Instructify

Former US Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O’Connor wants to do for civics what John Madden did for video game football. That’s why she’s speaking on behalf of Our Courts, an still-in-development video game that will let students learn about government by tackling true-to-life legal issues online.

In a recent Reuters article, former Justice O’Connor said students aren’t learning enough about how government works. “[O’Connor] said the only way to preserve an independent judiciary was through public education, which she said was failing to produce citizens with enough knowledge about the three branches of U.S. government — legislative, executive and judicial.” To help make up the difference, Our Courts will provoke student debate on issues such as the 1st Amendment rights of a student wearing a controversial T-shirt to school.

Though Our Courts isn’t yet complete, you can already find useful resources like information on state governments,the structure of the state and federal court systems, plus key definitions that will translate legal mumbo-jumbo into plain English.

Once Our Courts is complete, make sure to send your students there. If they play it even a fraction as much as they play Madden football, they’ll become veritable experts on the workings of government. -BILL FERRIS

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Teach the Art of Diplomacy with Future State

Today’s young people are tomorrow’s diplomats. That may be a hard concept to internalize as you watch your students duel over a bag of Hot Cheetos in the cafeteria, but it’s true. To get them off to a good start, send them to Future State, the U.S. Department of State’s website for youths.

The site introduces students to the secretary of state, shares stories from the children of diplomats living overseas, provides starting places for those interested in careers in diplomacy, and links to fact sheets about every country in the world. Games for younger students teach them about world flags and test their geographic smarts.

The most compelling part of the site may be the news and events section, which seems to be targeted toward middle and high school students. As any social studies teacher knows, it can be difficult to make distant countries seem important to a 15-year-old who’s never touched a newspaper. But posts like “An American Girl in Riyadh” can make a far-off place like Saudi Arabia seem real – and even interesting – to the most apathetic American student.

The site can go a long way toward making students feel like the federal government is accessible to them, and that the wide world is not so far away. -EMILY JACK

Future State

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You’ve heard a lot about this “social networking” stuff kids are talking about. Whether you’re a complete networking newbie or you’ve got a MySpace, Facebook and Twitter account, make sure to check out iCue, a site from NBC News that combines peer connection with learning and multimedia.

iCue is an online learning environment that will let your students collaborate online while learning. While it does have fun stuff like games, iCue’s coolest features are the Cue Cards, which play video clips, as well as view images, documents, and video transcripts, related to the subject you’re looking up. Like an online baseball card, “flip” the Cue Card over to read useful info about the person speaking, his or her political views, the source of the video clip, earned run average, and lots more. Each card is tagged with notes and keywords, and if NBC’s notes don’t cut it, you can write in your own. Also like baseball cards, you can save and share them, so you can finally get hold of the Barack Obama rookie card.

Once they’re in iCue, students can build their friends network, interact with peers through discussion forums, and comment on others’ Cue Cards or ideas. iCue forums also have a “Thought Starter” which you can use to spark student discussion about an event in the news.

For its debut, iCue features content focused on politics, since there’s apparently a presidential election coming up. Over the summer they’ll add resources for courses including US History and English language and composition. Who knows? Once your students get started on iCue, discussing political candidates and collaborating on history research may just take precedence over updating their MySpace pages. -BILL FERRIS

iCue

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Welcome to the Carnival of Education Career Fair! We’ve retracted the bleachers and set up the booths on the gymnasium floor so these brave teachers can see what they might be doing if they weren’t teaching (perish the thought).

Motivational Speaker
Mr. D at I Want to Teach Forever agreed to sport a freaking mohawk as long as his students worked hard, which was about three weeks. Sadly, his motivational experiment has concluded. Long live the mohawk.

Camp Counselor
As a kid, my wife got to go to Space Camp and Marine Science Camp. Had Tisha Kulak and American Consumer News been around back then to point out how to save money on tuition to summer research camps, I might’ve been able to go, too.

Productivity Consultant
Instructify-favorite studenthacks.org has some great tips for students who want to learn how to write a research paper.

Pro Athletes
The Jose Vilson uses Derek Jeter as an example of how nurturing students’ talent and leadership ability early on can reap great results.

And over at Jay P. Greene’s Blog, the author talks about the importance of identifying students’ talents, whether they’re a left tackle or potential honor student.

Economist
ESL teacher Larry Ferlazzo knows that money is the international language.

Translator
Melissa B. at The Scholastic Scribe provides a handy-dandy English-to-Eduspeak dictionary.

Director
Mathew Needleman at Creating Lifelong Learners takes a proactive approach to managing disruptive students during a class movie project.

Advice Columnist
Let’s Play Math! has some advice on teaching math to a struggling student.

Detective
OverwhelmedMom gets to the bottom of problems that gifted students face.

Investigative Reporters
The proprietor of a voice from the middle knows the means to discovery is asking the right questions.

