Election ‘08 Project Discussion
Use this area to post your thoughts on the project experience.
You must have at least three posts and they must be spaced out throughout the assignment. All posts must be substantial, at least 200 words, and directly related to the project. It is suggested that you do a pre-project post, predicting what the outcome of your research will be, a post during the research expressing successes and setbacks, and a final post summarizing the entire process and what if anything you got out of it.
So far… I am not sure I like my partner from Virginia. He seems to be the type that says what he wants but is not that much of a team player. I do like the Wiki though. I think it makes it more personal, not in a bad sort of attacking way, but a good sort of “I feel more connected” kind of way. I like the way in which we can post new threads and start new discussions. I also like that we have our own profile. It makes it so that I can get to know the others and be friends with them even if we are polar opposites politically. The only thing I don’t like is that some posts can be so short that they do not explain fully what they are trying to say. It will be interesting to see which way my states go. I am already anticipating a heated discussion as to which way one of our states will go, and that is what I think.
I’m actually really excited for this project. As I am able to vote this year for the first time ever, I want to make sure that I choose the best person for the job of leading our country. Everything is so new to me that I really need this project to fully look into major topics of concern and doubt for me. Not to mention, I’ll gain a lot from my other group members that I would not have gotten from others that I know. The others from Texas and Virginia are sure to have awesome insight and opinions about this whole ordeal than I, so they will not only be valuable assets to our group, but great teachers as well. I can’t wait until we can get to know them better through out the project’s duration. I won’t lie; I’m fairly politically dumb. But I’m excited about all the things that can be learned, not that I’m excited about the work load, but it does present a challenge to overcome and hopefully set a high precedent for future classes. I wish my group and the other groups the best of luck.
So far, I do not feel like my group is very organized. I spent three days checking the forums all the time hoping that one of my group members would get online to divide up the project with me. At the end of the third day, one of them finally showed up, but she had not even looked at the packet. That frustrated me a little. I was disappointed that they waited until almost midnight their time to start thinking about the project. They also wanted to select the issues to cover in each state, but they offered one based on what they were passionate about rather than what was important to voters in the states. We did not decide what the other issues were going to be even though they said that they need the issues for Friday. That was two days ago and they have not been online since which leaves me to wonder if they selected two more issues without communicating their choices. I wish we had communicated more about the project. I am excited to learn about New Hampshire and Washington D.C., but if we do not get this whole thing resolved quickly and efficiently, I am going to have negative feelings associated with this kind of project.
I find this project very interesting. Technology is absolutely amazing; people from Washington can work with people they don’t even know from two states across the nation. I really like this project; it brings about understanding of the way states can swing in presidential elections and it forces you to examine your own personal views on issues, which can be helpful if you are voting in the election. The only problem I seem to be having so far on this project is there are too many people in my group; seven people is too many for me, especially when a couple of them just got logged on this weekend.
As for my predictions on my states, that is a tough one. I have Missouri and Delaware and neither one has an extensive history with one party. I am inclined to believe Delaware will go Obama because it has voted for democrats in the last four presidential elections. Missouri, however, is trickier. In 1992 and 1996 it voted democrat and in 2000 and 2004 it voted Republican. I want to say it will go Republican because it voted Bush twice; however I think I am going to predict it will go Democrat because many think McCain and Bush are similar and Bush has a very low approval rating.
My prediction for the outcome of the presidential election is that Obama will win. He has a great chance of capturing some of the swing states like Florida and Ohio and he may even snatch Virginia. As long he performs in the next two debates and there isn’t a damaging October Surprise, he should win the election.
I’m hoping that this project will go well. So far, it has gone pretty good. My partners from Texas have been really helpful. They contact me when I need to know something and have helped give everyone the tasks they need to do for the project. My partners from Virginia haven’t been as helpful. They don’t ever write on the wiki site, and at the beginning, they were the last to add themselves onto the site. I’m guessing that they will be the least helpful during this project. I’m just hoping that they turn everything in on time. Although one of my partners from Washington hasn’t done anything on the site, I’m not too worried about her not doing her job. My other partner from here has done a really good job getting everything together.
My biggest issue is the Virginia group at this point. I’m hoping that they get the message that tells them what their jobs are. If they don’t, things will probably go really badly. Other than that, I think that this project will be really interesting. I think it’s amazing that people from all different parts of the country are able to work together like this. Maybe I’m wrong, however, and this project will go terribly wrong. Hopefully that doesn’t happen.
I believe Nebraska will go Republican this year, because for the past three elections, they have voted for the Republican Party, whether the candidate won or lost the election. Michigan, on the other hand, will go the other way, because they have voted Democratic for the past three elections, win or lose. I believe that Obama will win the presidential election, because he is doing very well in the Electoral College prediction polls, and has always been ahead in every single general election poll. The people like him because he is a good speaker, and claims to be a good economist, while McCain is crusty and old, and said flat out that he isn’t good with the economy. I kind of like the Wiki site, I just don’t like having to log in and everything every time. I do like that we can see what everyone is saying. However, my partners are kind of dumb. I understand that their project differs slightly, but they just want to do issues, not the states themselves. The project seems like a lot of work, but I suppose that, since it is divided equally, we should have not that bad of a workload. I just hope my partners begin to understand what they are supposed to do.
This project so far has been really interesting to say the least. I like my partners from Virginia and Texas so far, they seem on top of things and them seem like they will be fun to work with. I am learning a lot about myself in doing this project. I never really thought about my stance on certain things but this project is helping me, and also helping me to determine if I sway more democratic or republican. The project is going to really push me to find out more about the individual presidential candidates and about their viewpoints on topics. I really like the way that we get to work with people from the other side of the country because they really do have some interesting ideas… some weird but interesting nonetheless. As far as the election goes, it’s starting to look really good for Barack Obama. He is pulling ahead in almost everything, and honestly, I think the presidential debate and the vice presidential debate have a great deal of help in determining these numbers. It’s really a matter of opinion whether or not Biden or Palin won the VP debate, but it is obvious that it assisted in boosting Obama’s numbers. Palin did a good job too, but I think America is starting to see and realize her vulnerabilities.
I was very excited for this project but now my view has changed. The wiki site isn’t as bad or as complicated as I thought it would be, but it is not a good site for communication. I also have a problem with the people I work with because they do not volunentarily give out any information. Even when asked they ignore the question or just do not respond. I also think that the website for some means that you can just post random information on it and then hope that someone will put it all together and under the right categories. That is the vive and what is happening at the moment. I also think it would be better if each state had the same election packet. I dislike having to type everything out especially since I am a slow typer.
As for how my states will vote, I believe Texas will vote for John McCain and that Iowa will probably this year go Obama. Texas is a definite McCain. They have voted Republican the past few elections and so far they seem to still be leaning the GOP way.
Thus far in the project, it’s pretty clear who is going to have to take charge and who will be left trying to work with the leavings when they realize they’ve been left behind. Thus far, it’s been two students from Texas and two Students from Washington that have been divying the workload and trying to genuinely get something done. The wiki has all of one post from our partners in Virginia, and we’ve had some participation from the third person from Washington, but we essentially had to pick out what that person wanted for them, rather than them participating in the dialogue. However, the work is split so now accumulating data and answering questions are the next step. This early in the project, based on what I understand of the polling results and the geographic locations of the states, Minnesota will probably go with Obama, which is how it’s been leaning. North Carolina is a very close race, too close to call. However, I think because of it’s proximity to the South, and the Bradley effect, it will be most likely McCain’s win there. Assuming, at least, that the Bradley effect is a factor in this race. It may not be, but I’m rather cynical about people in general. We’ll see I guess.
I think this project has good potential. Some “teams” go into further depth in the battleground states, which could be exciting. But, also, some teams will be stuck with states that have been so dominated by one political party, that it is not so exciting. Luckily, I have Virginia as a state, which has been in the Republican bank, but with the upcoming election, it could shift over to the blue side. My other state is Illinois, which as stated by Kautzman is a “slam-dunk” for the Democratic ticket.
All in all, I think that this project allows the students who do not know much about politics or the candidates to learn about a lot of that stuff. And, working with people from different backgrounds in different states could turn out to be pretty cool. They have, most likely, had vastly different life experiences then we do up in the Northwest. Talking with people with different views is nice because maybe they see things in a way that you never imagined, and turn out to change your opinion on things that you thought you were solid on. Maybe I could turn out to be a stern Republican after this process is done because I was influenced by the students in the other states, or maybe not.
Hopefully this project does not disappoint, and we are able to get a little out of it.
My group is completely unorganized. The only partners who have contacted me are the ones from our school. It is not that big of a deal though because I am sure my group members from Spokane will do their work. As for my predictions, I am sure that McCain will win Arizona. It would be very surprising if he did not seeing as he is the senator from that state. I predict that Obama will win North Carolina if the economy remains poor. Obama’s success in the debate tonight will help as well. It will be interesting to see how someone from a battleground state feels about the election. Our state tends to go blue so the candidates pay little attention to it. I am very excited to expand my knowledge of the candidates, picking the most powerful man in the world is a very important thing.
Honestly, I am not looking forward to doing this project. There are only four people in my group because we don’t have partners from Virginia and the two people that we have from Texas are thinking about dropping the class. Me and my partner Trevor might have to do this project by ourselves. So far nothing is going well and we haven’t made any real progress yet. Just yesterday we divided up the assignment. We could have divided it up sooner but my partners from Texas took a long time to get onto the Wiki site to tell us what their e-mail addresses were. It’s hard doing a project with people from other states and only being able to contact each other through e-mail. This is my first time ever doing a project like this and I’m not sure how it all is supposed to work, really. It’s pretty much just really confusing.
As far as state predictions go, I’m guessing that New York will vote democratic because they have done so for the past five elections and current polls are saying that New York is voting 100% for Obama. For Mississippi, they will probably vote republican because they have voted republican for the past seven elections and right now they are 95% McCain. And for the overall election, polls are saying that Obama has the best chance at winning.
Right now, I believe that Obama will win nationally. He is currently leading in the polls by five percentage points. He has a lot of momentum and currently leads in nearly all the battleground states. Five points, however, isn’t insurmountable for McCain to overcome. Sampling error must always be taken into account, and this could easily put McCain ahead. Also, if McCain wins a few huge battlegrounds such as Ohio and Florida, those electorates may give him a chance. In spite of this, and in spite of my desires, it looks as if Obama will be elected nationally.
