Colbert's Super PAC Definition

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Colbert PAC - Trevor Potter
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Colbert Super PAC - Trevor Potter
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

These are the only things you need to show when you do super PACs.  For those of you flipping, this could be your at home video.  

Twitter and Electoral Returns

This is a fascinating piece that came out in the WashPost two days ago where four professors predicted the electoral returns of 404 of 406 House races in 2012 using mentions on Twitter for their predictor.  They threw out any races where there was no opponent (hence there are not 435) and used the normal socio economic factors for the independent variables (dependent is the margin of winning percentage).   Here is the draft of the as yet unpublished paper.  While it goes to say that traditional electoral forecasting is over, it does mention that you will still need it to gauge how races are going.  Whether you buy this, with microtargeting it is certainly an interesting time to be teaching electoral returns (wish AP and state exams reflected these items). 

Remind 101

I have been using Remind101 since its conception two+ years ago to text my students their homework assignments.  What I have learned is that kids do not do their homework mostly because they forget, not because they don't want to.  Remind101 is not only a new sponsor of this blog, but it is incredibly simple.  If my students (and most do by the second week of school) decide to sign up then I tell them to use their first initial and last name and ask the parents (and lots of them sign up as well) to use Mr/Mrs/Ms/Dr so I can tell whether it is a student or parent.  The only pitfall is that if I forget to text students a lot of them forget their work the next day.  

Welcome to the Teacher Blogs

Welcome to the US Government Teachers' Blog.  It and the World History Teachers' and US History Teachers' blogs have been around for 5-1/2 years now and have 4200 posts between them and 65,000+ pageviews a month.  If you are new to the site know that 2/3rds of the posts have been content which you can find by going to the search engine in the upper right and putting in a topic.  The rest are posts on how to use technology in the classroom.  If you have sites that you think we should know about, please contact me at kenhalla@gmail.com. 

Cloture and Its History

Thanks to Rich Hoppock for this very short vido on cloture from the Washington Post

Nixon before Resignation and Full Speech

Here is President Nixon rehearsing his resignation speech for about five minutes. The actual speech follows. Michael Beschloss tweeted this broadcast outake.

CNN Student News

As the near year gets close for most of you (my summer students just finished today and the fall ones don't start until the first full week of September) you might want to show CNN Student News to your students.  It airs every school day during the year and is a quick review of the previous day's news. 

Differentiation

For the last few days I have been working with a colleague (Jessica McHie) on coming up with ways to differentiate in the classroom.  Here is the e-sheet that we developed complete with lots of links.  I plan on starting the year with asking my department to test our students on reading level and learning type.  The students will then put their responses in a Google Form so we can look at it during the school year to evaluate the best type of learning for the students.  All of that is on the e-sheet and if you wanted to present it to a group, you could use the PowerPoint above. 

NEA Article on My Class Using Smartphones

The blogs made the National Education Association's site today.  Specifically I was asked about my use of smartphones in the classroom.  If you want some ideas (beyond what I have here on the blogs which you can find by using the search tool), please go to the article. My principal is actually doing a great thing this year as all students can use their phones anywhere in the building except in the classroom where they have to get permission (and yes my kids have them out all the time). 

Bloom's Taxonomy According to the Pirates of the Caribbean

Granted these ancillaries are for the old Bloom's, but they still can work if you are trying to explain the levels and want other educators to understand.  Above is Bloom's according to the Pirates of the Caribbean.  Here it is according to Seinfeld and if you are my age, here it is according to the Andy Griffith show. 

WeVideo Tutorials

If you follow this blog on a regular basis you know that I am a fan of WeVideo as it is a cloud based collaborative video making site.  Think of the problems you encounter when you have your students make a video on Microsoft's Movie Maker or even when your students make one on their Apple computer's iMovie since they can't work with others at the same time and have to be in the same location.  Well WeVideo eliminates that problem so you can do it on any Internet device (Android app, iTunes app).  What I really like is that they now have a YouTube site that has all of their tutorials in one place.   Lastly WeVideo can be an app used with Google Drive so all your videos can be stored and shared from that account. 

Budget Game

This is a couple of years old, but it still works when you do the federal budget with your students.  This interactive game is one I found on the NYTimes.  Yes, they will be expected to do what Congress and the president can't accomplish! 

Most Hit Posts from July

It is ironic that all of you are heading back in a week or so and I still have three weeks to go for teachers in my county to return and four for students.  At any rate, here are the most hit posts for July.

• How a bill becomes a law (see above).
• The Stock Market game which lets your students invest and gain money in real stocks
• Citations Made Easy which is done by EasyBib and will be loved by your students. 

How to Flip from Keith Hughes

Last week I asked Keith Hughes if he would consider coming up with a video of how to flip from the definitions to how to to create his own videos.  What he came up with in just three days is great.  Thanks Keith.  

No Red Ink

Yesterday I took part in a webinar with the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. One of the panelists was Jeff Scheur who taught for eight years before creating NoRedInk which lets students play games to improve their grammar and writing.  If you (or English teachers in your school) are so moved, you can also use the site to tailor games for your students.  It begins by asking 10 questions about each student (teachers can get a code so no student has to sign up) and then games are tailored to these interests.