Filling in at PBS’s media infusion, classroom technology expert Kristin Hokanson says the growth of Web 2.0 tools makes this an exciting--and crucial--time to teach kids about the election. After all, much of the campaigning is happening in a space that is familiar to young people:
For the 2008 election, all of the candidates have accounts on [MySpace and Facebook] and many other social networking sites. YouTube You Choose is a common source of political videos and MySpace Decision 08 is reaching out to younger voters.
The job for teachers, Hokanson writes, is to draw out the educational value of it all:
Students, however, don’t always make the connection between their social involvement in political issues and what they are learning in school. With the emergence of the read/write Web, the Web 2.0 world of information and media, students are already using the Internet to express themselves on their personal sites.
She offers links to a number of helpful online teaching resources on the election.