My research states are Missouri and Delaware. Missouri is a close race, with Obama currently leading by only .3 points. I believe that this state will actually go to McCain. With a fairly big Republican win there in 2004, I think the toss-up will go in the Republican’s favor. I think that the polls definitely show that the state will be extremely close, but that McCain has done a better job advertising in the state. We will see. As far as Delaware, the state is strongly Democratic. Obama is currently leading by 15-20 percentage points. In 2000 and 2004, the stated voted Democratic. I predict its three electoral votes will go to Obama.
As for my group, the two people from Texas have assumed the role of leader/boss. We have already split up our assignments, and we are off to a good start. We have already exchanged research and they are beginning to construct a presentation.
In my opinion, the project itself is very intriguing, but the cooperation between states is a little inconvenient. The inconvenient part of the project is the sharing of information on the wiki. I’m sure, though, that as I get used to using the wiki, it will become less frustrating. Besides the inconvenience, it is interesting to learn the views of different people across the country. The project is also a great way to learn about the candidates and their views on things.
Based on our group’s research, Alaska will most likely vote Republican. Alaska has voted for the Republican candidate nearly every election since entering the union. Also, Sarah Palin is the former governor of Alaska, and she is on the Republican ticket. Connecticut, on the other hand, will almost surely vote for Barack Obama. Connecticut has voted for the Democratic candidate in each of the past four elections.
As for the next president of the United States, I predict that Obama wins. McCain needed to win last night’s debate to keep up with Obama, but according to most of the polls, he didn’t. So, I think Obama can easily clinch the victory in the next couple of weeks.
In addition to my previous post…
Alaska: McCain 65%, Obama 30%, Third Party 5%
Connecticut: Obama 55%, McCain 35%, Third Party 10%
Overall Popular Vote Percentage: Obama 51%, McCain 48%, Third Party 1%
Electoral: Obama 300, McCain 234
Continueing my old one:
I think Obama will win the election as a whole. I predict he will take 354 electoral votes, and McCain will take 184.
So far I kind of feel like the slacker in my group because I just found the thread for my states, this was not due to a lack of effort though. I found the wiki site very confusing and frustrating.
As for the election projections:
I believe that McCain will win Colorado. Republicans have won the state in 9 of the last 10 elections and in the Colorado polls Obama and McCain are in such a close race that the margin of error alone makes it impossible to tell the outcome.
Colorado Polls:
Fox/Rassmussen- Obama 51% McCain 45%
Denver Post-Obama 44% McCain 44%
American Research-Obama 45% McCain 48%
I believe that McCain will also win West Virginia. Republicans have only won 4 of the last 10 elections but in the polls I researched McCain is up by a sizable margin.
West Virginia Polls:
Rassmussen: McCain 45% Obama 37%
American Research: McCain 50% Obama 42%
CNN/Time: McCain 50% Obama 46%
I believe that America will have its first African American president starting in January. I think that McCain’s performance has been slipping in the recent weeks and I believe he has lost too much ground to make up in the little remaining time. Those with absentee ballots have already lost any opportunity for an “October surprise” affecting their decision and Obama’s lead is great enough that he will be able to maintain it.
I think New Hampshire will be 55% Obama and 45% McCain while D.C. will be 70% Obama and 30% McCain. I think there is a strong possibility that the nation will elect Obama by 54%. The result of the Electoral college will probably be 279 to 255.
Virginia: Obama- 50% McCain 44.9%
Colorado: Obama- 51% McCain 45%
Popularity Vote: Obama 56% McCain 44%
Election results prediction: Obama
My prediction is the Obama will win Missouri 51% to 49% (McCain). In Delaware Obama will also win with 60% Obama to 40% McCain. I predict that Obama will win the election with around 51% of the popular vote and the electoral distribution will be 291 (Obama), 247 McCain.
Mr. Kautzman you can just add this to the end of the post I posted earlier this week. As for splitting it up into 2 different posts or leaving it as one, it doesn’t matter to me; do which ever is more convenient for you.
This project seems like it will be very interesting. Especially because we are working with people from other states. It will be interesting to see their views about the candidates, the election and all of the things surrounding it. My group seems to be a pretty solid group where everyone will pull their weight. California and Wisconsin shouldn’t too bad because California is very Democratic and Wisconsin has voted more Democratic than Republican.
I predict that Obama will take the presidency. Obama seems way more in tune with the people than McCain. McCain doesn’t have seemed to be campaigning his ideas he is just attacking Obama and people don’t care about that they just want to know what McCain is doing. It seems that every time Palin speaks nationally that something she says or does causes the polls to drop against the Republican ticket and work for the Democratic ticket. Which personally, I don’t have a problem with. I would much rather see Obama take the presidency because everything McCain has advocated for just seems like Bush’s policies that are worded differently to sound like it is different and also like in the debates and ads he just talks about all the things Obama says and does that he doesn’t agree with.
My Predictions for Washington State and Ohio are that they will both go to Obama.
WA: Popular vote will be 53% Obama and 47% McCain
Ohio: Popular vote be 51% Obama and 49% McCain
National Level:
Pop. Vote: 55% Obama 45% McCain
Electoral Vote: 325 Obama, 213 McCain
This year looked as though it was going to be one of the closest presidential races America has seen. However, the recent economic crisis has given Obama a pretty decent advantage. Although popular votes will probably be very close, electoral votes will most likely favor Obama. My prediction is that Obama will receive roughly 52% of the popular vote, and McCain will see about 46% of votes. Both the current fiscal situation and the dangerously low approval rates given to Bush put Obama at an advantage. However, Obama’s race and relative inexperience will contribute to making this a tight race. As far as electoral votes go, I would predict that, even awarding McCain the benefit of a few true battleground states, such as Missouri and Colorado, he will only receive about 193 votes, leaving Obama the remaining 345.
For the election project, my states are Pennsylvania and Indiana. At this point, I think it is fair to say that Pennsylvania will go to Obama. Pennsylvania has voted Democrat consistently over the past four presidential elections. Recent polls show Obama leading by a margin of roughly 12%, likely to receive 53% of the votes. Indiana is much more of a battleground territory. At this point, polls put Obama and McCain within a 4% margin of each other. However, I suspect that Indiana will go to McCain. Over the past four elections, Indiana has voted Republican every time. In the 2004 election, Bush beat Kerry by a margin of more than 20%. Unless new circumstances present themselves sometime in the next few weeks, Pennsylvania will go to Obama and Indiana should fall to McCain.
So far in my group, we are still splitting up the tasks, but we have all been able to contact each other. We are still having a tough time on responding to posts and threads though, making our efficiency in getting work done a little bit slower. This project was very concerning to me at first. Because I didn’t know how to use the website, but things are coming together. This website is a lot like a myspace or a facebook, only for Government geeks, but it will hopefully work really well for the project and will better inform me about this election. From the beginning research that we have collected for the states of Arizona and North Carolina, we have found that McCain was the senator for AZ and that AZ has 8 electoral votes. AZ’s main issues that we will probably focus on are the economy and immigration. As for NC, their major concerns seem to be around the economy, health care, and tough policies on crime. Right now they are a battleground state, and http://www.usaelectionpolls.com says that the current polls for NC are 49% Obama and 48% McCain. Overall, Obama looks to be favored for the presidency, although he more than likely won’t win AZ.
I predict that Washington will go to the Democrats. The current polls put Washington at about 50-53 percent for the most part. I believe that this is likely to remain the same because of the western side of the state. Also, Washington has gone to the Democrats in the last five elections and I think that is unlikely to change. Ohio is currently 48-51 percent for Obama. However, McCain is only 43-47 percent. I believe that Ohio will go to Obama. I believe Ohio will go to Obama because I believe Senator Obama will be elected president. Ohio has voted electorally for the winning president in the past ten elections. I don’t think that will change. I believe that Obama will win the popular vote with about 48-50 percent of the popular vote. I think McCain will get 41-44 percent of the popular vote. I believe that Senator Obama will get 353 Electoral College votes, taking Nevada, Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. McCain will get 185 Electoral College votes, taking only Missouri and Indiana in toss-up states. This project seems to be a fine project, though only attemptable every four years. I think that this group thing between several states is a little foolish. It’s easy to hound someone in your class who isn’t doing their fair share. It’s a lot harder to do that to someone 1500 and 2500 miles away. I am blessed with good partners, however. This ought to be fun.
Pre-Project Post
I think this is going to be a very fun project. The concept of working with others in different states will, I think, help us develop our own opinions because we have to discuss. It will also help us become more familiar with the whole election process, which I think is very valuable. However, this project has proven to be a bit difficult. Attempting to contact all these kids from other states through the Wiki was very confusing for me. I think that everyone, including our partners from Virginia and Texas, should be given uniform, identical instructions. From what I heard, the directions and requirements are basically the same but with some minor differences. But these minor differences caused some confusion. Luckily, my partners at school and from the other states have proven to be very good workers and we cleared everything up – things are running smoothly. We have our topics and everyone has equal amounts of work to do. I don’t know how everyone else is doing. I personally do not like the Wiki; I like to talk to people. But in terms of this project – with the time differences and multiple states – I think it works out fine.
Add to previous post..
Polls are showing that in the national election Obama is at 348 electoral votes and McCain is at 189. For popular votes, Obama is at 49.4% and McCain 42.8%. In New York popular vote polls state that Obama is at 56.7% and McCain is at 38.7%. And Obama has all of New York’s electoral votes. Mississippi’s popular votes are 40.7% Obama and 53.7% McCain. They’re strong McCain and probably all their electoral votes will got to him.
Election Predictions:
(Based on recent polls and past elections)
A. States
1) Nevada
a. Battleground state but probably voting for Obama because of the economy (voted for Clinton in the past)
b. Obama will probably win (in the high 40 percent range, or low 50)
2) Tennessee
a. Probably voting for McCain (in the high 50 percent range)
B. Nation
I think that Obama will win based off of recent polls.