In addition, eduwonkette responds to a Wall Street Journal article about the criteria used to evaluate teachers.

Game Developer
Alvaro at SharpBrains shares a few games to stimulate your temporal lobe.

Diplomat
Coach Brown tries to reach an understanding with hostile parents.

Nutritionists
At Homework. Dinner. Life. Angela points out that good nutrition habits ought to be maintained year-round, not just a few days before the test.

Meanwhile, Chanman at Buckhorn Road says all that caffeine students drink can’t be good for them.

Cartographer
Dan Callahan, a.k.a. geek.teacher, harnesses Google Maps for a lesson in community mapping.

Librarian
@EDU takes the work out of student research by pointing them toward Google Alerts.

Politician
Jane Artabasy at Golden Apple Teaching Excellence Network unloads the loaded word of the day, “elitism,” showing it’s nothing to be frightened of - especially in schools.

The folks at Golden Apple also mull over the differences in races and learning styles.

Astronaut
HowDoWhy asks, what is a solar system, anyway? Furthermore, just how big is ours?

Human Resources Specialist
Over at Right on the Left Coast, Darren discusses the sticky situation of a teacher dating an 18-year-old student at a different school.

Mentors
Allison Jones at Entry Level Living wants to revamp the way young people think about leadership.

The folks at the Efficient Leadership Files have some ideas on that as well.

Statistician
Lead from the Start crunches the numbers about the disconnect between teachers and EdSector.

Strategist
Seth Pearce at NYC Students Blog has an intriguing idea on how to overcome schools’ non-stop test preparation.

Lobbyist
PZ Meyers at Pharyngula has some news about a disturbing bill in the Oklahoma legislature regarding religion in schools.

Road Grader
As the great homework debate rages on, Shabam School makes a good case for grading homework.

Kindergarten Teacher (sorry, I couldn’t come up with anything else)
Kiri at Elbows, Knees, Dreams shares her thoughts (and asks for others’ opinions) about early entrance to Kindergarten.

Photo credit: ou_ags on flickr

Here in North Carolina, our primary election happens this coming Tuesday. Many high school students will get to vote in their first presidential election this year. For students making the transition from voiceless kids to voting members of society, it’s vital they educate themselves on the candidates and issues. That’s why there’s Ready to Vote, a site dedicated to helping new voters jump in to the democratic process.

Ready to Vote is from Knowitall.org, the same folks who brought you this morning’s Kids Work! They discuss each of the candidates and aggregate relevant news articles. In the Teachers section, you can download handouts and lesson plans for debates, petitions, and sundry democratic activities.

Whether you’ve already voted in your primary or yours is still to come, encourage your students to vote this year. Voting is a right that not enough young people take advantage of. It’s time to let their voices be heard. I know I’m looking forward to casting my vote. It’s not every election we see such strong candidates. -BILL FERRIS

Ready to Vote

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World War II was a dangerous time when pretzels attacked croissants and sushi attacked cheeseburgers. The Gulf War conflict saw chicken nuggets dropped on unsuspecting kebobs.

That’s not exactly what you’ll find in history books, but Stefan Nadelman’s brilliant five-and-a-half minute film Food Fight recreates our country’s military incursions and involvements since 1939 using food as its main characters. You’ll see egg rolls, French fries, bagels, and falafel engaged in combat and culinary violence that will no doubt provoke conversation about warfare and world affairs. Students may have trouble deciphering which foods represent which countries, but a handy cheat sheet fills you in on why the beef stroganoff keeps multiplying and how the kebobs represent different interests. The site also lists which battles are depicted.

Food Fight is an imaginative way to synthesize almost a century’s worth of aggression, and with a little more imagination, you could find a variety of ways to use the film in your classroom: discussion starter, model project, or sample for media analysis. Just be careful to keep your bag lunch out of sight—you might be drawn into additional combat. –ROSS WHITE

Food Fight

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You can’t beat the power of democracy. It’s useful both as a system of government and a way to decide what time to schedule a meeting. As great as democracy is, though, you may have noticed that a lot of people don’t vote in elections. That’s probably because the democratic process isn’t as easy as Doodle.

Doodle lets you create polls in about 90 seconds. I created one to decide my dinner plans. You can help me make up my mind here. If you need to set up a staff meeting or plan the day for the music department bake sale, Doodle can do that, too. Just enter possible dates and times and forward the link to the poll to the folks you want there. They can then vote on the times that work best for them.

Unfortunately, you can vote more than once, so it’s not ideal for classroom use. What Doodle does do is help you wrangle dates and opinions from other people with a minimum of sweat. Isn’t democracy great? -BILL FERRIS

Doodle

The Federal Emergency Management Team has a fun and educational site, FEMA for Kids, designed just for youngsters. There are plenty of games and activities, all with the intention of educating and preparing children for potential disasters. Hurricane Katrina might have been a devastating occurrence for many, but we can learn from this disaster nonetheless. That doesn’t mean we should hide underground in bomb shelters, but it does mean knowing what to do in case of emergency.

