On January 20, 2009 at the same moment that Barack Obama was becoming President of the United States a team of folks was quietly moving into the White House and relaunching the White House's website and now 4 months later the site is quickly becoming one of the best social studies teaching websites on the web.
The site which includes all the usual bells and whistles of a White House website (i.e. presidential history, press room, calendar, photo tours, and biographies) also now has the latest and greatest in Web 2.0 technology. It is important to note and a great learning activity to think about how the President can use the web. Of course President Obama is not the first president to have a website, that honor belongs to President Clinton who launched the first White House website in 1994. Like all good government docuemnts it is not in the National Archives and you can still visit the site via the archives. Take a look with your students, and marvel and the 15 year old web technology.
Just like President Clinton, who was breaking new ground by just having a website President Obama is using web as a tool of government. On the White House website you can:
- Read the White House Blog
- Watch live events or archived video
- Particpate in new Open Government Programs
- Follow the White House on Twitter
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