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Rand McNally launched a free online tool for students and teachers to learn more about the presidential election process. "An accompanying online teacher resource center includes lesson plans based on the Common Core Standards making it easy to integrate the games and activities into the classroom.   Features of "Play the Election" Digital Learning Game * Interactive electoral map - Breaks down the Electoral College by state, details past election results, real-time polling data, election-related headlines, and more. * Digital Mini-Games - Students can choose from eleven different mini-games that reinforce key concepts of the election, delve deeper into the issues of influential and battleground states, and tie core civics curriculum to current events. * Standards-aligned lesson plans - Professionally-created lesson plans for educators that cover key aspects of the 2012 Election, the Electoral College, and major debates. * Student Access - Each student creates their own unique profile that allows them to save and edit their own electoral map, play and track their progress through the games, and see how their answers stack up against those of others in their class or the country. * Create Your Own Games - Teachers can create their own mini-games to reinforce key concepts or to teach new, related events. "Play the Election" was created in collaboration with ImpactGames and is powered by ImpactGames' Knight News Game award winning platform."

"Mystery Skype is an educational game, invented by teachers, played by two classrooms on Skype. The aim of the game is to guess the location of the other classroom by asking each other questions. It's suitable for all age groups and can be used to teach subjects like geography, history, languages, mathematics and science."

Historians read the first part, then jump to the end and ask themselves: Who wrote this? When was it written? What else do I need to know to make a considered and valued judgment?  What is the author's point of view? Why was it written? Is this source believable? Why? Why not? ----------------- Before we accept this as fact or true, we ask ourselves the above questions. (This is called Sourcing) It's critical thinking and evaluation. It's worthwhile. Not just filling in worksheets. 

Resources for history lessons that use primary sources and inquiry

A variety of lesson plans from the NYT

Primary source documents and activities that use the documents. You can also make activities using the sources.

Using Current Events for PBL

Using Current Events for Learning. Let me know if you want to bounce ideas around for how to do this in your classrooms.

This was written by an amazing voice in PBL. There are some great ideas here.