1) Obama = 55% popular vote
2) McCain= 45% popular vote
3) Obama= 338 electoral votes
4) McCain= 200 electoral votes
I look away for a bit and suddenly everyone posts ahead of me. Here’s the breakdown:
Based on how we’ve seen things going in terms of research and everything, it looks as if Obama will win Minnesota, as Minnesota has voted Democrat for the last 5 or so elections. North Carolina may be close now, but it hasn’t voted democratic since Lyndon Johnson,and it’s a complete tossup state in terms of recent polls. It’s not overwhelming enough of a lead for Obama, so we can probably see the Bradley effect come into play for a McCain win. However, given the issues that seem to be of importance in North Carolina according to research done by those in my group, healthcare and fiscal concerns are large issues in NC. So, Obama could win despite the Bradley effect. I’d have to go with past history, however, I see a McCain win there.
In terms of the national popular vote, we can probably expect a win for Obama at the current polling results, assuming the Bradley effect doesn’t play a large factor in key states. I’m seeing a 50% Obama, 42% percent McCain break nationally, in terms of the popular vote. Assuming the Bradley effect isn’t a factor in large numbers. Meanwhile, I’m going to be a cynic and in terms of the electoral college, I expect quite a few tossup states to go McCain, so a good portion of the electoral map will go to McCain, more than he has now, at least. It might get close electorally, but I think Obama will win some key states that cement his lead.
Continuing off my old post:
Electoral votes: 298 Obama, 240 McCain.
Popular vote: 52% Obama, 47% McCain, 1% others.
I think that 7 people might be a little bit too much. Only 3 guys have really responded (including me…). So it might end up being a little bit of a hassle to get a hold of everyone, and make sure they do their fair share. But I do like the idea of working with people from across the entire country; it provides a good experience as a growing, young adult. It forces one another to rely upon each other, and act as a team. And if you don’t do that, well, you’ll simply be hated. (That’s an over exaggeration of course, but people will be upset…) I kind of like the Wiki site, I just don’t like having to log in and everything every time. I do like that we can see what everyone is saying. However, my partners are kind of dumb. I understand that their project differs slightly, but they just want to do issues, not the states themselves. The project seems like a lot of work, but I suppose that, since it is divided equally, we should have not that bad of a workload. I just hope my partners begin to understand what they are supposed to do.
I believe Nebraska will go Republican this year, because for the past three elections, they have voted for the Republican Party, whether the candidate won or lost the election. Michigan, on the other hand, will go the other way, because they have voted Democratic for the past three elections, win or lose. I believe that Obama will win the presidential election, because he is doing very well in the Electoral College prediction polls, and has always been ahead in every single general election poll. The people like him because he is a good speaker, and claims to be a good economist, while McCain is crusty and old, and said flat out that he isn’t good with the economy.
As for percentages, I believe:
Nebraska: 56% McCain, 42% Obama
Michigan: 44% McCain, 49% Obama
National: 49% Obama, 44% McCain
Electoral Votes: McCain, 188, Obama, 350
Obama Wins.
For my predictions, McCain is going to definitely win Nebraska. The polls show 57% McCain, 36% Obama, and 7% undecided. Nebraska has voted Republican in all elections, but one since 1940, and that was the 1964 landslide of Lyndon B. Johnson. My prediction for Michigan is Obama. The polls show 51% for Obama, 38% for McCain, 1% for independent, and 10% for undecided. Michigan voted democrat for the past four elections.
New Jersey:
Vote percentages
Obama- 55%
McCain- 45%
Louisiana:
Vote percentages
Obama- 40%
McCain- 60%
Popular Vote Percentage:
Obama- 62%
McCain- 38%
Electoral College:
Obama- 345
McCain- 193
I didn’t mean to send the last one, but here is a continuation of it, my prediction for the Presidential election is that Obama will definitely take the prize. My reason for this is that people are ready for a change. We had a republican for the past eight years and and the people are ready for a democrat to come in to see what he can do. The polls favor Obama in 329 electoral votes for Obama, 158 for McCain, and 51 for undecided. The popular vote also favors Obama 51.0% to McCain with 46.6%.
So far, our group has got off to a great start. Or two states are, Michigan and Nebraska. I’m the only girl out of all boys, but I believe each person will contribute equal amounts to make our project go over smoothly. One of our group members has already picked six issues; economy, healthcare, Iraq, education, foreign policy, and abortion. Through the “thread” we were able to decided that discussion and communication between us would be a lot easier through email rather than logging into the wiki site all the time. Our states are divided between which candidate will take them, Michigan will win Obama and Nebraska will take McCain. The big issues in Michigan include the economy, dealing with the unemployment rate over 8%. The issues that we have taken into consideration in nebraska are more social issues along with the war in Iraq.
This whole process of digging deeper into the election will be very rewarding to us all. For me, it will help me learn a lot more about certain issues that I am not so familiar with and what stance do the candidates take on these issues. It’s cool to communicate with people across the country and see what different views that they have.
Also, for the raw electoral college numbers, I’m seeing a 296 to 242, assuming Obama wins Florida. Otherwise it’s the magic 269 to 269 tie.
This is an add-on with my predictions.
My states are Virginia and Illinois.
For Virginia I predict a 51% Obama, 48% McCain, 1% other.
For Illinois, I predict a 57% Obama, 42% McCain, and 1% other.
For the popular vote, I predict 52% Obama, 47% McCain.
Electoral vote, Obama 306, and McCain 232.
Election Predictions
Wisconsin has voted democrat the last four elections, so I think a safe bet would be that they will vote Obama. He will probably win 55% to 45%.
California is also leans strongly to the democratic party, so I would think that they would also vote for Obama. I think he will win 60% to 40%.
Based off recent polls, and just off the fact that I think America is ready for a Democratic president, I believe Obama will win the over all presidency.
1. Obama: 55% popular vote
2. McCain: 45% popular vote
3. Obama: 325 electoral votes
4. McCain: 213 electoral votes
I was very excited when we started this project. It’s pretty interesting working with people from other states. My only concern now is finding the time to do all required parts of the project, which is why I’m glad Clarin decided to take charge on this one. With the ways things are unfolding right now, I believe Obama will have won the presidency come this time in November. Like most have already said, unless we have an October surprise or sudden foreign affair concern, it’s unlikely that McCain will be able to jump far enough ahead of Obama in the polls. McCain’s struggle is simply keeping up with Obama in those polls.
The RealClearPolitics polls from 10/01/09 – 10/09/09 has Obama with 49.4% vote in the general election, while McCain sits at 42.8%, giving Obama a +6.6 lead. In the state of Wisconsin, the RCP average from 09/26/09 – 10/06/09 was 51.4% Obama, 42.6 % McCain, giving Obama the +8.8 lead. However, according to SurveyUSA, Barack Obama could be leading by at least ten points (52% Obama v. 42% McCain). In the state of California, Obama has a substantial lead over McCain. The RCP poll from 09/05/08 – 10/05/08 showed Obama with 53.3% vote and McCain only 38.5% vote, thus giving Obama a +14.8 point lead. I think most would agree that California is obviously a pretty solid Democratic state, and it seems that Wisconsin is definitely favoring the Democratic ticket this year.
I am not a fan of this project already. I feel like it’s not very well organized, especially because we didn’t even get a due date for the project until recently. It’s a little bit hard to decide how fast we need to be moving when we don’t even know a specific day for turn in. Maybe that is just me. In theory, it is a good idea however. It will give us a chance to work with people from different demographics with different ideas and opinions, and we will be able to learn a lot about the candidates and our states of research. Unfortunately, my partners from Virginia seem to be on the flakey side. I suppose I will see how this whole project turns out. As far as predictions goes, I believe that the battleground state of Nevada will go for Obama, but it will be VERY, VERY close as the polls show now. (Obama 49.6%, McCain 46.6%) Although McCain has done better in Nevada for most of the race, it seems that lately there was a huge drop in his popularity in the state. My other state is Tennessee. Tennessee is very Republican, and will go to McCain. He has a 15.7 lead over Obama. (McCain 53.7%, Obama 38%) I believe that Obama will win the national election. So far he’s kept a small lead in the race for a good portion of the time, and currently the poll average has Obama 6.6 lead over McCain. The electoral college still seems to favor Obama currently as well. He has 277, while McCain has 158. There is still 103 votes that aren’t accounted for yet (toss up votes), and some of the electoral votes that are accounted for each side are still leaning. None the less, the numbers are favoring Obama these days.
2008 Presidential Elections
State Level:
Washington- Tends to vote democratic like the rest of the west coast.
In the last three elections has voted democratic.
Although the east side of the state tends to be more
conservative, the west side is far more liberal and more
populated.
Prediction- Obama will win because Washington favors many of
Obama’s policies. He will win with a strong majority vote.
Ohio- Is a battleground state.
In the last few elections voted for Bush and Clinton both terms.
Leaning democratic.
Prediction- Obama will win because he is ahead in the polls and
absentee voting is available, therefore, votes can be made 35
days prior to the election day. October can’t change their
mind.
National Level: Based primarily on recent polls
Popular Vote:
Obama- 55%
McCain- 45%
Electoral College Count:
Obama- 333
McCain- 205
Main Toss-Up States:
Flordia- democrat (27)
North Carolina- republican (15)
Ohio- democrat (20)
Indiana- republican (11)
Nevada- republican (5)
Colorado- democrat (9)
Missouri- republican (11)
Virginia- democrat (13)
% of states:
-Pennsylvania= Obama 55%, McCain 43%, Other 2%
-Indiana= McCain 61%, Obama 38%, Other 1%
National Vote:
-% Population=
–Obama 53%, McCain 46%, Other 1%
– Electoral College
–McCain 276, Obama 262
Winner: Popularity= Obama, ELECTORAL COLLEGE= McCAIN
My predictions for Alaska and Connecticut are:
Alaska: McCain/Pailin; For one thing Alaska has only voted once for the Democratic, every other time has been for Republicans. Also Pailin is from Alaska which only adds to the chances. It would be very surprising if Alaska voted otherwise.(I’m going to say about 60%-30%)
Connecticut: Obama/Biden; For the last four years Connecticut has voted for the Democratic party and based on poles it seems that it’s chances of continuing that trend are pretty solid. (I’m going to say about 54%-40%)
National Election: Until recently I was fairly certain that McCain would win, but now it seems overwhelmingly evident that his chances of wining are slim and, unfortunately, Obama will be our next president. Based on popular vote I do not think that McCain will be too far behind possibly 55%-45% while electorily it seems worse I’m going to guess 311 – 227.
