Peer Review

Ancient History Encyclopedia

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Overview:: The Ancient History Encyclopedia provides teachers, students, and families with an excellent, freely accessible, online educational resource to read and learn more about Ancient History.
Type of Material:: Reference Material
Recommended Uses:: Can used used for in-class presentation, homework, self-paced learning.
Technical Requirements:: HTML, PDF
Identify Major Learning Goals:: The mission of the Ancient History Encyclopedia is to improve history education worldwide by creating the most complete, freely accessible and reliable history resource in the world. The site owners are working to create the world’s leading general history resource, covering all time periods of human history, freely accessible on the internet. Education is at the core of what they do, which is why they aim to provide more useful tools to teachers and students, such as interactive content, videos, mobile apps, and teaching resources. The learner will be able to utilize web-based access to resources about ancient history topics.
Target Student Population:: intermediate elementary, middle, and high school as well as higher education
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: None.

Rating:
Strengths:: It’s easy to access resources in order to create lessons that incorporate social studies, art, culture standards, and/or literacy aspects. Teachers could utilize access to works to supplement school’s/own/student’s personal collections to expand reading choices to integrate literature into any subject. The content is rich, varied, and extensive. The site offers a searchable index, a searchable timeline, a way to submit material for consideration by the Ancient History Encyclopedia editors, and more. The site tells exciting historical stories using text, video, interactive features, social media and mobile apps.
Concerns:: None.

Rating:
Strengths:: It’s easy to access online materials. These can be used during introduction of new concept or reviewing/application of material already presented. Allows for student interaction with instructional material; material can be set up to allow for student to work at own pace to do research. Every submission to the encyclopedia is carefully reviewed by an editorial team, making sure that only high quality content is published. The site follows academic standards, but is written in an easy-to-read manner with students and the general public in mind. The Encyclopedia is divided into the following nine categories: Arts and Culture, Cities and Buildings, Civilization and Science, Migration and Trade, Nature and Climate, Philosophy and Religion, Rulers and Politics, States and Territories, Warfare and Battles. These can all be searched at once, or the user can select. And, the user can select a time frame as well. The material and information found at this stie can be used in a variety of ways to address curriculum connections, integrate content, complete or supplement assignments, and discover new things.
Concerns:: None.

Rating:
Strengths:: The Ancient History Encyclopedia is systematically organized with a Search, an Index, a Timeline, Maps, Explore, Shop, and Membership. The Ancient Atlas highlights the maps. There is a measurement conversion page for converting length, weight, liquid measure and dry measure. A Latin Dictionary is available. And, for fun, you can bring up a random page. You can search in a search slot at the top of every page. When you choose Explore, you select a region of the world you wish to explore. When the user runs a search the information comes up and you can select ALL, Images, Blogs, Definitions, Videos, Articles, Links, and Books. These along with subjects and regions can all be filtered. There are so many ways to explore this site. The site is visually appealing, and connections within the content is impressive. The Ancient History Encyclopedia is organized and free to use. A membership ($5/month or $50/year) provides no ads, a print-friendly view, an exclusive newsletter, and text statistics. The membership fees pays for writing, translation, video and 3D Content, and the technology infrastructure of the site.
Concerns:: None.

Other Issues and Comments:: Great resource to help with research of materials for teaching and/or learning about ancient history, civilizations, and cultures.
Creative Commons: