Vietnam: Kids
Part of ThingsAsian's kids section, this site is a wonderful collection of traditional legends, with beautiful pictures of traditional art. It is especially useful in describing two important celebrations in the Vietnamese calendar, the children's festival of lights or mid-autumn festival (Tet Trung Thu) and the new year festival (Tet or Tet Nguyen Dan). It covers a wide range of cultural and historical topics that are interesting for students and adults alike, with more in-depth descriptions of interest to older students. Also has links to other Southeast Asian sites on such topics as Laos textiles and Burmese art.
http://www.thingsasian.com/destination/vietnam/kids.htm
VietTouch
This site is built by several Vietnamese Americans (working in the software industry in California), and it provides a very good general history of Vietnamese culture and politics. Both the format and the content is easy to print out. It has a quick link to a nice graphical timeline of Vietnamese history (http://viettouch.com/hist/) as well as links to info and pictures of Vietnamese stamps, coins, architecture, etc. As a college history teacher and student of Vietnamese history, this site wins top honors for its complete listings of Vietnamese historical events, a who's who list, and expanded resources on key historical issues important in Vietnamese history. A great resource for 6-12 school reports.
The American Forum for Global Education - Vietnam & Cambodia Project
This is a new site brought forth by the New York-based American Forum for Global Education (www.globaled.org), and it has a very well organized collection of teaching materials specified by grade levels. The site is a fantastic continual resource for social studies teachers, highlighting upcoming exhibits and other activities that may be on tour in Seattle and other cities, such as a recent exhibit of war photographs (for HS audience). This site is also interesting for its content of stories, poetry (translated), and historical materials. It goes far beyond the war-related topics to look at deeper regional and social issues important in Vietnam.
http://www.globaled.org/vietnamandcambodia/index.php
East and Southeast Asia: An Annotated Directory of Internet Resources
This link is part of an information-rich site organized by country in
East and Southeast Asia. It goes into great detail on both historic and contemporary issues in
Vietnam and is an excellent starting place for teachers, college students, honors or advanced high
school students--even internet-saavy 6th graders! From this site alone, students could develop 10
page reports using the linked sources. (Make sure students cite internet sites correctly in their
footnotes!)
http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/AsianStudiesDept/vietnam.html
The University of Hawaii Southeast Asian Studies Center
The Hawaii site includes a good bibliography of sources on Vietnam and
Southeast Asia.
http://www.hawaii.edu/cseas/pubs/vietnam/vietnam.html
Vietnam - Geography and Environment
This is part of Oxfam UK's kid's site dedicated to development issues. This site is nice for its user-happy layout, pictures, and especially as a launching off spot for kids and teachers to further explore contemporary issues in international development, a field that may deserve discussion in the classroom as a career opportunity. The site is specifically geared for children (and teachers) to explore issues of global poverty and environmental degradation.
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/coolplanet/kidsweb/world/vietnam/vietgeog.htm
Vietnam Economy - English Version
This is a more advanced site, suitable for high school level, describing current news and events in Vietnam today, with links to current business projects, development agencies, and official Vietnamese media.
http://www.vneconomy.com.vn/en_index.php
VietSpace
This site covers more extensively the Vietnamese-American community and its ongoing activities in the US: arts, festivals, temples and churches, community events, performances, literature, etc. The site features an excellent tour of contemporary Vietnamese art (http://kicon.com/art/gallery/). This site might provide a nice stepping off point for high school classes to explore Vietnamese experiences in the United States and the ongoing life of Vietnamese American communities in the US.
http://vietspace.kicon.com/page/gen.jsp?dir=/account/site/vietspace
Teach Vietnam - The Learning Experience
This site is an excellent introduction for older students to primary documents and extensive accounts of the American experience in Vietnam. The site contains links to teacher's guides, notably a pdf-format teacher's guide "Echoes From the Wall". It is supported by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
AskAsia: A K-12 Resource of the Asia Society
This site is an *excellent* general resource on a variety of subjects, including guides to professional development grants for teachers, principals, and administrators. The most interesting recent feature is a web exhibit of the Silk Road Project. The Asia Society (www.asiasociety.org) also has other related links to contemporary international relations and business issues, especially concerning American relations there. An interesting resource for school administrators and teachers is the "Teach Asia Handbook", a guide to professional development grants and planning activities in your school. Another interesting stop at this site is a site dedicated to Asian food recipes (http://www.asiafood.org/). While quickly viewing this site, I found numerous references to Vietnamese dishes and special ingredients as well as recipes.
Battlefield: Vietnam
This PBS website describes in a well-designed website covering key events of the "American War" in Vietnam from various perspectives.
http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/