The Whipple Report for Political Junkies

I wonder if other states are so lucky as I am to have an aggregation of all political stories e-mailed out each morning as those of us are in VA.   Theoretically (and many teachers do not follow it), VA teachers are supposed to teach state as well as local government sometimes during the year.  One of the best ways is to go to the link and sign up for the report and then watch it very closely during Jan/Feb when the legislature is in session and in Oct/Nov of odd years when the House of Delegates (in 2013) and the state senate (2015 since they have four year terms) are up for election and especially this year since VA has the only real gubernatorial race in the country (unless you think Chris Christie will have a real challenger).  While you are at it, here is a nice article on the founder of the morning report, Tom Whipple. 

Supreme Court Justices Graphic

The WashPost has a great graphic which tells you how often each Supreme Court justice voted with each of the other eight.  Just click on each portrait and it will give you the percentage of the other eight.  So how can you use this?  I have this assignment on how the court works and just updated it to include the graphic above.  Since it is already connected to Blackboard (we are not yet allowed to use Google Sites), it took me all of 5 seconds and I am ready to go for an assignment that will not be done for months and will not have to remember to update it until later. 

Gay Marriage Decisions

Above is a quick explanation of what the two Supreme Court cases on gay marriage are about.  Here is a graphic that also explains the decision.  Below are the full arguments for DOMA (US v. Windsor) and gay marriage in CA (Hollingsworth v Perry)

The Voting Rights Act Decision

There is so much out there on the Supreme Court 5-4 decision to strike down section IV and leave it to Congress, but the video above is a great, concise history of voting rights (or lack there of) in the US.

Some people believe the ruling will make it harder to create minority-majority House seats, but 538.com has a piece arguing using statistics that (using GWU professor John Sides of the Monkey Cage) that gerrymandering from the 2010 census has only netted the Republicans 7 seats and therefore the decision today might not hurt Democrats as much as they think.

Here is a third perspective from The Fix which argues that Obama is now in a tough spot since he would have to get through any legislation passed an unfriendly House of Reps.

Behind the Gratz Case

One of the cases I teach each year is Gratz v. Bollinger.  But it is the precedent I care about.  If you want the story behind the case, here is a great article from the WashPost on Jennifer Gratz and how she sued the Attorney General of Michigan.  

Whipping the Vote

Here is a nice article on whipping the vote for the recent farm bill in the House of Representatives and here is the actual vote.  This might be a good way to illustrate the concept for your students.   This page from the WashPost also allows you to search for votes from any member of the 113th Congress. 

Using QR Codes in Class

Here's a great tutorial on how to get started using QR codes in the classroom. There is also an Itunes course you can take for free all about how to use QR codes in the classroom. Thanks to Sean Junkins, instructional technologist in Myrtle Beach, SC for tweeting the link to the course.

Remind101 Improves Its Site

Our county has an in-service in August for which I have organized ten groups to do presentations.   If you come to this site in August I will be putting all of those in-services and their "handouts" on this blog.  One of the sites we will discuss is Remind101 which has been one of my favorites for years.  I use it to communicate with students and parents about what they should be doing at home.  This year I have also used it on days when I cannot be in class.  So recently I was grading AP exams and I pre-set a message to my class so they would know their assignment.  Since you can use Tinyurl to shorten the link address and then you can send it to your students in class when you are not there.  

The Fix as a Class Resource

If you ever want to pep up your government class with examples of inside Washington information to jazz up any lesson plan, one of my resources to do so is The Fix by Washington Post reporter Chris Cillizza.  It has short stories, video and even short news stories and does so with one to two posts a day about very current stories.  Give it a try on Twitter or Google+ (more for the Hangouts than posts since he doesn't do lots of them) or just go to the WashPost link.

Here is an interesting recent link where he lists his favorite state reporters for politics which might be worth your time to look at to find his favorite for your state.

Above is one fun example of something fun on the page as well as this one on the top fifteen governor races in the next two years including my race in VA which is ranked #5 and is the only real one this fall (since NJ is no contest). 

More on Twitter: Educators Discuss its value

Jerry Bluemengarten and Sean Junkins, a technologist in the Myrtle Beach, SC schools discuss the value of Twitter in the slideshow below. (I collected the tweets into a program called Storify and saved it as a slide show.)

Using Voice Comments with Google Docs

If you collect assignments through Google docs, you can grade and comment on on those assignments with voice comments. Tucker English walks you through the process here at TeacherCast.   The process is simple. I tried it it and it works well. When you open a Google document, click connect to more apps, just like the photo in the article. Then, every time you open a document, you just click open with "voice commands."

Moderate Elected in Iran

While the Supreme Ruler will still have the most power, the election of a relative moderate in Iran  is a follow-up to the Green Revolution you might want to discuss in your comparative class next year. 

Supreme Court Rulings LIVE!

As the US Supreme Court heads towards the close of its session, one of the best places to go is SCOTUS Blog.  Here, for example is the summary of what has already been released.  Of course next week is when the key courses are coming out.  The site will be live blogging on Monday June 17th at 9:15 am EST and again on the 20th at 9:30 am.  

MOOC Free Summer Courses

With summer approaching very quickly (yes I still have students until June 18th!), there may be time for you to recharge and try something else.  One thing you might want to do is to take free courses online called a Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC).  Here is the complete list and here are the ones for the humanities. 

NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden Explains Motivation

Edward Snowden, identified as the source of NSA leaks, talks about his motivation in this 12 minute clip which is embedded in this Washington Post story.  The story and clip might work well with Ken's post below about Big Data and Democracy. Is Snowden really a whistle-blower?  How much privacy should we sacrifice for safety?