genji's World, is that the site explains how each of the locations/things fits into the novel.

If you are attempting to teach this novel, or any of its "chapters" I would give this site a seriuos look.

[Author]

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