Snag-It for Chrome & Google Drive

This is pretty cool.  I have used Snag-it at school for years, but it is almost a pain as I have to go find it most of the time on my tools and I much prefer to have apps added to Chrome.  Well now I am all set as Snag-it has a Chrome add on that adds each item into your Google Drive account.  It lets you take the entire screen, parts of it and even movies and then annotate them.  Above is a video explaining how to use it. To found about it from TechSmith on Twitter. 

Why are Gas Prices Down?

Here are here are two economics explanations for the decrease in gas this year.  Reason #1 is that US consumption has declined every year since 2007 2) usage always declines in the fall 3) the Middle East is perceived as more stable 4) OPEC is unwilling to reign in production even with plunging world needs 

The Economists' Top 2014 Videos

So the Economist is counting down its 2014 top videos which you can see on Twitter.  The top one above is the 7th most popular and basically says you have 30% less of a chance of getting a job you want if you have a visible tattoo.  The one below show the top GDPs for empires/countries in the last 2000 years.  

Every Term in a 2 Minute Video and Written Explanation

If you were to come to my classroom, you would see my kids hard at work on their smart devices as those allow them to quickly look at their video notes (on Google Drive) as well as look for alternative explanations.  One site I have been using all fall is Investopedia.  Not only does it have most of our terms, but it also has a short explanation as well as a short video.

For example, here is what it has on perfect competition.  

Free Online Micro/Macro Book

I am contemplating not using a physical textbook in AP economics next year as my students have been watching our daily videos and where they are lacking I have been adding supplemental material not to mention my students get out their smartphones in class and use them constantly when they are working on their problem sets.  For that, they both use their notes, which are in Google Drive, and whatever they can find on the Internet be it websites or videos.

But I just received an email from Matt Stefans who told me about OpenStax which has a complete book on economics.  At first glance it looks pretty good as it seems to cover all of the topics, has great graphics and a bunch of questions in each chapter.  It also has a table of contents which you can use to quickly get around the book as well as a search engine to bring you right to your topic.

So now you know what I will be doing in June which is to go through this textbook and see if it covers all the topics necessary as well as if one can find topics quickly enough.  So you know you can get the book as a downloadable pdf as well as see it as a html page which is what I have linked above. 

Ancillaries for the Krughman Book

Thanks to Chris Beales who teaches economics in Egypt.  We "met" on the AP Economics page on Facebook and are collaborating on some review assignments.  But he also told me about Krughman's review materials that are online and can be found here.  They include teacher resources (if you join for free and that only takes 48 hours to get approval) as well as self quizzes and flash cards.   

Falling Ruble, Part II

Here is another post on the problems in Russia.  This NYTimes piece has some great graphics on the falling Ruble, falling oil prices and how this impacts (negatively) the yields on US Treasury bonds.

Items that you might be teaching in macro include

• interest rates
• Treasury bonds
• tighter money supply
• inflation