A new online quiz-game platform

Which online quiz-game platform do you use with your students?

Kahoot is very popular, and recently I've been experimenting with quizizz.  Both are easy to use and engaging for students.

But I just recently learned of a new platform called Triventy.

I've been giving Triventy a test-drive over the break and have been favorably impressed.  Creating a game is easy, the template for writing questions is straight-forward, you can add images to your questions, it has sound effects as you play, you can limit the time to answer each question, and it's easy to share your activities with your students.  And did I mention that it's free?

My friend and teaching colleague George Coe (Twitter: @ggcoe) also adds that teachers can invite others (like our students) to write questions for a game.  Great idea to increase student engagement.

How new is Triventy?  As of this writing they have just 15 followers on Twitter.  It's so new that there are no video tutorials yet.  But here's a link to Triventy's very easy-to-read printed instructions.

I'm sure that Triventy's Twitter followers will grow and that more help materials will become available soon.  You can follow Triventry on Twitter: @Triventy

Holiday Campaign Ads

These are two fun ads combining Christmas and campaigning from Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz.

While we are at it, here is a super primer on the primary/caucus process.

By the way, especially if you live in the DC area, to follow up Jeff's post below, Mary Beth Tinker does come to schools.  She came and spoke to my government students two years ago and was really good.  She thoroughly entertained the kids and it was great to hear real Supreme Court history. 

Can a principal censor yearbook content?

That's the question raised by a recent decision by a principal in suburban Washington, D.C.  (Full disclosure: I have taught summer school at that school over the years, and the principal at issue here was my administrator during at least one of my summer sessions.)  The controversy was discussed in a recent story in the Washington Post.

This year's yearbook editor wanted to include a photograph of a current student that showed her pregnant belly.  According to the student editor, the principal will not allow that photograph to be included in the yearbook.  The student and her father support publication of the photo.  It is not clear yet when or how this controversy will be resolved.

Under the U.S. Constitution, who should win?  That's the question we could be asking our students.

This hypothetical-turned-real would be an excellent way to introduce the topic of the Constitution and student rights.  Here's a possible workflow.

First, summarize the Post story for your students, then poll their answers (by hands, or with an online platform like socrativ or polleverywhere) to this question: Under the U.S. Constitution, do students have the first amendment right to publish photographs like these in a school yearbook?

Second, assign them to read the Post story.  As they read, ask them to write questions they still have about that topic.  (Examples could include: What if the pregnant student later changed her mind about allowing the photograph to be published?)

Third, assign the students to learn about important Supreme Court cases that have addressed the subject of student rights.  A useful collection is this one by the New York Times.   This would be where I would show this YouTube video.  Here Mary Beth Tinker talks (3:20) about Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District (1969), her "black armband" case.

Fourth, guide your students to see that the case most on point to this controversy is Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1988), which held that administrators retain editorial control over student publications as long any restrictions are reasonable.  Street Law has an excellent feature on that case that includes a summary of the Supreme Court's 5-3 decision, and key excerpts from the majority and dissenting opinions.

My favorite tool for delivering YouTube content to my students

My favorite tool for delivering YouTube content to my students is EDpuzzle.
Students can drift-off when you are showing videos on the screen in front of your classroom.  That's why it's a better practice to deliver the videos directly to your students on their personal devices or computers.  EDpuzzle lets you take online videos, clip them to the length you want, and then make them interactive.  Here's your workflow.

First, you search and select the video you want to use from one of EDpuzzle's ten video channels.

Second, you customize the video using the four editing tools.

The scissors icon lets you crop the length of your video.  The microphone icon let you replace the entire audio track with your own voice recording.  The speaker icon lets you pause the video and insert your own audio note.  The question-mark icon lets you pause the video to insert questions in three formats: open-ended, multiple choice, or poll questions.

When you save your edited video you can assign it to a teacher-created class, or share it with anyone via a link or embed code to add to your website or blog.

Third, students watch the video you selected (on their devices or computers) and answer the questions you created for them.  You monitor their progress on EDpuzzle.

EDpuzzle also lets you download the results onto a spreadsheet, and has an option for teachers to reset a student's score, which makes EDpuzzle a good formative assessment/reteaching tool.  I always allow my students opportunities to re-take a quiz until they earn a perfect score.

The videos I choose for my students are very short, about 3-minutes maximum.  I embed 6-8 questions per video.  The whole activity then takes about 10 minutes to complete.  We watch only one video per day.  It's easy to gauge when the students are finished with the activity, so that's when we discuss as a whole class.

EDpuzzle is 100% free for teachers and students.  It's accessible via a web browser or its own free proprietary app.

The EDpuzzle Help/Support Page is very thorough and well-organized, and contains a great mix of extremely useful text and video tutorials.

Interested?  Watch this video (9:05).

PS: Creating EDpuzzle activities now, in advance of certain snow-day school closures, would be a great idea.

My favorite site for presidential TV campaign commercials

My favorite site for presidential TV campaign commercials is The Living Room Candidate.

This site has collected ads for every presidential election starting with 1952's Eisenhower vs. Stevenson race.  But it's much more than a simply chronological collection.  You can tailor your search to look for certain themes (like Biographical or Commander in Chief) or the issue they address (like war, taxes, or civil rights).