So my election predictions are as follows:
1. Louisiana will go Republican because they have gone Republican in the last two elections and McCain currently leads by 15 points in the polls, Louisiana- McCain 55%, Obama 40%.
2. New Jersey will go Democratic because they haven’t gone Republican since the 1988 election and because Obama currently leads the polls by 8 points, New Jersey- Obama 50%, McCain 42%. New Jersey has been a democratic stronghold and doesn’t have much chance of going Republican this year.
3. I think the general election will go to Obama. He currently leads the polls and only needs one or two more states to win the election. There is still a possibility that Kautzman will get his wish for 269-269. We could get this scenario by Obama winning every state he is predicted to win and only get Nevada. McCain would have to win Colorado, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. This is a high task and I’m not sure where the polls currently stand. I think this is a slim possibility for McCain unless he does really well in the next debate or we get an October surprise that draws attention away from the current economy problems.
I think this presidential project idea is really neat and I’m excited that we can act as the guinea pigs in this endeavour!
However, I’m definitely not a computer genius and just hope that I’ll be able to stay on task with all of these discussion threads and what not. I think it’s really neat that we can connect with other students across the country and get an insight into what other teenagers think about this election. So far I think my partners in Texas are pretty neat and have made the iniative to get on board. Our states are the Republican through and through South Dakota and the more iffy swing state Florida. South Dakota has only voted Democrat four times with the most recent election in 1964 with Lyndon B. Johnson. Their popular percentage vote for McCain right now is 85% so I think it’s safe to say that South Dakota will remain red. Florida on the other hand is a little more interesting…their history of voting isn’t as straightforward. However, in the polls Obama has a slight lead and his popular vote is significantly higher than McCain’s. The influx of Cuban immigrants, retirees, and service workers in Florida all lean towards Obama with his plans for social security reforms and more liberal rights. All in all, I believe that Obama will ultimately win the presidency in this election, due to his increasing lead in the nation. The electoral college vote prediction will be somewhere around 325 for Obama and 243 for McCain. The popular vote percentage was tricky and I couldn’t find a clear number but I also believe that Obama will have the edge. In conclusion, it will still be a tight race but Obama is slowly widening his gap with McCain.
I think this could be a cool project, but it’s clear Sarah and I have a lot of work to do. Not only does our group not have any members not have any students from Virginia, but our Texas members unsuccessfully attempted to drop out of their AP Government class. However, it will at least prove an interesting experience working with these girls. Hopefully there will be a phone conversation that I may experience those adorable drawls.
New York:
Popular – 62% Obama, 38% McCain
Winner: Obama
Mississippi:
Popular – 46% Obama, 54% McCain
Winner: McCain
Nation:
Popular – 57% Obama, 43% McCain
Electoral – 320 Obama, 218 McCain
Winner: Obama
-South Carolina has been consistently republican. According to recent polls, this year is not an exception to the conservative trend. McCain will win the popular vote within the high 50 percentile, or lower 60 percentile.
-Minnesota is almost a battle ground state, however; Minnesota has voted democrat every election since 1972, and recent polls suggest that this state will once again lean democrat. Obama will win the popular vote in the low 50 percentile.
-Obama will take the presidency. I think the American people will favor Obama 57% and McCain 43%. I predict that Obama will receive 358 electoral votes, and McCain 180 electoral votes.
This project seems like it is going to be pretty easy. With having all of the other kids from the other states help, each person has to do like only a few of the questions. I do think that this project is going to be interesting when we have to put it all together because we are in different time zones. With that said, it is hard to communicate with others from the states because they are so far ahead of us. I thought that this project was going to take longer than we have because I don’t think that in the beginning of the project I heard a due date so I just kind of played around with it. I still think that even though we have less time than I though we had, it will still be easy to get done.
As far as the Wiki site goes, I think that it is good to have cause it is pretty easy to communicate with each other. The only problem is that two boys from Texas seem to never be talking and I just don’t know what is going on. That can also be said for the rest of my group. No one ever really posts on it except for two girls from Virginia and me.
From what I have seen this project is going to be a pain. I have dial up internet, although for dial up it is fairly fast, seeing as how I am not the only one with dial up I can see this putting those of us with it are going to be at a disadvantage. As it stands now I can barely use the blog at my house. With that being said, I think this would be much better if the states were assigned to individuals and the assignment was simply scaled down to fit this. I know that part of the reason for this project is to meet people from other states, but with the classes I am taking this is only adding to the amount of work that I have each night and taking a project that would be fairly easy to do alone a logistical nightmare. I realize that my classes were my choice, and that I could get faster internet (if my parents would let me) and then it would be much easier, but since I can’t change those now this is going to be a huge pain.
My group isn’t responding to the wiki site as much as I would like them to. However, some individuals are very organized and work well with me, the team leader. I have divided the work into proportionate parts for each to work on, and all info will be emailed to one individual on our team. This project isn’t all so difficult for now, but I have a feeling we will be pressing due dates, as people haven’t responded this weekend much, other than those I directly contacted via cell-phones. I have section #2 for Nebraska, and I am having a very hard time finding any information on the president primaries. If I could get a website, perhaps, that has info on how the states voted for those, then that would be great. Also, I am having difficulties with finding information on how many voters are registered. Other than that, my portion of the project went fairly well. I just hope that each person can put together their part of the project by the weekend, so our presentation won’t totally blow. I was surprised to find that this project wasn’t all that hard once it was divided up. It only took me about 2 hours to finish my portion.
Project Response #2:
This project has become increasingly frustrating as it as gone on. It is difficult to have seven people in your group and 4 of them not knowing what they are doing, when the project is due next week. Some people don’t even post to see what they should be doing. I volunteered to split up the project and did so two weeks ago, yet we just got straightened out who was doing what a couple of days ago. There was this one girl in my group (I’m not sure if she is from Virginia or Texas) who posted at the beginning of this week saying sorry I haven’t been on in awhile, my internet was down, what is left for me to do? It is frustrating because it is not my job to make sure she knows what she is doing and I would have loved to be able to tell her what she could do, but it wasn’t even clear who was doing what. We should have exchanged phone numbers so that if one person couldn’t communicate, then they could be called for clarification. We have got assignments straightened out now, but I am still unsure of how the project is going to come together (as far as the presentation goes).
(prepost)
Honestly, this project seems slightly uneventful. Since my personal portion of the project involves explaining our good ol’ presidential candidates, research regarding Minnesota and South Carolina has actually proved irrelevant and unproductive thus far…which is odd (contradictory)because our project is supposed to reflect Minnesota’s and South Carlina’s relevancy to this election…which it probably will, I just haven’t felt apart of that cause yet.
Moreover, I must confess that I hate the wiki site, I hate it so much that I have resorted to counting on my Spokomton partners (exclusively) to inform me. Basically, they tell me “whats up”…this automatically makes me vulnerable and ignorant.(I am working on changing that.)
However, Kyle is doing a fantastic job leading this group! And Ranee has been a wonderful correspondent.
Before the Election project, I admit I’m a little skeptical about the group organization. I think it is pretty cool that we get to work with people from Texas and Virginia, but I don’t know how effective the groups will be if the only communication is through a wiki site. I think if we had a longer time to work on the project would help with the organization process, because it allows for more chances to get used to the site and also we the students from different time zones. The project also seems rather too interconnected to be able to due without a lot of communication, which takes time to figure out. I think if we had one person that to be responsible for organizing communication would help. The group members seem too scattered to be effectively organized and communicative. I hope I’m wrong, though, because the idea behind the project is cool. It gives us Washingtonians a chance to work with people from different parts of the country. I wonder if the different demographics of the areas will slant how the interpretation of my partners’ research. Both other states have predominantly been conservative in the past, so I wonder if bias will affect the research. Of course, the same could be applied to the people from Washington, except with a more liberal slant.
At this point, I have completed the majority of my research. However, I was not aware that we have to cite our sources. So, I will need to go rediscover all of my sources in order to provide some kind of citation for them. I am not exactly looking forward to that, but it probably will not take that long so it is fine by me. I am a little afraid of the upcoming deadline. I have a strong feeling that most, if not all, of my group members probably have not been working on their parts. Afterall, they do seem a little disorganized. I had to hunt down one of my group members in order to fill them in on what the rest of the group decided because he was still a no show on the wiki site. So, I am a little worried about whether or not the project will actually be complete by the time the due date rolls around. I am not a huge fan of group projects when I am not partnered with people that I know are reliable. At the beginning of the project, I tried to get my group to decide who was going to put all of the information together, but I received no response. So, I think I am going to have to set some deadlines for my group, but there is no guarantee they will see them any time soon.
Project Response #1
I think this project is a good idea, but really not all that helpful to me. Since I am just in charge of finding out the background information of both candidates, I am not learning a lot about our certain states. And also vice versa, the people researching the states aren’t learning a lot about the candidates. I really don’t like this whole ‘long distance group’ thing. It is really hard to get in touch with the people who never get on the WIKI site. I have resulted in just assigning people parts, and they can decide what to do about it!!! I think that it should be a good work experience just having to work out all the kinks and stuff that goes on with it. I really hope that people do their parts and actually participate. But altogether, I think it will be fun!
(adding on to my last post)
I am actually glad that there are numerous people working on this project so that it makes the work load easier. The only problem about working with big groups and especially over the Internet is that sometimes it is hard to communicate what exactly needs to be done. I have found that everybody has a different opinion about how to split up the assignment. It was hard to come to an agreement about how we should go about it.
This election project is a nightmare. It’s far too confusing to get all the work divided and organized between ourselves via the internet. While some of my group members from across the country are great, it would be much more useful and less of a waste of organizational time to just form groups with our classmates here in Washington. It would behoove (my favorite word) us to look into that option for later in the year. Some in my group have not done any work while others have done two or three research topics. This simply isn’t fair because the whole project is due for everyone regardless of whether anyone chips in or not. Also, it’s extremely difficult to communicate only on the forum threads. The research I am responsible for is the personal information in regards to John McCain. I am looking forward to researching this after I read his book Faith of My Fathers for the summer book review. Also, as I watch the third presidential debate live right now, it’s fascinating to think of how much experience both Senator Obama and Senator McCain have. Either will be very good choices for the White House (even though I obviously prefer one over the other). I guess I’ll just see how the research goes…
This election project is difficult and I don’t particularly like it. I feel like I have a lot of work to do since there are only four people in my group and we aren’t really communicating. I haven’t even talked at all to my partners in Texas. All I know is that we have our own separate sections to do and we are going to do them by ourselves. They have their questions and I have mine. Everything is really organized, so that’s good, but some of the questions are hard to understand. Like the whole section I have to do, the candidates stances section, some of the questions I have to answer require the answers from my partner’s questions, so I have to wait for their answers to do my answer. And honestly, I’m not sure my partners have even done their part of the project and I’m not sure if they’re even going to do it because they were thinking about dropping the class. But it doesn’t matter to me because it’s graded on what we do individually. And I feel pretty confident that I’ll get it done on time. I just finished my personal response; all I have left to do is answer my questions.
