Blog Post #9: Presidential Candidates!

The web-based tool I would use while teaching a high school level history or government class is http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460 up until an election. Of course it may not be able to be used every year as presidential candidates are not heavily discussed every year. However, the year before presidential elections, I think would be a valuable time to teach students not only about the candidates, but also about the importance of looking at all the candidates, the issues/their stances, their experience, etc. It will also help students discover which party they tend to lean towards.

I feel that a tool like this is important because while many Americans have the opportunity to vote, quite a few choose not to. I find the reason for this is lack of knowledge about the candidates. I think a tool like this emphasizes the importance of considering each candidate, each issue, and how they feel about both. If students learn this at a younger age, there is a better chance of adults voting in the future.

The next technology-related skill I would like to learn is mostly just to use excel with greater ease. I find excel to be an extremely valuable program that can be used for many different things. I hope to become much more skilled with it as I continue to use it because I think it could help organize basically ANYthing and can be advantageous in any profession. To continue learning about excel, I hope to use it to organize things such as the financial preparation for a trip, college tuition budgeting, etc.