Friday Five - Election Theme

I've decided to model on of my fellow edubloggers (Lucy Gray)  and offer a Friday Five+ (a list of websites that might help you integrate technology into your classroom).  Here is this week's list.

Friday Five – Give your Lessons and Election Theme Across the Curriculum 

In light of the recent activity on the political scene, I decided to give this weeks Friday Five an Election Theme.  Here are more than FIVE websites that can help you add a election theme to your lessons.  Some of these include lessons in math, language arts, and other areas besides social studies. You can also get to all of  these (and any new ones I find)  through my Online Bookmarks at 

http://delicious.com/techsavvygirl/election

 

• PBS Vote 2008 PBS

  http://www.pbs.org/vote2008/

Probably my number 1 recommended site for Election Theme Widgets, Gadgets, Games, Interactive Tools.  Scroll down to see some really cool ones towards the bottom of the page.

• PBS Teachers | Access, Analyze, Act: A Blueprint for 21st Century Civic Engagement | PBS Teachers /
  http://www.pbs.org/teachers/vote2008/blueprint/
  
  Related to the PBS site, but a direct link to an interactive curriculum that taps into the this generations increased access to social media.  VERY 21^st Century.  VERY cool.
  
  
  

• • Election 2008: Lesson Plans | Scholastic.com /
  http://content.scholastic.com/browse/collection.jsp?id=63

  
  Special Report on Election 2008, you will find a series of lesson plans designed to complement presidential election coverage for Scholastic News and Junior Scholastic magazines and Scholastic News Online.
  
  
  
  

• • Elections Theme - Lesson Plans, Thematic Units, Printables, Worksheets, and More from A to Z Teacher Stuff /
  http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/Themes/Elections/

  
  Lots of Units and Lesson Plans that integrate election themes across the curriculum for all types of grade levels and reading levels.
  
  
  

• • Education World® : Special Theme: Primaries, Voting, and Elections /

  http://www.educationworld.com/a_special/election.shtml

Although this site is 4 years old, I found some great links here and there are some updates for the 2008 elections available at Education World

• Video: Electing a US President in Plain English | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English

http://www.commoncraft.com/election

3 minute video on Electing a President. Commoncraft has a great reputation for making really Short Simple in Plain English Videos on a wide variety of topics that people enjoy. Check out their other videos.

• Making the Election Video: Behind the Scenes | Common Craft - Explanations In Plain English

  http://www.commoncraft.com/making-election-video-behind-scenes

A blog post on how to make a Commoncraft type video, using the Electing a US President Video by Common Craft .  Perhaps you students can do this with other topics.

•   Hot Chalk and NBC Video
  http://www.teachermagazine.org/tm/section/curric-resources/2007/10/23/cn_nbchotchalk_web.h19.html

  
  www.hotchalk.com

Announcement re: NBC News made available to teachers more than 5,000 chunks of news video and still photos from their news archives, for use in the classroom. Lots of GREAT election theme videos here. The service requires a free subscription to HotChalk through December. After that, a school subscription to HotChalk is necessary, starting in 2008.

• Elections '08 Map Gallery Google Maps /
  http://maps.google.com/help/maps/elections/

Keep up-to-date on the 2008 election with Google Maps Browse through these political maps to learn about this year's race for the Presidency and show off your favorites by embedding them around the web for the world to see. Feeling ambitious? Design and create your own elections map with our getting started guide.

• Elections 2008 Gadget /
  http://www.google.com/webmasters/igoogle/election.html

  
  Fun Gadgets you can add to your I Google Page, Wikis, Blog, or even our own school web page if we want.

• • How to use Google Docs for Live Polls and Quizzes ~ Chris Pirillo
  http://chris.pirillo.com/2008/03/23/how-to-use-google-docs-for-live-polls-and-quizzes/

  
  Tutorial (print directions and video)on how to create a poll using Google Spreadsheets.  If you need more help using Google Spreadsheets I’d be glad to come and do this with you.
  
  
  

• • Poll Everywhere | Simple Text Message (SMS) Voting and Polling, PowerPoint Audience Response System (ARS) /
  
  http://www.polleverywhere.com/

  
  
  A great tool for setting up 'votes' or polls where you can collect votes by cellphone or website.