Mock Congress

Let me start off by saying that this is a non-technology related post. This past week our government classes were starting their unit on the Legislative Branch. In years past I focused on comparing the two Houses and doing flow charts for How a Bill Becomes a Law. This year with the help of my fellow government teacher our freshman classes conducted a Mock Congress or a simulation of How a Bill Becomes a Law. I wanted to take a moment to share the experience with any fellow social studies teachers out there.


The first step for us was to have students create a bill that they think should become a law. Students came up with some really good laws and controversial ones as well. We had Bills related to immigration, abortion, same sex marriage, driving laws, education, etc. It was great seeing the students take something they had an opinion about and run with it.


The process for the simulation was to first split students up into political party's based on a political spectrum assignment that we did earlier. This allowed students to elect a Speaker of the House, Party Leaders, and Party Whips. We then had the Party Leaders assign students to 6 designated committees based on the Bills that the students wrote. While this was going on, the Speaker of the House looked at the Bills and decided which ones to pass on to committees and which ones to ignore.


In committees, Chairpersons were appointed by the Speaker of the House and then looked through the Bills. They had three options. Pigeonhole it which means not discuss it, send it back to Bill sponsor for changes, or discuss and decide whether to pass it on to the floor for a vote, or defeat it.


Once the Bills left the committee, the Speaker of the House will put them in the order that they will be discussed on the floor. As Bills were discussed on the floor and debated, the Speaker of the House would call on people in the order they see fit. For voting purposes, they could have a vocal vote, a standing vote, and roll call. We made sure to use all the different kinds. If Bills passed, they were sent to the President (myself and the other teacher). We would either sign off on the Bill or veto it. In every class we vetoed a Bill to allow students the opportunity to see that process and see if they could still pass the bill with a 2/3 vote. Every veto was never overturned.


After the experience was over students were still talking about it. We concluded the simulation by having students complete an On-Demand Writing assignment where they picked a Bill that passed or didn't pass and write a Senator or Representative from our state describing why they should consider the Bill or not consider one that did not pass. I also included the process for How a Bill Becomes a Law as an essay on the summative assessment.


Want to know more? Just comment and get in touch with me on Twitter. I plan on uploading all the documents we used to my school website in the future and linking the story from our district website when it is published. I also will get a picture from our local newspaper who I contacted about doing a story on the project.

It was a very rigorous and relevant assignment for our students and something we will do in the future.

Just What Does it Mean to Integrate Technology

Here we are in 2012 and technology is a booming industry in education. SMARTBoards, Projectors, Document Cameras, Airliners, Clicker Systems, Video and Photo devices, iPods and iPads are invading classrooms all over the world. Teachers and students are being asked to use these new tools, with some having training and others being thrown to the wolves. But just what does it mean to integrate technology?

Does using a projector each day count as a teacher using technology? The pressure is on for teachers to focus on "student use of technology." But what does that mean? If a student places an assignment under the document camera to show to the class, is that student "using" the technology? Does holding a clicker remote really count for student use?

I use technology everyday, but getting my students to use it has been a struggle. I provide ways for students to communicate using technology, whether it is social media or text messages. I assign the occasional assignment requiring searching the web for information and teaching the students how to search properly. I use the occasional web 2.0 tool and encourage students to use it as well for projects. I am quickly discovering that using class time to work on a project in a computer lab is not the best use of class time. But because of technology limitations for many of my students, I have no other choice, which makes assigning projects using technology frustrating.

With teacher accountability changing all the time, where will technology integration fit into the equation? How will they measure a teachers ability to use technology and student use of technology? Then the big question, will it be measured at all? One would hope so considering how much money states and districts are spending on tools and personnel.

I firmly believe that if I was at a 1:1 school I would have much more success with integration. At the same time I know several teachers out there would struggle with a 1:1 program.

So the big question still remains....Just what does it mean to integrate technology? What are your thoughts?

An Art Teacher's Blog

So my cousin is graduating from college, has passed her PRAXXIS and is becoming an Art teacher.  It prompted me to share a blog with her that the Art Teacher at my school is doing with the hope that it will encourage her to do the same with her students.  Then it got me thinking, I haven't shared the blog that the Art teacher is doing with his students with anyone who reads this blog.  This just goes to show that integrating technology is an opportunity for all.

On his blog, Art Studio 1169 (which is the classroom number for his room), he shares videos, lessons, information, Apps, and samples of student work related to what he is teaching.  It is truly a great example of how teachers can easily integrate technology and Web 2.0 into their classrooms.  I recommend viewing and sharing with the Art teachers in your school and in your district, and then encouraging them to take this next step.

You might also notice that the title of the Blog is also the hashtag on Twitter that he created for his Art class.  He truly has embraced Social Media in his classroom.

Putting Ed Tech Into Practice - Social Media on Paper

I teach Government for the next 12 weeks.  We were starting our investigation into the Constitution and for one of the assignments I had my students take the Preamble of the Constitution and transform it into a SMS, Tweet, and Facebook Status.

For the SMS, students were required to change the text as if they were to text it to friends and texting existed during the Constitutional Conventions.

For the Tweet students had to try and shrink the text to 140 characters.  Surprisingly students struggled trying to do this and keep it in the 140 characters limit.  I also explained and had them include hashtags that would have been used if Twitter existed. 

For the Facebook status, students had to act as if they were participating in the Constitutional Convention and update their friends on what was happening with the Constitution and their thoughts on how it would impact/change the United States.

I found an image of a SMS bubble that you normally see on an iPhone, created my own Twitter update box, and also cut and pasted a Facebook status update.  Some students got really creative with their Facebook statuses and even included the "location" for where they were.

Surprisingly, the buy in to the assignment was not as I expected.  I am coming to the realization that students I teach have not been exposed completely to using technology outside of the classroom and it is a tough adjustment for them.  The interaction online with the blog and Facebook is not nearly the percentage that I thought it would be, and I think a lot of that has to do with students not being comfortable with it and not having exposure to it.  I think it also has to do with the fact that I teacher freshman.  I feel that upperclassmen would probably have more experience and be more open to using it in and outside the classroom.

I am using the Remind101 website for SMS reminders for students, and I do have 5 times as many students signed up during this 12 weeks.

I think I am coming to the realization that the concept of "Digital Natives" might not be as broad as some people might say.  I also know that it is on me as well to figure out how to adjust and encourage use by my students.  Something that I know I need to work on and will figure out as time goes on.

Anyone else integrating technology for the first time, more specifically social media, experiencing struggles?  Anyone having great success, if so, what are you doing that is working for you?

Back to the "Blogspot"

Well, when I originally purchased the domain http://edutechintegration.com I checked to have my yearly payment for the domain automatically deducted.  Apparently it did not work and subsequent emails letting me know it did not work never got to me.  Because of this, I have had to revert back to http://edutechintegration.blogspot.com. 

My plan was to contact GoDaddy/Google and get my domain name back, but a subsequent visit to my domain has revealed that someone else has already taken it.  Talk about a quick turnaround of those companies. 

I have updated the Feed for any subscribers if you are still interested, you can re-subscribe.  Going back to the classroom has been difficult in terms of keeping this blog up to date.  Hard to find time with teaching, coaching, and being and husband and father of two young children. 

Any links that I have embedded to my own blog within posts will no longer work since the domain has changed.  It is way to much trouble to go back and try to edit all those, so you will just have to add "blogspot" if you are really interested in seeing any of those posts, at least I think that will work.

Sorry for any confusion.  I hope that I might be able to regularly post in the future as I get adjusted to everything.  Thanks to everyone who has been and continues to be a loyal reader.  Hope that everything is going well for you.