Feb 8, 2012

VoteMatch Quiz

Posted by Mary Jane
in American Government, Civic Engagement | 1 comment

We recently passed  this quiz around the office and everyone agreed that it’s a pretty nice way to evaluate candidates based on current issues. The quiz, from On the Issues, assesses your views on major issues and then shows you how well each candidate’s views line up with your own. Views are assessed based on responses to 20 statements, which are all clickable to provide more information.

Jan 25, 2012

State of the Union Wordle

Posted by Zara Elizabeth Ricks
in American Government, Civic Engagement, Teaching and Technology | 2 comments

Yesterday in the office, a few of us were guessing what the key topics of Obama’s State of the Union address might be.  So, this morning, we plugged the transcript into our favorite word-jumbler tool, Wordle, to see which topics were featured most prominently.  Here’s what Wordle showed us!  (You can also visit our published version here.)

For those of you who missed last night’s State of the Union address, here’s an interesting “enhanced” version from whitehouse.gov. It features a split screen that displays President Obama on the left side and additional information graphics on the right side.

Dec 9, 2011

User Tip: Current Events for Students

Posted by Maureen Yann
in Civic Engagement, Teaching and Technology | 0 comments

In the way of an addition to our recent post about changing the news headlines in your Soomo course, here’s a tip from Associate Professor, Joe Lane at Emory and Henry College.

Oct 26, 2011

Death and Taxes Poster

Posted by Maureen Yann
in American Government, Civic Engagement, Infographics, Public Policy, Teaching and Technology | 0 comments

Do you have students asking questions about taxes, especially as you’re approaching the Bureaucracy, Policy Making, or Budget chapters in your college courses?

Here’s something that might be of interest. Jess Bachman, similarly curious about federal spending, made a 24″x36″ poster about the 2012 federal discretionary budget. One thing that I really like about the poster is that the departments are built to scale, based on budget. Click here to listen to him explain the poster in his own words.

Seth Godin, also appreciates the poster and says it belongs ”in the home of every person who pays taxes.” Thanks to David Lindrum and Paige Ragan for this find.

Oct 6, 2011

Data Visualization: U.S. Newspaper Growth

Posted by Maureen Yann
in American Government, Civic Engagement, Infographics, Simulations, Teaching and Technology | 0 comments

In a few weeks, professors might be getting ready to cover the media in their various government classes. If you’re one of them, here’s a link that you might want to consider. Gathered from the Library of Congress, the Journalism’s Voyage West data visualization “plots over 140,000 newspapers published over three centuries in the United States.”

Sep 16, 2011

Simulation Link: “Inside the Haiti Earthquake”

Posted by Maureen Yann
in Civic Engagement, Comparative Government, Global Studies, International Relations, Simulations, Teaching and Technology | 0 comments

At Soomo, we love us some simulations. And thanks to Amy Atchison, assistant professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana, who sent us this pretty awesome link she got from the UNDP.

“Inside the Haiti Earthquake” allows for a “first-person simulation based on documentary footage from Haiti and real-life decisions scenarios.” You begin by deciding on whether to “play” as the journalist, the aid worker, or the survivor.  Depending on your decision, you are immersed in different situations; decisions have to be made, and “you’ll be given the opportunity to commit to various strategies, and experience their consequences.”

In the way of a user tip, Dr. Atchison is “planning to work the Haiti simulation into [her] Intro to Comparative class this summer, using it to illustrate how natural disaster recovery is affected by state capacity (or lack thereof).”