As for my second post on this project, I have gained considerable progress with my group as of recently. We assigned specific sections for each person to handle and we will all collaborate our findings together on Sunday Oct. 19th. I have received the first question of the packet about all of presidential and VP’s backgrounds. So far my research is coming together pretty well. Finding each persons educational level and political experience was pretty quick, but the family and personal background is taking me quite a bit of time. They all have such unique life stories that it takes a lot of time to find all of their information, especially on McCain since he had a very skeptical divorce/remarriage and seven kids-where I also have to find out specific and important details about them. Overall, I am making good progress with my section and I hope the rest of my group is too. As for the candidate’s stances, in AZ we still predict the state to go towards McCain with the issues of Economy, Immigration, and Environment. In NC i predict Obama will win the state as he is doing very well in the polls currently, focusing on the issues of the Economy, Health Care, and Oil.
Project Post 2:
I’m getting increasingly frustrated with this project. The people in my group are all nice, but Virginia is proving to be extremely flakey. In the time that we have had this project to do (something around a month) I’ve heard from my partners in Virginia maybe three times. Texas is better at connecting with us, but still fails to keep updated. They check the wiki site maybe.. two times a week. Maybe I’m asking a lot, but our project deadline is coming up fast, and our project organization has hit some road bumps and we need to communicate and figure it out. I called both Virginia and Texas today in order to talk to them and try to finish this. I left both a message, and I haven’t heard back from either of them. Really, what else am I supposed to do? I don’t like this project, and it’s hard to work on a project when you can’t even get in touch with them. Don’t get me wrong though, all my group members seem like great people, just I don’t want to do this project with them. I would much prefer we did this with just our school. It would save a huge headache on all of us.
Now that I am about halfway done with my part of our project, I think it is going pretty well. Some days it gets confusing trying to contact everything with information and it almost seems that we have a new group member posting on the Wiki daily, but so far the actual research and work has been fun. It’s interesting to go into detail about the candidates and really think about their opinions and views.
Well, no setbacks so far. I haven’t really done anything that would put me in front of a setback, so I guess number of setbacks is no indicator of the project yet. The personal summaries were rather fun, actually. I’m more or less clinically insane, so getting to put my opinions down on paper just gives a judge evidence to put me in a straightjacket for life, or so I’m told. I think, whether or not there are more election projects to come for other classes, they should have to do personal summaries. It really makes you think about what you believe in. It takes all of the people who say that they don’t follow politics or they don’t care and it makes them take a look at themselves. They can’t just claim apathy and not care about things that should matter. It probably doesn’t have this effect on everyone, or, possibly, anyone else, but the personal summaries kind of incited me. It really makes me want national referendums, initiatives, and recalls. I think that’s fair. On an entirely different note, I changed my mind about the national election numbers. Barack Obama is now going to win 364 to 174. It’s really only the Electoral College count that has been fluctuating. My popular vote count has mostly kept true.
Mid-Project Blog: Well, it seems that everyone in our group is pulling their own weight, so I’m actually really enjoying this project. It’s crazy to believe that Obama is ahead by like 13 points in the polls, but not so crazy in reality with the current economic situation. When Clarin and I were working on our portion of the project, we found that McCain had much more information for the experience section than Obama (typical), and McCain also had more children. But I’m sure everyone already knows this since each group has to do all three parts of the project collectively. I no longer find myself frustrated by the lack of communication between students in different states since our thread is updated almost daily. With seven members in our group, I’d say that the workload was distributed pretty evenly. Hopefully nothing crazy happens such as the other students in other states slacking on their parts. I’ve read on some of these blogs that basic internet connection is a major problem affecting group communication. Thankfully, we’ve been able to smooth things out now. I look forward to putting all the pieces together. This project has turned out to be more fun than I ever thought it would be.
I think that this project is a pretty good way to encourage us to become more informed about this election. It has been fun focusing on states other than Washington. Our group got off to a fairly slow start, but at this point I feel like we are all on the same page and pulling our own weight. I have to admit, the whole Wiki thing is a little bit confusing. I have issues with technology, and it took me awhile to figure it out. Especially early on, it would have been helpful if we could have all talked to each other in person. We finally had someone offer to take charge and assign tasks, and that was very helpful. However, because everything is divided, I feel sort of disconnected from the group. It feels like we are all doing our own thing, and we are only really learning about the sections that we were assigned. I have been working on state backgrounds, and it is interesting to see how voter turnout has varied over the past several elections. I was also surprised by the fact that both of my states, Pennsylvania and Indiana, have lost significance in the electoral college.
Mid-project post.
So we have made it to the point where everything is slowly coming together. My part includes researching the topic abortion and part of section three. So far, I have been able to finish abortion and now I’m moving on to the other part later today. We all really didn’t know what to do until david finally took the lead and split out the parts. It is a bit confusing that we all have different due dates to the project, but if I’m not mistaken they have to turn in there individual parts on Monday as well. I have to say that this project is fairly easy in the sense of the material and research, but it’s hard to stay in touch and keep things going when there is so many other things that we have to do for this class and other AP classes. However, I do enjoy the concept of discussing these issues, especially the ones I’m not so familiar with, and working on it with people from different states. We decided not to use email and just stick with discussing things through the thread because it’s much easier to see what everyone has to say. Our predictions and mine stand strong as they did before and it will be interesting to see if something changes and we are wrong.
Mid-project post:
My research is being conducted on the topic of John McCain’s personal background (#1 on the rubric). Most of the information I’ve collected thus far I’ve already known because of his book I read over the summer. He graduated from the Naval Academy, went to Vietnam and got shot down, remained there as a POW for 5½ years, and then retired from the Navy. After his time in the military, McCain ran for the House of Representatives. He remained there from 1983-1986. In 1986, McCain was elected Senator for the state of Arizona, where he still holds that job today. I’ve also learned much about his personal life, including his extramarital affairs in the late 1970’s (which cost him his first marriage). Also, I thought McCain only had four children, when in reality he has seven (three are adopted however). Small information like this is fascinating to me. It is extremely important that all Americans research both candidates not only on their policies but also their personal lives to get a clearer picture on whom they will vote for. As the election is a mere two weeks away, we are on the home stretch. This is the most important time to look at both candidates and decide for ourselves which ones would better serve as president.
Mid-Project Post:
My research is over parts A and C in section 3 of the project. Researching for the candidate’s stances has proven more challenging than I thought. I’ve been primarily using the candidates’ website to find their positions and that has been the challenging part. Barack Obama’s website is actually well organized, with his views and plans outlined in bullet format. McCain’s website is primarily my research issue. It isn’t very well organized to tell you what he wants to do in a quick way, because it is in paragraph format. I also am struggling to find out who the large donors (part C) are for the candidates, because I don’t know where that kind of information would be disclosed. Other than that, my main concern is still about how effectively we can transfer the data from one group to another. My fears over how effective the communication can be so far appear to be groundless. The wiki site is fine, but it isn’t really as effective as other methods. Exchanging phone numbers, I think, would be better overall for the project than just the wiki site. My group didn’t do that, but I don’t think it will affect the results.
This project has been really confusing. Initial confusion aside, it has been difficult to contact people to get work assigned and to divide stuff up because no one in our group would take charge and tell people what to do. This is not anyone’s fault but at the same time I probably should have stepped up to assign stuff. Has this happened to anyone else I wonder?? We haven’t had any problems getting information. I volunteered to put the presentation together, so I didn’t get as much research as everyone else. I kind of feel like I have been nagging everyone and Chase from Texas has been to. We kind of got stuff going and he has been a valuable partner. The other two have made contributions but they haven’t been as active as me or Chase. Over all, I haven’t liked this project much. It has been confusing and hassling and tiring all at the same time. It’s a good idea but I think people need to take more responsibility and be able to get things done. The tentative due dates haven’t been helpful either. I’m still not sure when the presentation is due or how that is going to work if we have partners in 2nd or 4th period. If anyone could answer these last two questions for me that would be great.
So this whole project was a pain. Not only was the wiki confusing (for some people)but the group we were paired with decided to organize in Texas and not on the wiki. So the three of us from Washington were out of the loop and we didn’t even know what they had done or agreed to even when Bruce and I repeated pleaded for some information as to what was going on. While we may have learned some things about the candidates and the states I was put in charge of researching statistics so I did not learn much except from what I learned about the candidates from the individual statements. So I think this project needs some major revamping. If this project is to survive groups like this it needs to just be the individual statements and maybe one partner in a different state so that it is much easier to organize and simply lower the workload so that it does not overload the groups.
Mid Project Post-
With this project coming to it final parts, it seems like it may be hard to put together. Again, the time zone difference of 3 hours makes it difficult to talk with one another. I like having so many people in the project though because it does make the workload so much easier. Both Cycle and I did what we were given, and it was pretty easy to do all of it. One concern of mine is that the due date seems to be different for us than it is for the Texas group. One of my partners said that their power point is due on Tuesday, when I believe ours is due on Thursday. I guess with that sudden information that I learned today, the project seems to be put on a stress level because the Texas people just told me that we have to have it put together in 1 more day. Some people don’t seem to be doing the work. One of the Texas kids said that they have like half of the stuff that they have to do. I’m hoping that he mean that he has done the half that he and the other kid split up and not just half of what he was suppose to do. I don’t know, the whole communication thing is kind of a drag.
