Sharon Leon has a PhD in American Studies from the Univeristy of Minnesota. Her research deals with US History in the Twentieth Century, with a focus on US Catholicism. She teaches generally about racial formation, gender politics and religion. As Associate Director of Education Projects at the Center for History and New Media, she is currently working on the following projects:

National History Education Clearinghouse: The Clearinghouse will be a central place for information on pre-collegiate history education, featuring History Education News (weekly updates with the latest news, features, and information on history education); History Content (history web resources, reviews of secondary literature, and a directory of local historical places and museums); Teaching Materials (vetted lesson plans, database of state standards and a lesson plan finder tool0; Best Practices (exemplary instances of classroom teaching, historical thinking in action, and effective assessment); Policy and Research (discussions of history education policy issues and emerging scholarship on teaching and learning); Professional Development (a gateway to opportunities and materials); and Teaching American History Grants Central.  The Clearinghouse is scheduled to launch February 1, 2008.

Omeka: Omeka is a free, open-source system for museums and cultural institutions to manage and publish items, collections, and exhibits on the web.  Easy to install and modify, Omeka facilitates community-building around collections and exhibits.

Historical Thinking Matters. HTM is a website focused on key topics in U.S. history, and is designed to teach students how to critically read primary sources and how to critique and construct historical narratives. This joint venture with the Stanford School of Education is a truly complex and innovative teaching tool. Much credit and thanks should go to the CHNM design and programming team who made it possible (Jeremy Boggs, Stephanie Hurter, Josh Greenberg, and Rikk Mulligan).

The Object of History: Behind the Scenes with the Curators at the National Museum of American History. Each month OOH features an artifact from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History’s collections related to a major topic in U.S. history such as the American Revolution or Civil Rights. Each object is also accompanied by a full array of teacher materials including: lesson plans, advice on how to use the site’s resources in the classroom, and additional Web resources that support instruction on the main historical topics.

World History Matters is a portal to world history on the web. It includes World History Sources, and Women in World History, two sites that provide resources to increase the use of primary sources in the world history classroom.