The Origins of World War I is a lecture from a Yale University on which this learn node is based. The topic is from the Open Yale course France Since 1871 taught by Professor John Merriman, shown teaching in the image. The 45-minute lecture is offered in transcript, mp3 audio, and Flash or Quicktime video. The course overview explains:

The traditional, diplomatic history of World War I is helpful in understanding how a series of hitherto improbable alliances come to be formed in the early years of the twentieth century. In the case of France and Russia, this involves a significant ideological compromise. Along with the history of imperial machinations, however, World War I should be understood in the context of the popular imagination and the growth of nationalist sentiment in Europe.

A major player in the era that led to World War I was Otto von Bismarck. Internet Archive provides his book online: Bismarck, the man and the statesman; being the reflections and reminiscences of Otto, Prince von Bismarck 1898. His image here is from that books frontispiece. The Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions is an online source that of a sort the internet has made possible. Dozens of scholars contribute articles to the encyclopedia about the era from in the causes of World War I percolated. The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a kick-off point in World War I, is described in a report in the WWI Document Archive housed at Brigham Young University.

This learn node points to the archeology of Troy, the Trojan War memorialized in Homer’s epics, and the century-long story of the rediscovery of the famed ancient city. Troy has not only emerged from thousands of years of burial in the dirt of Anatolia. Troy has come alive out of older printed sources, leaving dusty book shelves to become a shining city in the new virtual world online.

At an educational website sponsored by the Troia Project and the University of Cincinnati, follow an animated timeline, investigate 3-D reconstructions, and explore legends and facts. A Dartmouth University classics lesson provides Troy facts and theories concerning the historicity of the Trojan War. You can visit a work in progress by scholars cataloging Greek, Roman and Byzantine Pottery at Ilion (Troia). The Homer’s Trojan Theater project, hosted at the University of Virginia, provides a look into the mind’s eye of the great classic bard Homer, with battlefield animations in a timeline of The Iliad.

Each of these online projects use digitally-based methods to move far beyond what can be conveyed in print. They are all available globally. The future of learning is emerging through learn nodes like these.

The New York Times report on the biodiversity topic “Forest Disappearing in Papua New Guinea” is a learn node connecting to interrelated topics of significance and urgency. The full rain forest report can be downloaded from the PGN Remote Sensing Center whose homepage is shown in the image with this post. For background on the Papua New Guinea location of this specific biodiversity challenge, the New York Times has a detailed PNG country section. Enriching this learn node from the sciences side are Connexions learning objects on the definition of biodiversity and an introduction to biodiversity.

The travel website Legends of America has a well-researched article about Los Cerrillos. Another source for information on the town is The Santa Fe County Cerrillos Hills Historic Park. It describes the founding of the town to which my great-grandfather George Willis North and his wife Ida Lupfer North moved with their three children Alma, Clarence (my grandfather), and May in 1887 and remained until 1896.

The Village of Cerrillos was established in 1879 as a tent camp between the lead and silver of the Cerrillos Hills to the north and the coal of Madrid and the gold of Placer and Ortiz Mountains to the south. It flourished as a natural point of access to both areas, but it was the arrival of the railroad in 1880 that assured the fate of the Village of Cerrillos would be different than that of Carbonateville. A few of the mines survived into the 20th century. The American Turquoise Company, an agency of Tiffany, New York, was active around the turn of the century, especially at Turquoise Hill on the north side of the Cerrillos.

I can recall my grandfather Clarence Lupfer North talking about the men from Tiffany. He told me he remembered from when he was a boy that they got big pieces of excellent turquoise from Los Cerrillos to make jewelry for the grand store in New York City.

This node (“knot” is the root of the word node) ties together strands of history and memory – and links out to many more nodes – enriching learning from the dynamic micro level of the Net.

The Suez Canal, featured in this learn node, is an enormous topic spanning the globe in influence, and with a story that continues over several millennia. This learnode contains 3 sources that individually and together provide a general overview and lead into other materials so you can traverse this rich subject for yourself.

The postcard that forms the title illustration, “Port Said, Steamer Traversing the Suez Canal,” is from the TIMEA collection. The postcard is displayed on a Rice Connexions unit about Places in Egypt: Lower Egypt, which gives this historical background:

Linking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, this feat of engineering opened in 1869. Although not the first canal (earlier ones, though not exactly in the same location as the modern one, include ones built by Darius I and Trajan), the modern canal stretches over a hundred miles, from Port Said on the Mediterranean to Suez and the Red Sea. Its opening was the cause of international celebration and was attended by royalty from all over the world; it was also marked by the opening of the “Old” Cairo Opera House, which has since been demolished.

For general background to this vast subject a good place to begin is the Suez Canal overview at Tour Egypt! Another rich cluster of knowledge and links to more for the Suez Canal is the BBC Key map webpage for the 1956 Suez Crisis.

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The small section where these maps head up the home page of the PCL Map Collection is a dynamic node for learning provided by the University of Texas Libraries. This week, in addition to subject specific (Bhutto) Pakistan maps, the section provides maps of Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Chad, Darfur, the Turkey/Iraq Border, the US temperature (it is cold!) and tracking, primary, caucus and other political US maps relevant to the Presidential primaries now underway. By keeping this repository of current affairs maps available the UT librarians provide a superb cluster of geography in their corner of the global learning commons.

More learn nodes at: learnodes.com