Mid-Project Post:
This project does seem to be getting more frustrating as it goes on. It is hard to get 7 people altogether on the same page as to what is going on. (Especially over the Internet and with three different states going on.) Some of the people don’t even get on the WIKI site, and other people talk for them on the site. So that is kind of annoying. It is hard to get in contact with these people so that they can have a say in what parts they have done or haven’t done. Sometimes I just wish we could be doing this project within our own school. It would be much easier to get on people and tell them to do their stuff and to work together more. It turns out that the project itself (at least my part) was not that hard. Rachel and I worked together and got it done fairly fast. The information was much easier to find then I thought it was going to be. And I actually learned something new about each of the candidates, (who would have thought!!) All this said, I am still looking forward to getting this project done with and putting it all together as a whole.
Election Project Post #2:
First of all, Austin, will you please stop calling me “Cycle”? (Just playing, but really…)
Anyways, this project seems like mostly busywork to me. No offence Kautzman. The portion that I had to do was basically finding the voter registration numbers and explaining why they numbers changed in the elections. Most of what I did seemed to be research that was just running around getting numbers from various sites.
Also, I had the section on the demographics of the states, which also had me just picking numbers off of the internet. This was somewhat more beneficial because I had more of a sense as to what was going on in each state, like the numerous military bases in Virginia, or the composition of the Illinois electorate.
The most beneficial part that I did was the research on the candidates. Just a brief overview of their policies and background, which helped me get more of a feeling as to who the candidates really are. Learning about McCain did not exactly make me a Republican, but I have a little more understanding of what he has gone through.
Communication was not so good. On the “wiki” it was very hard to communicate directly since there were about 12-hour differences between questions and responses. Maybe it would be easier if we would have all been in the same time zone and all been on the same page, but we still got what we needed to get done accomplished.
I did not enjoy working with people in other states or even trying to work with some of the people here in Washington. While I believe the project was certainly worthwhile, the structure, at least in my group, left much to be desired. It should have been easy enough to split up the work, but the time zone issue caused me to stay online most of the evening merely hoping that my group would show up some day. When they did get online, I noticed that while it was still a reasonable hour in my time zone, it was nearly midnight in theirs. I would have preferred that this project be conducted in a more professional manner with a bit more organization. I’m sure that my group members are nice people, but I do not think they are the type of people that I would like to work with again. This project should have been a lot less stressful than it was. The information was amazingly easy to access, but the organization within the group was a lot more stressful than it should have been. If this project was to be done again, it should be done with students that are a little more on the ball.
Mid-Project Post:
This Election 2008 project has been very confusing.
My partners from Texas have different requirements and different due dates than we do. They recently asked me to make a few slides of a PowerPoint, and I did so, thinking we had to turn in our own PowerPoint on our due date. I later figured out that we have no “final draft” of our project, and that all we have to do is provide information and research for them to make their own final project. So, I was confused on what we actually had to do for the project. It is beginning to seem less like a project and more a research assignment with no specific requirements. The whole thing would be easier if we all had the exact same assignment with the exact same due dates.
Also, since posting my pre-project thoughts, the wiki has become easier to use, but it remains very inconvenient. The project moves very slowly because it takes forever to hear back from a partner in a different state. It’s hard to designate a specific time of day where we can all get on and answer each other’s questions when we all live in different time zones.
I am quite frustrated right now because there is someone who just re-came online on Sunday and said they were ready to work. He claimed that it was due to his enrollment in three AP classes that prohibited him from being able to keep in touch with us. I informed him that I am enrolled in 4 AP classes and a college in high school course and I was still able to stay in touch AND get my work done on time. I like this project in regards to the fact that it links us with other states and is out of the ordinary. I am looking forward to seeing what my partners look like and how they act in real life. Internet can be so deceiving because it does not always portray the feelings of the writer correctly. I am kind of confused as to how we post our work. I could not add a file so I e-mailed our state’s work to one of the fellows but Averge247…something or other… refuses to respond to any of the messages I send him asking for his e-mail. He seems to me to be the aloof, “I think I am better than all of you and you don’t even deserve to be on the same internet as me,” type. Because he lacks the judgment to bestow his all powerful e-mail address to me, I have copy and pasted ALL of our work on our thread. I hope that works for him!
The project actually went smoothly for my group and I wasn’t really expecting to go smooth. After I sat down and did the work, I realized it wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. The only thing difficult was doing the research and I had a lot of things to research. But I finished the project on time and I did the best job I could do. The only thing I would do differently would probably be giving myself more time to do my part because I didn’t realize that I had a lot to do and I probably could have given more thorough answers. And not all of my partners finished their part of the project. I’m not even sure if one of my partners in Texas is even in the class anymore because she said she was going to drop the class and she never gave us her e-mail address but my other partner e-mailed me what she had done yesterday. This was actually the first time we communicated throughout the whole project which wasn’t a bad thing because we never needed to communicate. And we never made a PowerPoint but that’s ok. For some people, this project was really difficult because of they couldn’t agree with their partners and had trouble dividing up the project. I’m glad my group wasn’t like that, we finished everything just fine, we had no problems dividing it up which made it easier to get the project done and we had no problems with each other.
Post-Project Blog:
So Clarin and I turned in our project part on Monday, and we felt pretty accomplished. Even though our only responsibility was to cover the backgrounds of each candidate, I learned much more than I had anticipated to. I almost couldn’t believe that McCain has so many children (many from individual adoptions). We weren’t surprised when McCain’s experience section was much more detailed than Obama’s. However, it took us a while to find education information for McCain, since most of his early life revolved around the services. Overall, I really enjoyed working on this project with all the other students. The biggest roadblock was simple communication between the states. Everyone did their respective parts (as far as I know), but busy schedules kept us from linking up on a daily basis (which would have helped greatly). In the beginning of the project, it was difficult to simply start the busy work because we lacked a critical leadership role. All members suggested possible topics to cover, but for a while no one stepped up to take charge. Thank goodness that Clarin decided to assume the leadership role. I used to think that we were all afraid to take charge, but as I look back now, I realize that it was simply the issue of time management that was keeping us from working out the initial kinks. Thanks to both of my group partners, Clarin and Jordan, for making this project interesting and amusing at the same time.
Post Project:
I really liked the fundamentals of this project. Researching the candidates and analyzing your own personal opinions on the issues is quite helpful. It would be even better if I could actually vote. Researching how states might swing in an election is also very interesting. I think this project would have been much better if we were just working with people from our school. I know everyone has been complaining about the frustration of communicating with the students from other states, but it is true. It was just too complicated trying to divide up the work and getting everyone in the group to keep up with participation of posting. Another note about this project: I feel like since there were so many people in my group I didn’t really get to learn about all the pieces of the project. When researching, one learns so much about a topic and even though it is more work, more knowledge is gained. Since we didn’t do the presentations we didn’t get the chance to learn about everyone else’s states and how they usually swing. If I had to rate this project on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being highest) I would give it a 5/6.
I don’t know if this can really be considered a mid-project blog or a post project blog anymore, so I guess I’m kind of combining them. Throughout this project, I have felt very uninformed when it came to due dates and specific criteria we were supposed to have with our research. For example, I had no idea that we were even supposed to cite our research until the day after I turned it in, let alone know that I was supposed to put in inside of my research. Maybe I just missed it, but I’m pretty sure nothing was ever mentioned in my class about it.
In the beginning, I was hopeful that this project would go well, and I actually led myself to believe it would. From what Mr. Kautzman had told us about it, it really sounded neat. However, I am starting to realize that my hopes were nothing like the reality and this project is beginning to be a mess. Besides finally stepping up and putting the powerpoint together, Virginia has not been any help whatsoever. It was incredibly hard to even get them to post on the site. I found my partners from Texas to be quite helpful when it came to setting things up (it could be, perhaps, because their teacher was the one who set this whole thing up), and I wish I could thank them because, besides Kyle (who I also would like to thank), they were the only people who even tried to contact me to tell me what was going on. However, I still don’t really completely understand what is going on. Are we supposed to show this powerpoint to the class or has it just become a lost cause? Is anything even going to follow us turning in the work we have done? What I turned in looks pathetic compared to what other people did, and I’m afraid that I’m going to get graded down for it, even though it was the only thing I was assigned to do within my group. There were countless problems with this project, and I hope that future classes do not have to go through the same confusion and misery that I have felt. If anyone in my group felt that I wasn’t much of a help, I apologize. Being as uninformed as I felt I was, it was really hard to keep up.
Overall I actually enjoyed this project a lot more than I thought that I would. I forgot about doing these blogs about it which kind of hurt my grade, but I am pretty sure that I got the rest done. I liked doing this project because it helped me understand the differences between the two candidates a lot more in depth. I learned about the differences in their policies; which ones are important to them and which ones not so important, and where they stand on these issues. I do think, however, that the project would have been easier to do and could have gotten finished a lot more quickly if we had just been put into groups in our own school from different classes. It was hard to do on the wiki site because it seemed like no one was ever logged on when you were, and if you needed to communicate with someone quickly you had to email them anyways. If it had been just between the students at our school I think that dividing up the project and making sure that everyone was getting their part done would have been a lot easier, and if you had trouble with a part that had been assigned to you it would be a lot easier to get someone else’s opinion on because you would have been able to just ask them when you saw them at school. I do think that this was a valuable use of our time though, and I hope that we will eventually be able to see the finished product with all of the parts of the project put together.
Post Project:
I did not find this project beneficial for the most part. I thought that the idea behind it was a good one but the wiki site was not easy to work through and the lack of direct instruction as to what exactly we were supposed to do with it and when it was due wasn’t helpful either. All the groups should have been working within the same parameters and had the same due dates etc. I think the project also would have been better if it had just been a group project between class periods because then an actual cohesive presentation could have been created and there would have been much less confusion I think. There was also a lot of the project that seemed very redundant between groups, mainly the research of the candidates. Perhaps one group shouldn’t have had states to research they should have had the candidates to research and then everyone would have the same information about the candidates and not be at a disadvantage because their group member in charge of candidate background did a lousy job researching and compiling information. In my opinion this project would be much better without the distance learning aspect with some other adjustments to the division of work and the information required within the presentation.
This project actually turned out to be much easier than I thought. Initially, people were not communicating well and not getting on the WIKI site. But once the deadline started creeping up on us, everybody became a lot more outgoing and open to other people’s ideas. No longer were people arguing about what we should do, they just did it and were not reluctant. Some of the other students from the other states decided that they would do the PowerPoint, which turned out to be much help. This took a lot of worrying if things were going to get done, off of my shoulders. Luckily I was not scrambling around trying to get things done last minute that other people were supposed to do, but didn’t. That was one of my main worries going into this project, and I am glad to see that didn’t happen. One of my main criticisms about this project is yet again, the communication. Although everything turned out okay, during the process of this whole thing, communication became increasingly hard. Altogether though, everybody ended up doing their part, (thank goodness) everybody worked well together, and nobody was overly mean, besides a few strange comments on my email.
