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. Read more

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.  Read more

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... Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

The Jewish holiday, Purim, begins next week, 2/22 and continues through 2/25. Chabad.orghas 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. . Read more

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... Read more