Teach Vietnam

Music excerptsiPods are all about music, and music was all over the Vietnam era. Excerpts from songs can be presented, along with information about the artists and timing of the song. With copyright restrictions often a concern, the safest way to do this is send students to iTunes sites with song excerpts. In this example, 4 excerpts are provided, along with some historical narrative from the liner notes of Vietnam - Songs from a Divided House, an 2 Cd compilation from the History Channel. Educational fair use policy was applied when developing this podcast.

What Should We Tell Our Children?The words of the Vietnam era can come to life through recordings and postings of selections from letters, diaries, memoirs, and other collections. An interesting technique is to involve different voices to give the characters some individuality (if multiple perspectives are used). Context for each of the primary sources must also be provided, whether It is information about the author or the setting of the source. In this example, excerpts of What Should We Tell Our Children About Vietnam by Bill McCloud are presented.

Example interviewInterview with someone from the Vietnam Era. In this example podcast, a student interviews his father about his experiences as a platoon leader in Vietnam. Digital oral history is obviously a powerful method of understanding the Vietnam War as well as storing and sharing the memories of the people who lived through the times. Ideas and gudielines for conducting oral history are avaialble on the main "Using Technology to Teach Vietnam" websiteThe interviewer should make sure to get the permission of the interviewee to cast the recording.

Historical Speech - Beyond VietnamHistorical Speech. In this example podcast, an excerpt of “Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence” by Martin Luther King Jr. is provided. When an historical speech is assigned, students should be given the context of the speech, either in class, as part of the assignment, or as part of the podcast. A written script of the speech is also helpful to many students. Students should also have some focus ideas or questions in order to both structure their listening and provide some accountability. Great technology integration could be reactions posted as blog entries! Excerpts of historical speeches are available across the internet, and the direct links can be assigned instead of creating podcasts for download. For a complete version and text of King's speech, please visit American Rhetoric Top 100 Speeches.

Historical Fiction excerptIn this example podcast, an excerpt of Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers is presented. Historical fiction has the ability to inform, entertain, move, and capture the interest of even the most reluctant students. The number of young adult titles devoted to the Vietnam era is growing. By choosing action-packed, or poignant passages from a literary work, students may be drawn to read the book or learn more about the historical topic. If an entire class reads a core novel, a passage can be used as a motivator or a technique to encourage students to make predictions and develop a purpose for their reading.

IntroWelcome to the Teach Vietnam podcast. Podcasting is an easy, informative, exciting, and effective medium for learning in the social studies classroom. These podcasts should serve as examples for teaching Vietnam and the Vietnam era to middle school and high school students. The podcasts were created as part of a presentation entitled “Using Technology to Teach Vietnam” at the 2007 Teach Vietnam Teachers Network Conference, hosted by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.