Website Spotlight: Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga (Smithsonian)

Website URL: http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/start.html

Introductory Note:

Welcome to one in a series of posts which spotlight quality websites that I use with my U.S. History survey course students at Azusa Pacific University to enrich the regular material in our learning modules.

In this post, I limit myself to those specific aspects of the website which I find fit particularly well within our face-to-face class sessions (each student is required to bring a laptop to class) or as the basis for the students' regularly-assigned written reactions.

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I ask the students to work through the following:

I. GUIDED TOUR [click at the top of the home screen]

Click "Next Room" to move through the Guided Tour:

Room 1 Journey of Discovery
Room 2 Recapturing the Past
Room 3 Going Viking
Room 4 Transforming Society
Room 5 Leaving Home
Room 6 Taking the North Atlantic
Room 7 Discovering North America
Room 8 Holding Fast at World's End

II. VIKING VOYAGE [click at the top of the home screen]

Select the stops from the map at the left of the screen.

Each stop may have addition tabs entitled Archeology, Sagas, History, Environment, and Genetics. Click on and read those.

Stop 1. Homeland: Who were the Vikings
Stop 2. Western Isles: Vikings: Raiders, Traders, or Settlers?
Stop 3. Iceland: Who Settled Iceland?
Stop 4. Greenland: What Happened to the Greenland Norse?
Stop 5. Markland and Helluland: Who Were the Skraelings?
Stop 6. Vinland: Where is Vinland?
Stop 7. Land of Legend: Why are Vikings Still Popular?

III. LEARNING CENTER [click at the top of the home screen]

Read about these:

Hnefatafl Board Game
Runes (Runic alphabet)

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Concluding Note:

I hope you will use this blog post in conjunction with both the modules on my Learning Professor wiki and the numerous other posts in my Website Spotlight series.

1. The website spotlighted in this post fits within the following U.S. History survey course module on the wiki:
http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/Exploration

2. The other blog posts in my Website Spotlight series--chronologically displayed by U.S. History survey course module-- can be found on this wiki page:
http://thelearningprofessor.wikispaces.com/WEBSITE+SPOTLIGHT