Teach Social Studies Create a Better Citizen

Technology has increased the transparency of government. Students can now follow politicians from campaign donation to bill signing.

MetaVid is a video search for Congress. Using closed captions students can search House and Senate speeches by keyword, bill number, politician, etc. You don't have to sit through hours of video, MetaVid cues the video to the part you are searching for.

http://metavid.org/wiki/

Open Congress gives students a one stop shop to study Congress. All information is available on House members - committees, bills introduced, voting record, campaign donations, even who they vote most often with or against. Open Congress aggregates new and blogs onto its website as well as offers widgets to compare members or follow bills right on your own website.

http://www.opencongress.org/

I can't leave out OpenSecrets.org which makes it very easy to follow the money each politician is given.


We need to teach students how to better use technology to become better citizens.