Civics & Government

Students should be able to provide a basic description of government.  National Standards for Civics and Government http://www.civiced.org/k4erica.htm
 
 
 

• TrackStar http://trackstar.hprtec.org/ is an on-line interface that helps instructors organize and annotate Web sites (URLs) into lessons. The list of resources acts like a table of contents and remains visible throughout the lesson allowing the user/student to easily browse through the lesson and stay on track.  This is an Internet teaching tool that teachers can use to create or use tracks to teach students about a particular subject such as government.  Also, teachers can use this tool to create quizzes or web activities for students to use online.  The site is reputable (maintained by a non- profit organization helping educators) and the cost is free to registered users.
• Filamentalityhttp://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/. Filamentality is a fill-in-the-blank interactive Web site that guides teachers  through picking a topic, searching the Web, gathering good Internet sites, and turning Web resources into activities appropriate for learners. Support is built in through Mentality Tips, and easy for teachers to use as an internet teaching tool for students to achieve standards in government among other subjects.
• Civic Education http://www.indiana.edu/~ssdc/civlinks.htm#Teaching.  This is a government site maintained by the Social Studies Development Center (SSDC) of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. This is a reference tool site that serves teachers, parents, administrators, students, and anyone else interested in information on education, consists of 16 subject-oriented clearinghouses across the nation. The mission of the ERIC system is to improve American education by increasing and facilitating the use of educational research and information to improve practice in learning, teaching, educational decision making, and research, wherever and whenever these activities take place.  Because this is a government site maintained by a reputable university the information is reliable and current.
• The Center for Civic Education http://www.civiced.org/ is a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational corporation dedicated to fostering the development of informed, responsible participation in civic life by citizens committed to values and principles fundamental to American constitutional democracy.  This site is for teachers to find lesson plans with free materials to use in teaching government and civics.  This site is maintained by Civnet ( a website of Civitas International for civic education practitioners (teachers, teacher trainers, curriculum designers), as well as scholars, policymakers, civic-minded journalists, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) promoting civic education all over the world.  Therefore, the information provided should be reliable and accurate because professional with an interest in government and education maintain the site.
• The Gateway http://www.thegateway.org/  The key to one-stop, any-stop access to high quality lesson plans, curriculum units and other education resources on the Internet!  The Gateway to Educational Materials is a Consortium effort to provide educators with quick and easy access to thousands of educational resources found on various federal, state, university, non-profit, and commercial Internet sites. GEM is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and is a special project of the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information & Technology.  Teachers, parents, administrators can search or browse The Gateway and find thousands of high quality educational materials, including lesson plans, activities, and projects from over 200 GEM Consortium member sites.  This is a webliography and the information seems credible because it is a reputable organization for reference tools. It has won many awards and recognitions for it reliability.
• TheAwesomeLibrary http://www.awesomelibrary.org/Classroom/Social_Studies/Social_Studies.html This is a specialized search tool that provides only resources reviewed and found to be of high quality for our users.   In order to be included in the Awesome Library, resources are child-safe links, useful for teachers, students, parents, or librarians, contain actual documents, projects, pictures, and discussion groups,  are current, and load quickly so there is only a small percentage of "dead" links.    Even if all of these conditions are met, later the resource may need to be removed because it no longer meets all of the conditions and standards. Therefore, this is a reliable site because the information is kept current and constantly reviewed for relevance.
• Ben's Guide to U.S. Government for Kids http://bensguide.gpo.gov/ is brought to the World Wide Web as a service of the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO).  This site provides learning tools for K-12 students, parents, and teachers. These resources will teach how our government works, and how one can use GPO Access to carry out their civic responsibilities. And, just as GPO Access provides locator services to U.S. Government sites, Ben's Guide provides a similar service to U.S. Government Web sites developed for kids.
• PBS Teacher Source http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/ This site contains information about using technology with teaching and a lesson plan site.  It offers lessons plans that coordinate with standards in your state.  Teachers can search by grade level and subject to find lesson plans using technology with the subject of choice.  It is maintained by PBS, a useful resource for educational material.  This site offered links to special hands- on activities regarding government for children to learn about the subject.
• StartSpot Mediaworks  http://www.governmentspot.com/ This is a reference tool site that was founded with the desire to improve people's ability to quickly and easily find the best topical information on the Web.  This site focuses on topics that inform and educate.  Teachers and parents can use this search engine to find specific information about government or search the site for many different topics. GovSpot.com is a non-partisan government information portal designed to simplify the search for the best and most relevant government information online. This free resource offers a high-utility collection of top government and civic resources hand-selected by our editorial team for their quality, content and utility.  GovSpot.com makes it easy to find the best government Web sites and documents, facts and figures, news, political information and much more.
•  Homework Help http://www.4kids.com/4kidshome.html This is a homework help page that could be used to develop higher order thinking.  Kids can use this site to get hands on activities online about offline things. contained information useful for teachers, parents, and kids regarding topics such as: entertainment, online activities, reading, science, social studies, and much more.  It provides homework help, and software reviews.  However, this is a commericial site so the information could be somewhat biased.  The site has won many awards because of its special designs just for kids.

 

 



Created by Jessica Bryant on May 7, 2001.
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