The Rise of Parliamentary Democracy in England

We have an interesting interactive image gallery on the rise of parliamentary democracy in England. Our unique images are captioned with facts that explain the people and events in this unique period in European history. Who was Oliver Cromwell, and what effects did he have on England and Ireland? Who was Charles I or Charles II? What were the Puritan Revolution and Glorious Revolution? This is a great introduction or review for teachers and students.

Death and Destruction in World War II

We have nearly completed our World War II image galleries. The latest gallery focuses on Death and Destruction in the Second World War. Several of the images are quite graphic, so please use with caution when showing the gallery to students. This particular photograph, taken in 1944 by the Germans and confiscated after the Allied victory, features American casualties at a crossroads in Belgium.

Existential Depression in Gifted Students

If you come in contact with gifted students, here is a neat article for you on existential depression among gifted students. The basic premise is that familiarity with the "big questions" of life can leave gifted students feeling depressed, because these students are emotionally unequipped to deal with the inevitability of death, etc. (We know...who is?) Luckily, strategies are offered to help students to overcome this sort of existential crisis and continue their ascent into higher planes of human knowledge.

Convert PDF Files to Word Documents

Look what we found online! This is a PDF-to-Word Converter. Take PDF documents (the type you open using Adobe Acrobat Reader) and open them in Microsoft Word. Why? You can extract the text you need easily, change the text around, and more.

Tree of Life Chart

Attention science teachers...the University of Texas has a gorgeous tree of life poster/picture that you can use with your Biology classes. It looks pretty darn cool, and it's free for non-commercial purposes.

Students (and Teachers...and Parents) on Facebook

Here's a neat article on "What Not to Post on Facebook." It might seem that these "adult" issues (identity theft, home robbery) do not affect students, but they do. When it comes to online safety, we generally advise students to stay away from inappropriate comments and photos and the like.

But what of the teenager, with 1000+ friends on Facebook, who posts that he and his family are going on vacation out-of-state for a week? There are now 1000+ people who know exactly where this teen's house is, and that it will be empty for a week. If the teen posts a lot of pictures, potential thieves are probably aware of what this house has to offer.

There are a lot of bad things that can potentially happen. Of course, this does not mean that we should coerce everyone to delete their social networking accounts. But we should open a dialogue with kids (and parents...and teachers) which logically and rationally looks at what we are putting online, and what the repercussions might be.

Thanksgiving Day in 2010

In 2010, Thanksgiving will be celebrated on November 25. Annually, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November. We have a fun, printable Thanksgiving Word Search Puzzle for kids that can be used in grades 4 through 12. This modern puzzle includes such terms as tofurkey, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday.

Trivia Question: What professional football team plays a game every year on Thanksgiving Day? The answer is a search term in the puzzle!

New: November, 2010

Is it really November already? Is Halloween actually over? Did I really eat that much candy? Yes, yes, yes.

Every month we write in our news, "We've been sooooo busy!" This month is no exception. As many of our new and old visitors know, we not only are now on Facebook, but Twitter as well. This is our main Student Handouts Twitter account. Try our free study games Twitter account if you (or your students) are interested in getting a single daily test-prep game.

So what have we been up to? We've been working to improve our teaching jobs pages. In the olden days, we had all of this information (on the 50 states and beyond) on a single page. This was easy for us, but was A LOT of information to scroll through. A few months ago, we created individual pages for each state. At the time, though, we never got beyond giving the basic links on each page. We've since started enriching these individual state web pages with more official links, as well as more detailed information. Hopefully this task will be completed by the end of the year (famous last words).

From user feedback, we have been thrilled to learn that numerous teachers have been using our games and tests with groups of students. Typically, the teacher takes her or his class to the school computer lab where the students locate this web site on the internet. Simultaneously, the students play a game or take a test. We are absolutely delighted that so many teachers are finding our interactive content so fun, easy, and practical to use! There is no joy quite like learning that your hours upon hours of hard work, thrown like seeds into the world, are taking root and nourishing others. Keep using the games and spreading the word! And, as always, if you have a suggest...for the love of cheese...send us an email! We check studenthandouts[AT]gmail.com at least a few times a week.

One visitor asked why we do not offer RSS feeds. Honestly, we first had to search Google to find out what on earth these are. It turns out that RSS feeds are alerts sent to visitors every time we update a web page or upload content. We spent about 1.2 seconds thinking about adding RSS feeds, and the answer was a resounding no. Why? This web site is absolutely enormous, and we are on our laptops constantly tweaking this and that. If we set up RSS feeds for you to receive, you might be driven mad enough to toss your own laptop or personal computer out of the window.

Instead, at least for the near future, we intend to keep you informed about the site like we always have...through this news article, as well as on our blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. If you are looking for something in particular, try the Google search box which is located at the bottom of nearly every page.

This Thanksgiving season, then, we are grateful for our loyal visitors, who keep growing in number. We are grateful for the fact that we have created useful course content that is accessible to all educators, regardless of type or location. We are grateful for whatever success we may be having in reaching our goal of helping to make the field of education a more equal playing field for all students. Thank you. We hope you enjoy your turkey (or tofurkey).