It’s been close to three years since I last posted here at Critical Voter, during which time I’ve been involved with a number of other educational projects, including my One Year MOOC BA adventure some of you followed over at Degree of Freedom.
But with the 2016 election looming, it seemed time to revisit the ideas and lessons developed when Critical Voter used the 2012 presidential election to teach how election politics can be used to learn the vital critical thinking skills all of us should be using in our daily lives.
Back in ’12, Critical Voter was released as a series of podcasts that served as lectures to accompany a curriculum teachers could use to help them leverage the 2012 election to teach important critical thinking tools such as logic, rhetoric, cognitive science, media- and information-literacy.
As much fun as that project was, as the ’16 campaign kicked into high gear last year, it seemed pretty clear that reasoning skills had yet to go mainstream. Thus the need to update Critical Voter for a new election, and take a second stab at introducing a new approach to politics and learning.
This time around, I decided to turn the principles (and some of the material) created for Critical Voter the podcast, into Critical Voter – the book, which will be available from Amazon (in both print and e-book versions) starting February 1, 2016.
While the new book includes material on the presidential campaign currently underway, it also taps into presidential politics past in order to provide lessons (some of them 2500 years in the making) that I hope transcend any particular election. Podcast fans will notice a fair amount of repurposed material, but synthesizing the lessons of Critical Voter into a single publication also provided the means to put all this information into one convenient package – the book – a format that has yet to lose its appeal as an efficient means of communicating knowledge.
I’ll be posting more about the book release over the course of this week and next, but right now I’d like to ask a favor of anyone reading this who either reviews books or knows someone who does. This can include professional reviewers, book bloggers, or just someone who likes to post reviews on Amazon (where Critical Voter will be first released).
Between now and the Feb. 1 release date, I’m offering free copies of Critical Voter to anyone who falls into those categories. And because my Amazon channel might limit my ebook distribution options after the first of February, I’m hoping to generate as much interest in this free offer during the next two weeks as possible.
If you know anyone who might be interested in obtaining and reviewing a free book, please have them stop by this page to request a copy.
Thanks, and stay tuned for more!