But the best search tool is called "Curator's Choice."  Using that tool takes you instantly to ads like LBJ's 1964 nuclear-armageddon-themed "Peace Little Girl (Daisy)" ad,

Richard Nixon's 1968 ad using the chaos inside and outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to portray Hubert Humphrey as weak and ineffectual,

and (my favorite), "Prouder, Stronger, Better," Ronald Reagan's 1984 re-election campaign trumpeting his first term successes.

Living Room Candidate also has six lessons that help guide students to understand what makes an effective ad, the language of political ads, and how to put political ads into historical context.

I've found that the most effective way to use these ads is to ask my students to consider these four questions:

1. What was the ad's theme?
2. What strength was the candidate trying to stress, or what weakness was the candidate trying to expose or exploit in his opponent?  
3. What contemporaneous issues was the commercial referring to, either directly or indirectly?
4. What symbols did the ad use to manipulate the emotion of the viewers?

Discussing the Second Amendment

When you discuss the Second Amendment with your students, you'll certainly read and discuss District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court's 2008 decision that granted individuals the right to possess a firearm.  You can read a summary of Heller's facts and decision here and the majority and two dissenting opinions here.  This graphic sets out how the Court voted.

And here's a rare interview of Justice Antonin Scalia from 2012 where he discusses his philosophy of constitutional interpretation ("textualism" and "originalism") and how they inform his position on gun control.  (The gun control discussion starts at 3:41).

Heller certainly did not end the debate between Second Amendment and gun-control advocates, and there are any number of good current-event examples to bring that point home.  One example just happened today in Virginia, which announced a change in its policy regarding concealed weapons permits issued by other states.  Previously, Virginia had entered into "reciprocity agreements" with 30 states that allowed anyone with a valid handgun permit from those states to carry firearms in Virginia.

Today, though, it announced that it was revoking 25 of those agreements effective February 1, 2016.  As a result, it will soon be illegal for anyone holding a carry permit from any of those 25 states to carry a concealed handgun in Virginia.

Virginia's decision was hailed by gun control supporters as a "significant step forward in protecting public safety in Virginia."  Opponents, however, called the decision "one of the most galling and senseless gun grabbing moves that Democrats have perpetrated during their ongoing failed campaign against the Second Amendment."

Great fodder for a class debate, right?

A great illustration to use when you discuss Shelby County v. Holder (the 2013 Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act)

Sometimes a single illustration can explain a difficult concept more succinctly and accurately than a video or written excerpt.  A great example is in today's New York Times Magazine.

The illustration by Ben Wiseman accompanies a story ("The New Attack on Hispanic Voting Rights") by Jim Rutenberg.  The story itself reports the impact caused by the Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder declaring unconstitutional a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. (Click here for a news story reporting the decision, and here for commentary).

Wiseman's illustration shows a maze.  At the center is a ballot box.

There are two entries to the maze.  In the finished illustration printed in the magazine, the entry on the left, labeled "Vote," shows a straight path to the ballot box.  The entry on the right, labeled "Votar," (the Spanish word for "vote") however points toward entry into the unfathomable maze.  (For some reason the online versions of the illustration omit both labels.)  Wiseman's clear message is that Shelby County has made it more difficult for Hispanics to exercise their constitutional right to vote.

It would be fun to show this illustration to your students when you are discussing voting.  Show them the illustration (remembering to add the words "Vote" and "Votar" at the maze entry points) and ask them to decipher it.  What symbols do they see?  (Answers include a maze, a ballot box, two entry ways labeled with different words, and two entirely different paths to the ballot box.)  Ask them to speculate what each symbol represents.  Ask them also to speculate about the point-of-view and/or bias of the illustrator here.

Wiseman's illustration here harkens back to a famous illustration criticizing the "butterfly ballot" used in Palm Beach County, Florida, during the 2000 Bush-Gore election.  Here's the real ballot:

And here's the Mike Collins illustration that mocked it:

You could do the same type of activity using these two illustrations as well.

Bush v. Gore

We are looking at how the Supreme Court does its oral arguments.  This is a great video that plays the entire argument.  I like using it because it uses a lot of terms the kids know such as Supreme Court, federal jurisdiction, Article II, legislature, statute, law, constitution and that is just in the first three minutes. 

Super PAC Ads

Just after McCain-Feingold was signed quietly into law by George W. Bush, McCain said that there were those working to undermine it (most from his own party).  Well now that Citizens United v. FEC has allowed super PACs, we have the shame situation where campaigns and super PACs aren't allowed to coordinate.  But there are so many work arounds.  One is that until a candidate announces for an office, s/he can do anything s/he wants with the super PAC.  Well thanks to the AP Government Teachers' Facebook page for this one as the video above shows a collection of raw campaign footage that Ted Cruz put on YouTube.  Apparently campaigns now put up campaign ad takes on YouTube knowing that the super PAC will take it and make it into a law.

If you wanted to see it, here is all the raw footage.

Cruz, by the way has raised more money than any other Republican than Jeb Bush, is using it much more slowly than others and recently was polled first in Iowa.

One wishes that each textbook could have a media chapter online and rewritten each year as the rules keep changing on how candidates reach us.

By the way if you want to have a bit more fun, you could show (it is bleeped in the right parts) the Daily Show's view of the material. 

AP Comparative Videos

If you are like me, you are getting close to the start of AP Comparative.  Here is my playlist that I use with the kids.  A number of them come from one of my county's great comp teachers - Larry Stroud. He got a lot of his material from the AP Comp book by Ethel Wood. 

Nigeria on PBS

This past week PBS ran a series on Nigeria. At the top is a 50 second overview and then you have four other videos that you will want to watch if you teach AP Comparative. I found out about the series from Jennifer Rogers on the AP Government Teachers Facebook page.

The Way to Incorporate Technology in the Classroom

I like the video above as it talks about how you can incorporate technology into your classroom and even gives you an example of the higher level of application technology can allow.  I like the blog that it was found on as it address a recent WashPost editorial (which I might add has made it clear that it is against technology in the classroom).  The author of the editorial stated that she didn't like her iPads as it made the kids quiet, but the blog author notes that so does reading a book!

Really it is time we stop attacking technology and stop citing all the biased findings that it hurts student retention.  Are we really serving our students if we fail to prepare them for an increasingly interconnected world?  If we use paper and pencil and paper for everything and continue to teach our students in rows and in concert how are our pupils going to be ready for the working world.  We need to adjust our teaching and work with our students in the highly connected and technological world in which they live. 

The GAO, Interest Groups and Gun Control

When we talk in class about the GAO I always have the kids go to their website to look at a few of their studies.  If you haven't done so this year, here is on study that is in the news.  The GAO report found that 91% of those on terrorist lists were able to legally purchase guns (1119 out of 1228).  The GAO concluded that these people's names should be turned over to the FBI - something that is not currently being done.

If you want your students to argue the merits on both sides of gun control, the first several paragraphs of this article do a good job of laying out both sides of the debate essentially stating the liberal (people aren't in a militia so shouldn't get guns) with the conservative (the militia was/is made up of the people and there was no army initially).   The article is from a center to a slightly left learning British publication.

Next you might want to know what the US defines as a terrorist and who keeps the list.  The "who" is the National Counterterrorism Center.  Here's how you can be added to the terrorist watch list and even have it done mistakenly (your students can debate the merits of getting this from a liberal source).

Finally one can debate why we are using the notion of "mass murders" using the number four.  If we do, the image above (here is more) shows all of the ones in the last year. If you click on any, you can find more information.  Note that the 355 number that is being mentioned in the media is for people killed and injured by guns

Of course you can also mention interest groups on both sides such the NRA and the Brady Campaign. Here is a recent ad from the NRA and here is one from the Brady Campaign featuring a known terrorist. 

NY Regents DBQs

If you are looking for some new DBQs the New York Regents' exams have plenty of them.  Go here to their exams and then toggle down to the bottom of the exams.  They have them for world history and US/Government.

Flipping and Grouping to a Better Learning Enviornment

Two days ago my county's deputy superintendent spent part of a period with one of my classes.  He was curious how we were doing with our Chromebooks.  One of my students said something like she really liked the class because "We live in an interconnected world and that is how we operate in class from working constantly in groups to having access, using multiple modalities (my word meaning Chromebooks and smartphones), to a world of information." I am not doing her justice, but tomorrow I am teaching social studies chairs how "Flipping and grouping" can change the way they teach.

• First off, here is how and why you should consider flipping.   This year I am only teaching AP classes, yet my students only watch a 10 minute video at night from which they take notes for class.

• We start class with five questions which are the overarching points for the day.  The kids can use their notes and if they do poorly, they can stay after school to take the quiz again.  After all don't I want them to learn the most important points?

• Next we go through a "problem set."  To do this we are grouped in mixed ability groups that change from time to time or even can change (such as with a jigsaw) multiple times in a day.  Problem sets grew out of my economics' classes, but now has spread to all of them.

• As students work, I move around the classroom, listening and helping.  What I have found out is that all students talk with small groups and ask questions and are willing to give feedback to their peers. When a few groups have the same question, I stop everyone and address it with the greater group. Depending on the assignment and the class we also go over it when everyone is done with it. 

• I get multiple times a day to talk to each student.  Every other day or so I even call up kids who are missing work.  As long as I haven't gotten to the test, I will accept any assignment without a penalty and even let kids redo work to raise their score.   Crazy I know!  But the goal is to as well as possible on the assessments.

• Also students to not need to be in the same place, but rather can be behind or even ahead depending on their needs.  

• So formative assessments can be done as many times as a student wants and all of my summative tests allow for second chances - as long as the kids go through and understand their failings on each question.  

Getting rid of my large teacher desk has forced me to move around the room much more than in the past.  Creating pre-made groups fosters better discussion and, in turn, learning.  Simply doing it has made me change how I teach or, in many cases facilitate learning.  In a nutshell this grouping in fours and flipping has changed the way my students learn.  If Facebook's new open campus is a bellwether my kids will be better ready for not only assessments, but also future jobs.