Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune and other Review Games

I got this first tip from one of my readers, Marchelle Conway.  This is a site that lets you enter in your questions and answers for jeopardy and it instantly creates the game for you.  You then store it on their site and can see what others have developed. Here are other games you can use like Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, Wheel of Fortune and $25,000 Pyramid.

Electoral College Easily Explained

Rrehinking Advanced Placement

is the title of an article in the New York Times today. Although it focuses on the changes that are coming for AP Biology and AP U.S. History, it's interesting to read the philosophy associated with the "New AP".

State of the Union

The American Presidency Project is a great source for documents, the text of inaugural addresses, election information and other news pertaining to the American Presidency. In the audio/video archive, you can also find radio or video clips from State of the Union Addresses, radio addresses, press conferences, etc. from Presidents Hoover-Bush.

Prezi

Above is a great show of the power of Prezi.  Click on the arrow a few times and you will see how it works.  Also, when you get to a youtube video, let is sit a second and you will see that the video will begin (or if it doesn't, click the start button on the video).  You can go here to see a larger version. 

Incumbency Advantage

Ask a political scientist what they think of non partisan gerrymandering and most will tell you that the "incumbency advantage" is much more important than how a seat has been drawn. The graphic above and here shows that point beautifully.  Here is a short article arguing that the 2010 advantage was down a bit to 5% and another graphic showing it was about 6%.

Bit Torrent

One of the fastest growing companies on the Internet is BitTorrent.  It allows you and others to download huge files very quickly.  This would allow your students, for example, to work on a video together that one of them uploaded onto say Youtube.com.  The video above explains it.  The downside is that you (or your students) will have to download a small file and not all schools allow this without permission.

CSPAN Supreme Court

As long as my fellow blogger is mentioning it, here is CSPAN's great site on the US Supreme Court and here, for example, is one of the videos which is on granting certiorari and uses interviews with many of the sitting court's justices.

CNN Election Center

This is pretty amazing as it has the 2010 election results (as well as 2008. 2006 and 2004).  Each page has the Senate, House, exit results, polls, issues, etc.

Offer from C-SPAN

I just ordered and read this over break. The timing was perfect as I start teaching the Judiciary when I return. It's a pretty good read. And you can't beat the price. What's missing is an interview with Kagan that you can find here: C-Span Interview with Kagan

A special offer for C-SPAN Classroom members:The Supreme Court, C-SPAN's latest book, is available directly from its publisher at a very special price - just $5.00, plus shipping and handling. This is a discount of more than 75 percent off the original hardcover price.

This edition is the first book to tell the story of the Supreme Court through the eyes of the Justices themselves. You'll find ten original C-SPAN interviews with current and retired Supreme Court Justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, Stephen Breyer, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Sonia Sotomayor.

You can order copies of The Supreme Court at this very special $5.00 price. Use promo code cspan to get the discount.

The Huffington Post has a cool site called Fundrace, where you and your students can search for campaign donations.

"Lettermarking"

Well this won't be on any tests, even the AP exam, BUT it since I have had several posts on pork, it is interesting to see that there is a way around that for those who claim to be against it.

Inside the Supreme Court

Pork Personified

Not sure how to define pork spending for your students.  Well look no further than Sen. Tom Coburn's "Wastebook" which has tons of vivid examples.  If you want the short list, go here.

More on Census Changes

This article on 538 details that most of the top gains to House seats in terms of population are in Republican districts and most of the losses are in Democratic seats.  Here is an analysis why even though Republicans will pick up in the House, redistricting won't be as much a gain as one would think.  What is also interesting is that under the new Electoral College changes which begin in 2012, there would be no change in the outcome of all previous elections for the past 100 years had they been in effect then.