Post Project-
I must say, I am very excited that this project is over even though it was not a terribly difficult project. For me, doing a project with other states was more work than the actual project. Leadership, partially my fault, was not there and when trying to take charge responses were limited to more information for the project. Information is good, but random information without answering a specific question was difficult. When at first I posted the questions I would take, I got no response. After a while another person from one of the other states told each state what they were going to do. Matt and I happened to get the candidates and then people started talking saying Washington has the easiest part. So then it was decided we would help them any way we could. Unfortunately they wanted help on the power point which they didn’t send or comment on. I also don’t think I learned really anything except about what I did. I liked the idea and project, but I could have gotten more out of it if there were three people in a group from the same school. Working with multiple states cuts back on the communication line.
Mid Project Post:
The project was really confusing and hard to coordinate. We were kind of on the same page with our group in Texas, but our Virginia group didn’t give any sort of feedback or suggestions until it was already too late in the project to change anything. Perhaps if we had had more time on the project, and we knew our groups in advanced, it would have gone a bit better. But it just felt as though we were all just thrust into this assignment without any sort of knowledge about the others in our group. Also, the varying times made it difficult for affective communication from one another. That made working on the project especially hard because no one knew for a while exactly what they were working on or how the project was divided amongst everyone. Then when we finally got through assigning parts to people, there were complaints that it wasn’t done fairly, even though two of the three states agreed it. In the end, though, the project was pretty cool. It was a good way to learn about the candidates and their plans for the future. The only thing that really hindered the assignment was the lack of good communication between all the parties involved.
This project has definitely been confusing. It seemed like I had no idea what to do until the last moment. I also had a terribly long section where I had to cover 3 of the candidate’s main policies for each of my states. I am actually glad I had this section, and was required to do this work. I learned a great deal of in depth information on not only McCain’s policies but also Obama’s. I did not know a terrible amount about either candidate’s economic policy but know I feel like I know a great deal. Of course reading page after page of plans for money was not the most exciting thing but I feel it was important for me to know. My partners seemed to care about the project and did a very good job from my perspective so I have nothing negative to say about them. Everyone got his or her work done to my knowledge as well. So all and all I suppose this was a good project for me. I learned quite a bit and I think I did a very thorough and good job on my portion, so helpfully it will help my grade. If not maybe I Hamilton in your pocket will persuade you.
I liked the idea of researching states and candidates, but I thought it should have been done differently. First, and foremost, I didn’t like working with people in different states. The only thing the Wiki site did for the project was make it more confusing. I also think it should have been an individual project. The reason for this is because, once the project was divided up among every person in the group, I had about 1/6 of the project to do. I wasn’t held accountable to know anything about state backgrounds or candidate’s stances on certain issues. If this had to be a group project it should have been encouraged that the group actually work together and be confined to the hallways of Mt. Spokane High school. I feel like it wasn’t really a project, just fragment of a project. To sum up, I thought it was more stress than was worth it because i didn’t come out being more knowledgable.
This project was okay but quite inconvenient. My group, for the most part, got their work done but posting our work onto the wiki was difficult. I would have just e-mailed it to my partners but they did not supply me with that luxury. The project was pretty simple and did not take that much work as long as everyone did there part. We had one person get on extremely late but I think he finished his work. I do find it odd that we Washingtonians did not have to see the finished project. It almost makes me feel like I did someone else’s project for them. I thought Mr. Kautzman had said we might be able to see their presentations. I hope we do. I will be nice to hear the others’ research and place faces to names. Overall, I did not care much for the project. I am also not one who likes to do group projects. I like to know what is being done when and how and help others get theirs done if they need it. I couldn’t do that as much over the internet. If we did a period to period project that would be fine, but this one did not work well.
I have to admit that after we turned in our assignments, I have not got on to the wiki site at all. It was kind of difficult to get everyone on the same page with the time differences and with everyone having some troubles getting to their computers every day to check on things. So all of our progress was rather slow and in the end, people just claimed a portion of the project, posted their claim, and went ahead and did it. I was the first person to claim a portion, and left the rest of it up to the group as for what they were going to do, because I was semi-frustrated with the lack of communication and lack of quick, substantial decisions. From my portion, about the candidates and their backgrounds, I learned a lot. The most interesting aspects of the candidates to me were their education and their families. For instance, I cannot completely label Palen to be as stupid as I thought. She went to several universities including U of I, and Hawaii Pacific. I also was most interested in the family lives: McCain adopted several children and has a very sketchy divorce that makes it look like his second wife Cindy is purely a trophy wife; Obama grew up with a strange childhood around the world (mainly Hawaii and Jakarta); Palin gave all of her children very strange names, has a pregnant daughter, and a down syndrome son who is named after a snowmobiling track; and lastly, Biden had a very unfortunate affair with the death of his first wife one week before Christmas, lost his 13 month old daughter, but remarried and still has his 2 sons. This information gave me better insight on the candidates and may possibly explain some of their policies that they believe in since they have had all of this experience.
This project was very confusing – not because the project itself was difficult, but the process of coordinating with people from different states with a significant time difference was hard. The whole process would’ve been significantly easier if our group from Virginia actually communicated with us and provided input. They failed to ask questions, failed to clarify anything, and didn’t start getting involved until the day before their project was due. Our group from Texas, on the other hand, proved to be very cooperative. They were very involved and made an effort to communicate with us. They also told me they had problems with Virginia. Additionally, I would really like to see the actual completed project. Our group from Texas was really excited to show us, and they were disappointed when we didn’t get to see it. Though the project itself wasn’t difficult, I think it would be rewarding to see our finished product. I just wanted to add that it doesn’t really seem fair that Virginia and Texas had to do projects while we didn’t. I know it would’ve included more work for us to do, but it seems like this project seemed like a lot more work on their part.
To be honest, I really disliked this assignment. Technology is annoying, and it was really hard to figure out what we were supposed to be doing. It was a really cool idea to group us with people living across the country, but it was pretty difficult to communicate and share information quickly. In general, I am not a big fan of group projects. The fact that we were unable to talk directly with most of our group members made things even more complicated. I also felt like every individual in our group was pretty isolated from the other members. We each took care of our own sections and never really discussed or looked at anyone else’s. Although it would have been a lot of work, I feel like it might have been more useful to make the assignment a bit smaller and have us each complete all parts, either on our own or in local groups. The idea behind the assignment was really great, but overall I feel like the project was not very useful. The one part of the assignment that I definitely feel should be carried into following years is the personal summary section. That section provided a great opportunity for us to really take a position on several different issues.
I personally liked the project. I got to learn more in depth about candidates and their opinions on the issues that everyone is concerned about. It really made me feel more involved in the campaigns of the candidates by knowing how they act in situations and their future plans. This project would have been better if our group was just those who went to our school. Working with people from other states just seemed to complicate things. I was not really contacted by the other members of my group except those in the class. That just made it harder especially because our group had 7 people and I was not informed by the person i was supposed to split one section with. Overall though, I found this project to be interesting it just needs a few adjustments.
The project didn’t seem to be a worthwhile experience. As a whole, it was not organized well, I didn’t learn very much, and communication was difficult. I think the project would have been way better and educational if we had only worked with our classes. I still do not see the whole point of working with people from other places. It just added more stress the project. I did not think that the wiki site was bad to work with though. I didn’t have a problems with it. Overall, I do not think that it was even a complete project. I feel like we only did a piece of it, and not that I mind less work, it just seemed inconclusive. I also felt like I made it more difficult for the other states because they still had to do a power point and we did not. It doesn’t seem fair to the other states to change our plan. (Again, I don’t mind not doing it, I just think that the other states were unhappy with the project as well.) I would recommend against doing the multi-state project in future years because more could be learned by doing it only in our school.
End of project assessment:
Personally, this project was kind of annoying. It was pretty hard to get everyone in the group on the same page throughout the project, since we lived in different places, and we had different views on what needed to be done by every person. The project itself was not bad, since we only had to do about one fourth of it each. Looking back on the project, I wish I would have taken more of an initiative and tried to direct the preparation of the project more, it seemed like Austin and I were just delegated a part to do and that was that. Also, we did the most redundant thing by everyone doing the very first part about the candidates, so we had all six parts of our project having some form of that when we turned it in. This project was also pretty informative, as I learned a whole bunch of stuff about a definite “swing-state” in Virginia, and I learned why it would be likely to vote for McCain and hesitant to vote for Obama, since it has been Republican lately, and has military bases, and the composition of the population (economically and ethnically) shows McCain might have an edge.
With the project now at a close, it did not really seem all that hard looking back on it. With having so many people in each group, you didn’t really end up having to do all that much work. With that said, I also thought that I didn’t really learn as much as I could have if I had done the entire project because the parts that I did not do, I didn’t really even look at or learn about. The project seemed to come to a close really fast. We didn’t have a PowerPoint that we had to present like the other classes, which was interesting and kind of made the project confusing because when it was the due date I didn’t really know what we had to turn in. Over all I liked the project cause, while it seemed like it would be hard and take a while, it turned out to be pretty easy and easy to find research material. Thank God for Wikipedia and Google. I guess I was a little concerned and mad that we didn’t present the final project, I am happy that we didn’t cause I think that it would have been hard having to try to put together my partners’ information because I probably would not understand it unless I did the research myself.
I didn’t mind this project until I actually started working on it. Then I did not like it. I was supposed to find out about the different commercials the candidates used that connected to my states’ issues. So I watched every single campaign commercial on the candidates’ websites. These commercials were numerous. They were also full of it. You would not believe the propaganda-esque commercials. Therefore, I spent several hours hearing bilge spouted against the other candidate. So few of the commercials were about the policies the candidate in question actually held. I would not wish this on anyone. I know we never really used a powerpoint, but one girl from Virginia made one. She did a really great job. Here’s the other problem for my group at least: Texas and Virginia did way better jobs than we did. We got stuff on the wiki site to them late, or not at all. They did all the heavy lifting and we just sat back and watched. It’s too hard to coordinate amongst different states. We should have gotten slammed for not working as hard as they did. There’s no justice. Everything’s together now, but I’m sure they were stressed out over the fact that we weren’t logging on or posting. Poor kids. What’s done is done. But I don’t think it should be done again.
