Parents, Students, Friends, and Family Members-
Welcome to the 2011 school year at Sophie B. Wright, and welcome to American History! I am excited to unveil and develop a new and innovative method of communication that will hopefully make things a bit more transparent, as well as a bit more fun.This blog is a creation that is meant to help students, inform parents and families of weekly happenings in Mr. Warner's classes, and ultimately inspire our students to "go beyond" what is being taught in class by investigating historical AND current events as they relate to what we've been studying!
Remember: learning does not end when you exit the classroom or the school! It is constant!
The characteristics of the time we live in are unprecedented within the course of human history. Our students today have more exposure and easier access to more information than EVER before. What better place to extend our learning than through use of one of the best resources around: the internet.
Now, a few quick key points about this blog itself:
1. This blog is not listed or registered with any search engine. If you are here now and reading this, you've arrived by putting the address in directly yourself.
2. Student names will NEVER be used in order to protect privacy and confidentiality. While I do intend to give praise to classes periodically, as a professional, your child's personal privacy are of the utmost importance to me.
3. This blog is nothing more than just another tool to keep parents informed and cater to student interest. More often than not, there will be extension activities and links to interesting articles or videos that will give students a chance to explore any topics from class they find interesting.
4. Expectations for any assignments found on this blog will be CLEARLY communicated to students before and during any postings. For instance, if their homework for the evening is to click a link to a video, watch the video, and write a handwritten response for discussion the next day, this information will be communicated and reinforced prior to the assignment as well as in the blog! It is a 21st century world; it's about time we caught up with it!
5. Lastly, most items found here will likely qualify as extra credit or are strictly optional. This is truly the point of this space- to inspire students to seek out further information and help them cultivate their interest in a subject they may have found particularly intriguing.
We have a big year ahead of us, and I look forward to the successes to come!
Mr. Warner
