Check Out the Revamped White House Web Site

As a teacher, I had checked out the White House web site to use as a teaching aid when I taught Social Studies to my special education children. Over the past five years I have taught, I checked the site several times, finding it pretty useless. I had heard rumors that now that we had a new President, the site would be used and would be more open and user friendly. So I clicked a few Internet buttons, and decided to check it out. It is amazing what can occur in a few short weeks once a new administration takes over. The site is now actually fun and very user friendly. Let me explain.

When first clicking on the web site, www.whitehouse.gov, you will find pictures greeting you. You will be greeted with buttons above the pictures with options. You can click on the briefing room, agenda, about the White House, our government or contact us. The most interesting button to click is the briefing room. Any executive orders, proclamations, or memos are listed under Presidential orders. There is an interactive blog that you can sign up for under the briefing tab, and you can check out the weekly Internet address by the President. He is the first President to give a weekly address on the Internet. The Press Releases and press briefings are a rather boring area, but of interest if you want to follow the day to day doings of the white house press core. Presidential Statements are addresses or official comments made at gatherings,events, or signings. As a teacher, I like the Slide show section. It is divided further into public liaison, our history, first family, first lady, and the president. Under our history, you can take your students on a tour of the oval office, or even click through a slide show listing each of our 44 Presidents. Under First Families, there is a cute slide show about White House pets that children will enjoy.

You can also check out the White House's Agenda on almost every topic and see how they plan to achieve their goals. In addition to the revamped White House site, www.whitehouse.gov, the White House also has www.recovery.org, and www.USAservice.org. Www.recovery.org will be used to track the money being dispersed through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Www.USAService.org is an interactive web site where you can sign up for volunteer activities or link up with one already in your zip code.

I suppose it would make perfect sense that we finally have an Internet president. Clinton became President in 1990 when the Internet was just a baby. Bush took office in 98 , but at that time, no one knew how huge it would be. So Barack Obama is rightfully the first one to understand ho to use the Internet and how it can connect people. Whether you are a democrat, republican , Bush or Obama supporter, the fact still remains that the three sites are impressive. If nothing else, you can spend a lot of time getting lost in one of the three sites, and you might even learn a bit along the way about our country and how it is governed.