Man, alive are taxes confusing. I decided this year in looking at what I have done in years past that there has to be a better way to present this information to students so that I have lecture notes and video and infographics all tied up in one nice neat bow. Enter Blendspace. **Boom**. Added bonus, when I am done, I get to throw a cute quiz in there as exit questions. Added bonus bonus, I can even put my notes into the margins of the presentation so kids and folks can see 'em. Now, when I roll in tomorrow morning, I hook up the computer to the overhead, grab my lecture notes, and click away. I love technology, don't you? Feel free to use mine, or play on Blendspace all your own. It's sweet.
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If my last post was a book, here is it's sequel. Seriously, I spend way too much time on this unit. But, it's totally worth it. Totally.
Overnight, the kids read an article from The Atlantic about fixing campaign finance. While they are waiting on class to start, the continue on with this article from theDaily Beast, forecasting the projected impact of PACs on election 2016. I really like the SuperPAC scorecard, compiled from information collected by the Center for Responsive Politics. This is what we center on, analyzing the big donors and the effectiveness of their donations. It is interesting to note two things: Dems tend to donate less to candidates, and more to issues (according to the readings)... AND PACs are finding it difficult to catch eyeballs as millennials and other generations are gravitating away from traditional television viewing. I assume they will follow the eyeballs, which leads to more personalized advertising, no? I find that the next step is to explain what all the various vehicles in campaign finance are, and why we have so damn many. I hand out color copies of this graphic, taken from the Sunlight Foundation, to start our conversation. This entry is going to be a book. Hold on to your hats, folks. I have a lot to say. Citizens United is quite possibly the one issue that really makes my blood boil as a teacher about democracy (or republican democracy, to be precise), governance, and leadership. So, I slow down here and... take. my. time. Period. To get the kids ready, I have them do a **BEAST** of a webquest (up for sale on my store soon, with answers.) Some of the things I like the best are the following: I keep on hearing about the radness of prezi. Since I am not tech-shy, I decided to jump in and have my students become experts early on this year. Collaboration nation... my students were challenged to create a two-minute prezi, complete with fake tweets (to work on speaking succinctly and boosting summarization skills), pictures, audio, and video files from LOC.gov... I am really excited to share the results with y'all... And if you want to try this in your own class, covering the following voting-related topics, jump on over to my store and buy the lesson plan. Topics assigned to teach to the class...
Okay. It's time. School is about to be back in session, and one of the issues at HS is PAPER. As in, we don't have enough. Normally folks line up for weeks at a time shoving their precious handouts in the xerox, gobbling up time and money. My time, HS's money. (I am confident that your school, too, has many cultural norms when it comes to the copy machine... time limit? sharing is caring? clean up your jams? horde paper for scarce times?)
So, I rolled out a new paradigm. Yeah, me and everyone else in the world. GOOGLE DOCS. I am super skeptical about Google doc's privacy and copyright rules. But the lure of making a totally easy to maintain inventory of anything I ever cared to ask? Good bye, hard copy syllabus verification sheets that I tack to the back of my five page syllabus. Good bye, reams of paper I collect with contact info only to throw it out in June. Hello, GoogleDocs. Yes, I will use the forms to get your info. And, it's free! (I don't really think it is) I highly suggest you use google docs to track textbook signouts, field trips, student info. whatEVER. Bonus, you can download an app to your phone and have your stuff with you everywhere. I have ALL my materials in the cloud. So much for boycotting the cloud. |
Jen's bookshelf: nerdcation
I want to start by thanking Mr. Snowden and Mr. Greenwald for their uncompromising dedication to giving the NSA violations air time and transparency.
I wanted to share some of the most important things I have learned from this book bef...
tagged:
nerdcation
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
tagged:
nerdcation and to-read
AuthorI lovgov. LOVE IT! I love teaching government, learning about it, debating, discussing, asking questions about government. And not the standard boiler plate questions, but the hard ones that are NOT in the books. Archives
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