FEMA does a nice job of creating enough content to keep kids engaged, all the while helping them understand how to be prepared. Most of the activities are online, and include games, quizzes and puzzles. There are even a few offline activities that kids can do at home or in the classroom. Additionally, there are plenty of resources and references for parents and teachers to explore more about FEMA, even a “What’s Happening Now?” map to show FEMA’s efforts across the nation. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

FEMA for Kids

You may not know it given the lack of media coverage, but 2008 is a presidential election year. That means your students are primed to learn about democracy and the election process. What better way to teach them than to have them run for office themselves?

The Road to the Capitol is a free online game in which students try to defeat Robert Glass, an evil businesswoman who wants to prohibit kids from any movies, video games, music or books that aren’t approved by the government, in her bid for congress. Students can garner votes by how well they perform at press conferences, debates and campaign rallies. There, the media and the public will grill your young candidates on how they stand on several constitutionally-based issues—freedom of expression, freedom of religion, the right to privacy, etc. If little Johnny struggles with questions on justice and equal rights, not to worry; he can stop by his campaign headquarters to bone up on all the issues. They can even shake hands and kiss babies—once in a while their campaign manager will email to let you know that a teachers group wants to distribute flyers, or ask if you want to court college students or old folks to get votes.

In The Road to the Capitol, students should get a first-hand look at democracy in action. Even if it’s only a game, fighting for their rights to video games and music should show them the importance of participating in the democratic process. If only actual politics were this clear-cut — or this much fun. -BILL FERRIS

The Road to the Capitol

Aren’t elections awesome? In addition to getting kids excited about democracy, they can be a conduit to all kinds of projects. At one school, students held a mock election on voting machines running elections software built by computer science students. At another, students built an edible map of their town and looked at how local governmental policies could affect the town and, by extension, the food they were about to eat.

My pal, former high school math teacher Lee Creighton, has got the adult in me excited with a detailed breakdown of his local government’s recent “instant runoff” elections. In his look at how elections work, he discusses the merits of the simple majority, possible flaws in how the winner of the Heisman Trophy is selected, and how early exit polls can sway the results of an election when voters decide they don’t want to “waste their vote.” This thoughtful, thorough blog post could be the foundation of your next integrated math/social studies lesson plan, as you walk students through a variety of election types and have them work out the results. -ROSS WHITE

Cary’s Instant Runoff Elections: Fair?

photo by rochelle, et. al.

The government can be helpful after all. Lifehacker has assembled a self-explanatory list of government websites in the article, “U.S. government websites you didn’t know you could use.”

“Overlooked and difficult to find, there are hundreds of thousands of U.S. government web sites that can help you accomplish a variety of tasks. At the right federal .gov destination you can locate historical documents, keep tabs on Congressional happenings, view presidential paperwork, and a whole lot more.”

Have your history students poke around the Library of Congress site for state and check out the American Memory collection. USA.gov has lots of stuff like grant information and government news that your US government class would be interested in. You can also snoop around in the CIA World Factbook. Just don’t tell anybody what you see. –BILL FERRIS

U.S. government websites you didn’t know you could use

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Writer, philanthropist, inventor, visionary…Mr. Franklin has done it again– well, in a manner of speaking, at least. Ben’s Guide to U.S. Government for Kids is an excellent resource for students, parents and teachers alike to explore all the basics of the U.S. Government and its history. Check out this fun and easy-to-follow guide for kids of all ages to learn the ins and outs of U.S. Government. No matter what your student or child’s education level, it’s a great idea to get them started sooner than later in understanding how our system of checks and balances works.

The guide is divided up into sections based on education level, including K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12, and a section for parents and teachers. The subject areas include activities and trivia as hosted by the incredibly cute and always sprightly Ben Franklin. The subject matter covers an array of subjects, so even if you THINK you know how it all works, this might be an easy refresher for you, too. –JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

Ben’s Guide to the U.S. Government for Kids

Through the window of your computer screen, Washington grows one step closer to transparency.

For people who can’t spend their weekends with C-SPAN, Opencongress.org provides bill-by-bill breakdown of what’s going down in the House and Senate. It also relays campaign contributions from the reputable Opensecrets.org. Other relevant congressional news goes up on the Congress Gossip Blog.

This is a great tool for showing students the legislative process inaction in action, not to mention a lunge at the unicorn of political accountability.

As ’08 candidates keep plowing down the campaign trail, prepare to hear a lot of impassioned generalities like “I think we really need to think about how we think about education in this country!”

Next year, hopefully, websites like Opencongress.org will let us know if we’re still just thinking about it. -PATRICK O’BOYLE