On the new education site we’re building, we want to give educators access to great resources - and make them easy to get to!  What if we arranged resources in different ways?  Maybe . . .

• chronologically
• thematically
• by type of activity
• by historical thinking skill emphasized in the activity
• Or??

Our on-site team met yesterday to brainstorm these “buckets” as well as the kinds of skills we’d like teachers to be able to help their students learn with the help of this new site.  As we build the site with an audience of pre-service teachers and methods instructors in mind, what kinds of skills do you think are the most important to emphasize?  What historical thinking skills are most important?  To what extent does their importance vary depending on the age of our students?

This week at the National Archives we’re in the Concept Development phase of our new education web site project.  We are thinking about the primary function of the site and its specific objectives - how can we best help educators inspire their students using primary sources?  Primary sources provide a bridge to the past, a way for students to connect to historical time periods, people, and - particularly in the case of documents from the National Archives - the American government in authentic ways.  And we’re also thinking about the content we want available on the site and how to provide avenues to primary sources for educators.  The new site is geared specifically for pre-service teachers and methods instructors and we want to determine the best resources that NARA has to offer this audience - what great tools do we have that will become invaluable for our audience?

In your opinion, what is NARA’s most valuable online resource for educators?  What resource do you currently use on www.archives.gov?