Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Street Law and Important Supreme Court Cases
Street Law has long been a great resource for summer teacher courses and online information. This page has many of the cases one is supposed to teach in government (Brown, Engel, Marbury, Scott, Regents - well you get the picture) and for each there is background, lesson plans, the decision and more.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010


Ways to Use Youtube Videos in the Classroom
Ever had a youtube video of yours blocked in the classroom? For one, you can upload your videos to TeacherTube, but that won't solve your problem for other videos that aren't yours. Watch the video above as is it give you three sites which can a) allow you to copy and move any youtube video to another site very quickly so you can access it at school b) cut any youtube video down to just what you might want in the classroom c) create a storage area of your own where you can quickly copy and store videos from youtube. Thanks to "web20classroom" for the tweet that told me about this.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Who are the liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans?


From the Monkey Cage blog.

50 Digital Sites in 60 Minutes
Thanks to Technology Tidbits for this amazing set of technology ideas. You can blow up the screen to view the slide show or click on anyone of the links to go to the different pages.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Summary of Major Political Scientists' Articles
When I was working on my PhD I had to summarize hundreds of articles. I really would have liked a site such as this (only much much longer). At any rate here are some of the big hits that you might want to use in your government classes and they are written in easy to understand language.

CSPAN.ORG's VIDEO COLLECTION - HOW TO
The video above tells you about the CSPAN video library which they released a month ago. This video tells you how to search the files and then around 4:00 you will learn how to edit and create your own clips. My fellow blogger, Frank Franz, is working on a video collection to agument your government class and will soon put a link on this site on that. For now, enjoy the CSPAN course.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Review Sites
With the AP exam in early May and state wide tests soon thereafter, here are some review sites.
I'll add to these as I find more, but if you know some, please leave a message (links now fixed).

Cenage
Government in America
Glencoe - select a unit and chapter and then do the questions
SparkNotes

Online Textbook with a great search engine for kids who are reviewing

Monday, April 12, 2010


New Improvements to Google Docs
Yes, I love Google Docs and am getting more and more into the cloud. These changes only want me to go further!

The Futility of Budget Cuts


Interesting article on what part of the budget people support cutting and the percentage of the budget they actually comprise. Red is expenditures, blue is what people support cutting.
Look at the Midterm Elections
This site looks at the midterm elections, state by state and district by district. For example, it believes there are 111 House rates that will be competitive right now. Whether you agree w. the large a number of not, it is a good place to begin.

News Video Source

"Clip Syndicate is a provider of professionally produced news videos from television stations and other media outlets around the United States. Clip Syndicate also provides videos from the Associated Press. All of the videos on Clip Syndicate are categorized into 86 different channels. Users of Clip Syndicate can embed into their blogs one video or an entire channel of videos."

Friday, April 9, 2010

Ideology of the Court
Above is a picture of the ideology of the current court. Today I saw an article saying that Obama can "reshape the court." Fat chance w. Stevens the most liberal justice, Obama will be lucky if he can sneak in someone as far left as him. The court's ideology (as you can see above) will stay about the same. Here is how the scores were made.
How Long Does the Nomination Take For the Court
Above and here is a link for a nice graphic on recent court picks' time to get through the nomination process. Here is everything you needed to know about the process from the WashPost and the NYTimes.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Huge Set of Tech Ed Links
This site has a huge number of educational tech links that are nicely organized into categories: blogs, collaborative online, digital storytelling, digital video, ipod, movie maker, photo story, podcasting, online polls, web based slide, shows/video, web 2.0 tools and wikis.