Post three:
I actually liked the idea of what the project presented with the research and doing it with students from other states. However, I feel as though the work could have been individual, because the only thing we did as a group was split the project up. I also thought we were doing a powerpoint and I’m not sure why we decided to not continue with it. As much as I don’t really like the WIKI site, logging in and stuff, it was an effective site because the thread made it easier for us to see what everyone in our group has said and done. I do have to say through my research I feel more informed about the candidate’s stances as well as the way our states voted. I have to say though that sending my stuff off to someone I didn’t know made me hesitant because I am use to being in control and making sure everything is good and on time. I think maybe next year for this project it would be interesting to have like a debate or something in between states on different issues. The way technology is increasing gives projects like these a variety of opportunities and we had the best one with the election taking place right now.
Post-project post-
Reflecting on this project I actually found only one thing that could have been done to make it better: A better way to get in touch with the people in our groups. The Wiki wasn’t that great and we had problems communicating with our partners in Texas. I think part of the problem may have been the time zones but not as much as getting in touch with one another and knowing what each person was doing.
Other then this minor detail, I found the project to be very enjoyable. The personal summaries really helped me figure out my party preference and how I feel about some difficult issues. And finding out how other states might vote based on issues that were important to each state was really interesting. I think it’s good to find out what is going on in other states rather then just paying attention to your own state or the nation as a whole. Overall the project had its ups and downs and there are some things that could be improved on. But the things that need improving can only be improved be doing the project a couple of times so we will see if it works out the next time the Gov classes do something like this
Well, my initial thought is it would have been a lot easier if I had any computer knowledge at all. Getting onto the site was no problem at all, thank goodness, but once I was on I had a hard time figuring out all of the discussion threads, assignments, and different pages in general. And to find the discussion thread relating to only my states was kind of a nightmare, having to scroll through a million entries. Honestly, I missed several of my group’s updates just because I had accidentally skipped over them! My group kind of messed up from the start. Instead of splitting up the work evenly, clearly stating what each of us was assigned to do, we all just picked something that looked interesting and started working on it. So to this day I don’t know what our project in its entirety looked like and who exactly did what. However, I acually enjoyed doing the personal summaries and having my opinions clearly stated on paper. I was able to look up some issues that I hadn’t had a clear opinion on and found it interesting to see which candidate was more in line with my personal opinions. In all, this was a good experience personally but could have been better as a group.
Final dying thoughts,
I thought this election project was a neat idea but with several setbacks. As the guinea pigs, we kind of got all the mess ups and glory, but with working out a few kinks and maybe a few years down the road, this could be really influential and helpful! It was really hard not having the partners in the same state let alone the same class. I think it would have been really helpful if we had at least a good partner in the same period so that we could bounce back and forth ideas. And communicating over the computer is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Servers could have been down, information could not have been sent, emails could have accidentally been missed… All I know is that I’m way old fashioned and really prefer being able to see a person when I do a project with them or a least be able to talk to them personally. But long distance calls or a flight to Texas and Virgina is understandbly out of the question.
The election ‘08 project was interesting to say the least. For a good part of the project I felt pretty confused and behind. The concept itself was a great one in my opinion. My ’so-so’ experience may be attributed to my lack of enthusiasm, or anybody else who was involved in my group (I am not saying there was a lack in overall enthusiasm, but I could have been a bit more enthusiastic). I was partial to the way we, the students, were given the choices of what was done by who. Unfortunately for my group, it took us a while to designate specific jobs; in effect I was confused a good part of the time. I was excited to work with people from across the country; the idea of getting people involved from across the country was smart. I wish I would have taken more advantage of that. Overall I think everything went fine, we all figured out what specific letters and numbers we were in charge of and they were all completed. Next time if I was going to participate in this kind assignment again I would definitely be more prepared and get jobs assigned right away.
Before the project started I did not think that I would like it very much. First off I would much prefer talking to people face-to-face rather than from a distance partly because of the lag time. I foresaw a couple of issues, one the internet. Seeing as how I had dial up I get many issues there are days that it does not work and that I would not be able to coordinate with my partners. The other issue was that if I had uncooperative partners the project would become even more cumbersome. Personally I think that the project would be much better within our school. I am not so good at orchestrating projects and any number of things could go wrong on my end so if none of my partners were to take lead then we could be getting nowhere.
During the project I did have some problems with the wiki site and my internet so I was late on reviving some instructions for what section I should research though fortunately one of my partners had taken the lead and divided up the tasks and all of them were quick to post. Though my slow response probably freaked out the girl who planned everything (she was pretty gun-ho about the project) I got all the stuff too them when they needed it. The information that I had to look for was not too difficult to find though honestly the single fastest place to find everything was Wikipedia though I had to double-check the sources. There were a ridicules amount of conspiracy theories regarding Sarah Palin and her children so sorting through that proved to be the only difficult thing in gathering the information. The states weren’t too difficult to decide which way that they would go especially with the information on 270 to win.
(add to first post)
I did not think that it would be that great of a project but as long as the sections were divided up well enough I knew that it would not be all that difficult either. I was a bit confused on what we would turn in and what was to be posted and whether or not we all had and individual or collective presentation.
(add to second post, soory)
My partners were helpful on that part as well they each had their input on which state they thought would go which way and I believe that we all came to a consensus on our decision looking at each states “track record” and polls.
Over all I think that the project was okay. I think that the best thing would be to do this project only with students in the same school so that we can get together and discuss instead of being from such a long distance I think that it would have allowed for more depth. If we must work with people outside of school (I’m sure some people liked it) there are some things that need to be fixed.
One is the wiki site where we posted all of our information it was a bit confusing at first but even when I got it down I would have liked one place to go to get our assignment and post on instead of several.
One thing I did get out of this is that I did learn quite a bit more about how elections are predicted and polls from trying to predict the outcome of the states ourselves.
Since this project seems to only work during elections in the future I think that it would be productive to research the facts of current issues so that we can learn more about the issues at hand instead of going off preconceived notions.
I would give this project 6.5 out of 10.
Post #2
I thought this project was slightly overdramatized. It actually kind of stressed me out until I realized that the work load was pretty insignificant, and that the simplicity of the material didn’t actually require any higher level thinking. After that, I was good.
My portion of the project involved researching both of the candidates’ relevant experience, i.e. regurgitation their personal resumes. What I learned was actually very interesting: OBAMA HAS MORE EXPERIENCE THAN MCCAIN. Naturally, being the walking liberal stereotype that I am, I was extremely enthused. Truth is wonderful, especially when it reveals contradictions that directly disprove counter stone republican arguments. For your information, and when I say “your”, I really mean republicans; McCain was in the navy, a p.o.w. camp, and then the senate forever and ever. Obama was Director of Developing Communities Project, the editor of The Harvard Law Review (McCain could never do that…not in his wildest dreams), elected president of the Law Review, directed Illinois’ Project Vote from April to October 1992, 1993, joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, chairman of the Illinois Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, and soon to be the president of the United States (hopefully).
Final thoughts; confessions revealed. (Post #3)
First of all, what exactly was the goal of this assignment? What material were we responsible for learning? I, researched a bullet of a bullet…a very small portion compared the entirety of the project. I learned only a portion of this project, which probably isn’t ideal. Therefore, I think the project was a failure. Perhaps it was initially a good idea: collaborating with other states, practically letting the material teach itself; but in actuality, the project just didn’t operate smoothly, and wasn’t beneficial culturally, intellectually, or in any way that poses as an “ally”.
Also, working with other states, though I didn’t really have to deal with them because I wasn’t the “group organizer” (by the way, great job kyle!), seemed like an unnecessary a burden.
Next time, if there is a next time, keep the project local to avoid awkward miscommunications (seemed like there were many of those). However, I am going to take a side here and not advocate for a ‘next time’. I think our time would have been better spent on something else…anything else.
Before: At first, I was really excited to get to know and work with people outside of my class and especially with people in different states. I was kind of nervous though about the project because I do not like group projects and have had bad experiences with them. There was no way for me to argue with my group if they were not doing there part or only doing half of it. Also the whole wiki thing was knew to me, I had never used a blog before and I am not use to the setup of one which made me worry about how well I could adjust to it. There were a lot of questions that I had about blogging, like “How do I post?” “What do I say?” “How will I know who to talk to?”, but I was afraid to ask because I figured that everyone else knew because they did not ask, so it could not be that hard. Overall, my biggest fear was that I had to work with a group that I could not talk directly to and did not know any of them to begin with, so I did not know if they would do their part of the project or not.
During: A lot of my questions turned out to be quite simple and they were answered quite quickly. But not all of them were answered. I learned quickly how the wiki was setup just by playing and searching around the site. While I was searching the site I found a blog and decided to post my information in hopes that the people in my group from the other states would find me and let me know who they were and what was going on because I had basically no idea and did not want to have to worry about finding them. I became nervous when I learned that I did not have a partner in my class to talk to about the project, so I had to find my partner in fourth period. When we finally met up I became even more nervous because nether of us knew what we were doing or even what was going on. Nether of us had posted on our group’s blog because all that the people from the other states were doing was posting random things about McCain and Obama and the states that we were suppose to research. It was not until the last week, when the deadline was close, that the group finally decided to become organized and whipped everything together in one night.
After: After my partner in fourth period and I finish our parts of the research project and turned it in, we thought that we were all done and did not have to worry about it anymore. It turned out that the people in the other states were turning the whole project in and not just the part that they did. I go an e-mail telling me to put my information into a power point. I responded that I wanted a format to follow, but in no reply I just make one up really quick and sent it to one of the people in my group that I go the original e-mail from. I have not heard from anyone in my group after sending the power point so I hope that they liked it. The good part about this whole project, other than the new experience of working with other people from other states that I do not know, was that I learned a little bit that I did not know that I think was good information. I learned that Obama’s VP, Obiden, had a wife and a daughter who died in a car crash. His son was with them and was brutally injured. Obiden was running for a political position at the time and was sworn in at his son’s hospital bed. Now that is something that really made me think when I when and voted. Overall the project was not as bad as I thought it was going to be.