How to Choose a New Pope

Great short clip on how the Pope is elected. Thanks to teacher, Gary Abrahamian, for tweeting the link. You can find more resources about electing the pope here.

Character Still Alive: Homeless Man Returns Diamond Ring

Found this on the Associated Press. Nice story!

Ultra Orthodox Jews

Finishing up my unit on Judaism with the different branches of Judaism today and showed my kids this excellent seven minute clip about ultra orthodox Jews.

March Madness: Vatican Edition

The religion News Service has its own version of "March Madness" with what it calls the "Sweet Sixteen." Their "Sweet 16" is their best guess who will emerge as top contenders from each continent. You can go the site here and actually vote on who you think will move on to the next round. The Religion News Service says that first-round voting will end on Friday, March 2nd.

Bar Mitzvah Boy Goes Viral

We just went over Jewish practices this week in my religion class so my kids should appreciate this video a little more. It went viral and CNN picked up the video and wrote an interesting story about how it developed. The occasion was the youth's bar mitzvah.  Instead of issuing an invitation, he developed this music video, writing the lyrics for the rap music himself. Of course, not everyone is happy about it. You can read the interesting story here. 

Using Prezi to Study Judaism

Today's lesson was about Judaism, and the activity for the students was to create a Prezi to present what they learned during their research. Here's a link to the assignment, and here is the site they used as research, and finally, here's a terrific example of what one group of students produced. The lesson worked because it allowed the students to use technology to unleash their creativity. My thanks to my colleague, Jeff Feinstein, who sent me link to the site we used to research the topics. 

Preview Files in Google Drive

 

Google Drive now or will shortly allow users to preview files by simply right clicking on the file name. Free Technology for Teachers has a good story and some graphics to show you how to preview the files.  The service will fully roll out over the next couple of days. It's a nice addition to Google docs.

Where does an Ex-Pope Go

Is Ashtanga Yoga Religious Indoctrination?

A group of parents in the Encinitas School District in California believe the practice of this form of yoga which involves breath control and a series of yoga postures, represents religious indoctrination. An elementary school in the Encinitas district allows its students to practice Ashtanga yoga for thirty minutes twice a week. The controversy is interesting. Here is one story about the it and here is another.

The Islam that Hard-liners Hate

 

David Korfhage tweeted this excellent story about Sufism in Pakistan.  Sufism is the most popular form of Islam in Pakistan but the Taliban increased its attacks on Sufism two years ago because it did not feel that Sufis practiced the correct form of Islam. The video embedded in the story is particularly good.

More on ThingLink

I just ran across this ThingLink on classical composers linked to their music on YouTube. Click on the link and you'll see each musician linked to a YouTube video. It's very cool and made me think that this might be a nice project for my religion kids to do on famous religious scholars or religious sites. You can read my original post on ThingLink below.

What Role Should Religion Play In Public Life?

This is an interesting story about the role of religion in public life. The "Religions and Public Life Initiative" at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, recently held a conversation about this topic. You can read the short story about the discussion here and listen to the WUNC radio broadcast report about it. This might be a good story and audio clip for our religion students and could lead to a good discussion.

Jewish Holiday: Purim

The Jewish holiday, Purim, begins next week, 2/22 and continues through 2/25. Chabad.org has everything your students might want to know about the holiday, including the interesting story of Purim and a couple of entertaining clips about the holiday, like the one below.

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Another Great Source for Judaism: Chabad

 

Recently, I wrote about the Center for Online Judaic Studies (COJS) because I liked it so much as a source of early Jewish history.  My colleague, Jeff Feinstein, sent me the link to another excellent site that I find extremely useful in my religion class. Called Chabad, it covers everything from Jewish holidays to Jewish history, to Jewish learning and values.  Sub menus include video clips, essays, and links to other sites. I covered Hasidic Judaism last week and showed a clip from the site in which a rabbi interviews Oprah about a day she spent among Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. Along with Judaism 101, and  COSJ,  Chabad is an excellent source for both teachers and students.

Timeline of World Religions

http://cominganarchy.com/2009/07/09/timeline-of-world-religions-beta/

Here's a nice timeline of the major world religions from a blog called "Coming Anarchy." My thanks to teacher, David Korfhage for tweeting the link.

History of Papal Abdication

Open Culture just posted this podcast from the site, footnoting history, about the history of papal abdication. (it runs about 10 minutes.)

The Next Pope

In this short clip, CNN discusses who might be the next Pope.   And in the article here, religion scholar and professor, Stephen Prothero, suggests that there is little chance that the Church might elect a diversity pope--"Given the strong tilt in the College of Cardinals toward Europe and the United States, I think we are in for another old, white man."

Sources on Judaism

If you're studying Judaism, you might find this site invaluable. It includes primary sources, newspaper articles, artifacts, images, maps, videos, bibliographies, secondary sources and websites. The secondary sources are great. Lawrence H. Schiffman, a professor and writer, wrote most of the secondary material, which is all organized chronologically by time period. Each time period has a short overview, a section on historical background, and usually one on literature and culture. The readings are short enough to copy and use in class for either homework reading assignments or for jigsaw reading.

Religion in the Age of Pluralism: Diana Eck

Professor Eck, who teaches religion at Harvard and runs the Pluralism Project explains why we should study religion and why it is so important in this age of pluralism.

Using Twitter to find and disseminate ideas, lessons

I follow a history teacher, David Korfhage, who originally tweeted a link to the online program ThingLink, which allows you to tag images with video, audio, social profiles, and web links. Today, I went to his original post and replied, thanking him and including a link to a lesson I created using ThingLink. I created the lesson on Google Docs and shortened the Google Docs URL using Tiny URl. Within minutes about 12 people were viewing the document. You can go into Google docs and it shows other viewers.

This is all very cool and a wonderful way for teachers all over the country to find and share ideas, lessons, and thoughts.

Swami Vivekananda Criticizes Christianity in 1893 World Parliament of Religions

In a post on the blog, Religion in America, doctoral student, Michael J. Altman, discusses a fascinating quote made by Swami Vivekananda, whose 150th birthday was marked a few weeks ago. It was Swami Vivekananda's speech that engaged the audience and introduced Hinduism to the West. But it is his observation on Christianity that is fascinating. It is,as Altman notes, anti-Christian, and probably because of that, hidden from the Parliament papers. However, the Chicago Daily  Tribune picked up the story and published it under the title: "Hindoo Criticises Christianity."

“We who come from the East have sat here on the platform day after day and have been told in a patronizing way that we ought to accept Christianity because Christian nations are the most prosperous. We look about us and we see England, the most prosperous Christian nation in the world with her foot on the neck of 250,000,000 of Asiatics. We look back into history and see that the prosperity of Christian Europe began with Spain. Spain’s prosperity began with the invasion of Mexico. Christianity wins its prosperity by cutting the throats of its fellow men. At such a price the Hindoo will not have prosperity."

You Tube Without the Ads

Free technology for Teachers has a story and link to a great Chrome extension called A Cleaner internet. It cleans up every You Tube video of ads. And it works, all automatically I installed it yesterday and all the You Tube videos run without any ads. The extension is a little tricky to install but if you watch the how to video, you should have no trouble. That video is below.