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. Read more

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

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... Read more

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. Read more

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... Read more

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... Read more

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. Read more

We just finished covering Sikhism and talked about how Sikhs would probably have to leave their Kirpans (ceremonial daggers carried by Sikhs) when they went to airports and other government places. Well, Alberta, Canada just announced they will allow Sikhs to wear their kirpans in provincial courthouses. According to this article in the Huffington Post, Alberta is the “provincewide adoption of a uniform policy with respect to the kirpan.” Read more

David Korfhage tweeted this link to Thinglink. Thinglink allows you to tag your images with video, audio, social profiles, and web links. It’s a really cool site with great possibilities for the classroom. I created an assignment for my religions class. We’re beginning a unit on Judaism and the object is for them to annotate pictures and art that represent the development of early Judaism using Thinglink (such as Abraham’s Journey, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, Moses Breaking the Tablets). Once the kids... Read more

In this touching and sad story, Tsering Kyi, a Tibetan refugee who escaped the Chinese in 1999 and fled over the Himalayas to India, and then to America, writes about the death of her nephew. He was the first Tibetan to self-immolate in 2013. He died protesting China’s occupation of Tibet and demanding the return of the Dali Lama to Tibet. Kyi recounts her nephew’s story and tries to come to grips with his death. At one point, she says,... Read more