2008 Baseball Hall of Fame "Enriching Education"

One of the hats I wear at work includes bringing educational content from around the nation into the schools served by our Arkansas Education Service Center. Last year, I had the privilidge to bring the National Baseball Hall of Fame to students in rural Arkansas through the use of Distance Learning - specifically, compressed interactive video (live, two-way video and audio from south Arkansas to Cooperstown!). Later this summer, I will be bringing several of the programs offered by the BBHOF to Arkansas teachers for professional development.

The BBHOF has a set of baseball cards that go along with the educational programs they offer. After several attempts to acquire the cards, my mailbox contained a surprise for me today at work!! The slide show below show all the cards, but I will also post a couple 'statically' so you can get a good view of them. Of course, you can also simply click on the cards in the slide show to be taken to my Picasa folder...

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The cards come in two cello wrappers. Each pack of cards comes with a "title" card and nine cards (representing each position on the field) with matching "stripes." There is a "red" set and a "yellow" set. The back of each title card explains the education program at the BBHOF.

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Each of the cards features a picture predominately displayed on the front. There is also the "team color" (red or yellow) in a banner with the HOF logo, the subject area the card relates to, and the position of the "card" (in this case, outfield). The photo is identified under the logo (in this case, Hank Aaron). There is also a photo credit along one edge of each card in tiny print.

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The back of each card features a "Fast Facts" area at the top, a blue 'separator' with the subject area and HOF logo, and a section at the bottom. The bottom section relates the educational subject area to the card and baseball with four bulleted high-points (in this case, how Communication Arts and Baseball go together). For example, did you know that in the 'old' days, radio stations often recreated the games after-the-fact??

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As I mentioned, there are also "yellow" cards. This one discusses Women's History in relation to baseball. The cards are identical to their red counterparts, except that the 'banner' is, well, yellow and the text is black instead of white...

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The back of Satchel Paige's card discusses how Civil Rights played a part in baseball, and how baseball played a part in Civil Rights.

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This has to be one of the coolest "oddball" sets I have ever owned. I hope one day to be able to visit the BBHOF in person, but until then, I get to learn about baseball in new and different ways, tie that knowledge to education, and visit the Museum virtually through compressed interactive video!

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