3 Ways To Engage Students In The Election...Digitally

Want an easy way to get your students involved in the election?  Have them start their own Super PAC.  Or....just have them access one of these interactive resources online so your students can simulate election strategy, peruse polls for data, or listen to experts discuss the issues particular to this election.

Here are 3 resources that might intrigue your students, from most simple to most complex:

Numero Uno:  iCivics.org

This is Sandra Day O'Connor's project to help students understand the workings of government -- students can play a game in which they manage their own presidential campaign, and teachers can download a variety of lessons, games, and materials to teach about the election.

iCivics.org

Numero Dos: Play the Election (this is condensed from Richard Byrne, at Free Technology for Teachers)

From Rand McNally -- it has 3 main sections.

1. An interactive Electoral College map with current polling data, links to articles, and historical data back to 1960.

2. Play the Election Game Central has 11 games, including State by State, which has interactive mini-infographics about the concerns and preferences of each state -- students predict candidates win in each state  (currently only 4 are up, more on the way).

3. You can also find lessons in the Classroom Manager which are aligned to Common Core standards. Teachers can also use Classroom Manager to see the statistics for the games their students play (students have to register and log-in as class members)

Numero Tres: Take a course at Stanford, online:

Your students can audit an entire course at Stanford, but you could also assign individual videos/lectures as homework.

Rob Reich, professor of political science, and David Kennedy, pulitzer-prize winning historian and editor of The American Pageant, are curating one of Stanford's first online courses, open to the public.  They're bringing in different lecturers and experts, and have downloadable panels + videos.  

Here's what has happened so far:

The first class from this past Tuesday ... was a discussion of campaign strategy featuring:

• Chris Lehane (Democratic Political Consultant, former Press Secretary for Vice President Al Gore and for his 2000 Presidential campaign)
• Mark McKinnon (political consultant for President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, and co-founder of No Labels)
• Gary Segura (Professor of Political Science, Stanford University and Principal Investigator of the 2012 American National Election Study)

Guests in coming weeks include:

• John Taylor and Kenneth J. Arrow on the economy
• Goodwin Liu and Pam Karlan on the courts
• Stanford's President Hennessy on the implications of the election for California and Silicon Valley
• Bruce Cain and Gavin Newsom on California politics and ballot initiatives

To enroll and gain access to the site:http://itunes.apple.com/us/course/id565286438