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.

Use Wordle to Study Inauguration Addresses

Using Wordle students can create word clouds to compare inaugural addresses. The more prominent the word is in a speech the larger it appears in the cloud. Above is a screen shot of JFK's address. It will be interesting to compare Barack Obama's to it.

Taking Video or Photos of Yourself Voting is Illegal

in some states. This is not to prevent documentation of who you vote for but rather to stop the selling of your vote.

After the 2000 Election debacle, Web 2.0 has come to the rescue. The NY Times has reported on wikis that have been set up to monitor voting.

Voter Suppression Wiki

SourceWatch’s Election Protection Wiki

Video the Vote project

You Tube Video Your Vote

Would we have elected George W. Bush if we had wikis collaborating to monitor the voting in the 2000 election?

Hold a Mock Election in Your School

Using Google Forms our school set up an online ballot where voter demographic information and rationale for voting for a particular candidate can be collected. Math classes can do a statistical analysis of voter information while social studies classes can analyze the reasons voters give for voting for their candidate. The Google Form collects the data in a Google Spreadsheet that can be shared among teachers. See of Google Form ballot here.

Web 2.0 and the Election

McCain is encouraging posts on blogs of every political angle. Posters are encouraged to email the campaign with their work.



Obama lets people embed code to place his tax savings calculator on their websites.

Election '08

Help your students follow the election through the NBC News iCue website. The site is a treasure trove of present and past videos.

It is however 2008 and the web is changing presidential politics. Go over to TechPresident.com to see how the candidates are using the web and how the web is using them.

With the debate season upon us you have to watch the debates through C-Span's Debate Hub, C-Span has taken the tradition of presidential debates and layered web 2.0 applications over it.

Make Your Students Part of History

An Art and Social Studies teacher can work together to have students photoshop themselves into photographs from history they are currently studying. Students will get excited putting themselves in the middle of history, they can present the doctored photos, explaining to their classmates what is occurring at that time and place.

"I Was There. Just Ask Photoshop."

Supreme Court Video Game

"Sandra Day O’Connor’s Plan for Joystick Justice"
78 year old Justice O'Connor wants to lead the way in learning civics, ethics, and character development using video games. She is helping to develop a game which has an issue brought to the court and argued by different players.

Web 2.0 Social Studies Classroom

Want to create an online timeline for your social studies classroom, use XTimeline, while there are many timeline creator programs out there XTimeline has web 2.0 traits, it is web based, easy to use, and embedable.

http://www.dipity.com/ is a similar application.

Sticking with the Social Studies theme the Best of History Websites pulls together some of the best resources for history teachers.

Technology/Government/Civics

Congress is arguing over how much freedom to give its members when it comes to Twitter, You Tube, and other applications.

"In House, Tweets Fly over Web Plan"

This dovetails with the disparities between Obama and McCain's technology platforms. Look at the difference in their platforms over at Mother Jones Magazine. Obama has some interesting proposals like a Chief Technology Officer and using technology to make government more transparent.

We shouldn't underestimate a President's ability to be forward thinking with technology. President Lincoln was a techie, he pushed hard for telegraph lines across the country and slept in the telegraph office when he was monitoring battlefield positions.

Julius Genachowski's Blog can be read here. He is running technology for Obama's campaign, his name has been kicked around as the first Chief Technology Officer. The blog is a window into the campaign's thinking on technology. Names of a lot of technology heavyweights have also been mentioned for the position of CTO.

"The Facebooker who Befriended Obama" Chris Hughes, one of the four founders of Facebook is running Obama's MyObama social networking component of his campaign.

I am Running for President

Studying the Election in Social Studies, have your students create video commercials for their candidacy where they represent their platform.

On the reverse side have your students create an attack commercial, showing them the music, tone, and lighting usually used in these ads. They are so easy to make even the Swift Kids for Truth put some out.


Read this NY Times story about Facebook users who are putting their middle names as Hussein to stop smears against Obama. I think this is a great way to use a web tool to protest.

This video from CNN talks about students learning political advertising 101.
"Students Explore World of Politics"

Influence Super Delegates Through YouTube

The President and Vice President of The College Democrats of America want you to chime in with an opinion on who they should pledge their vote for.

Fantasy Congress

Attention Social Studies teachers. Help your students learn the in and outs of congress as well as its members. Use Fantasy Congress in your classroom, it's like fantasy sports only with politicians instead of athletes and none of the steroids.

www.fantasycongress.com