Technology

I have to thank my insightful 7th grade students!  This is the first time that I have introduced "hands on" blogging to the class in three years with assignments.  I figured that it would save a lot of time/head aches if I posted current events instead of spending time writing them out in every class by hand.  I have to say that I love it.  The student feedback is awesome.  They are actually embrasing the technology and communicating with one another for the first time!  We actually had a few students absent today due to illness and they still submitted their responses!  After communicating with students about any frustrations with the new format...I have found that they love it!  So this is to you 7th grade!  Keep it up...proud of you all! 

12/10 Week's Current Event

CAIRO (AP) — Several hundred Egyptians marched toward the presidential palace in Cairo Sunday to protest the president's decision to keep the referendum on a disputed draft constitution scheduled for next week on time.

The protests were noticeably smaller than other rallies over the past week, possibly reflecting the opposition's bind in the face of the partial concession by President Mohammed Morsi, who agreed to annul his Nov. 22 decrees that gave him near unrestricted powers and immunity from judicial oversight.
Despite scrapping the earlier decree, Morsi stuck to the Dec. 15 referendum on a constitution hurriedly adopted by his Islamist allies during an all-night session late last month.
"This has confused many, who opted to stay home," said Tarek Shalaby, a protester and member of the leftist Revolutionary Socialist group, as he marched toward the palace. "But we should continue our pressure. We can't lose our momentum."
Shalaby said he has still not decided whether he will vote no or boycott the referendum.
The opposition National Salvation Front called on supporters to rally against the referendum. The group is holding a late night meeting Sunday to decide on their next move.
The opposition said Morsi's rescinding of his decrees was an empty gesture because the decrees had already achieved their main aim of ensuring the adoption of the draft constitution. The edicts had barred the courts from dissolving the Constituent Assembly that passed the charter and further neutered the judiciary by making Morsi immune from its oversight.
Still, the lifting of the decrees could persuade many judges to drop their two-week strike to protest what their leaders called Morsi's assault on the judiciary. An end to their strike means they would oversee the referendum as is customary in Egypt.
In his late night announcement, Morsi replaced the scrapped decrees with a new one that doesn't give him unrestricted powers, but allows him to give voters an option if they decide to vote "no" on the disputed draft charter.
In the new decree, if the constitution is rejected, Morsi would call for new elections to select 100-member panel to write a new charter within three months. The new panel would then have up to six months to complete its task, and the president calls for a new referendum with a month.
The process adds about 10 more months to Egypt's raucous transition, but could answer some of the opposition demands of a more representative panel to write the charter, if the elections are not swept by Islamists.
Members of a so-called Alliance of Islamists forces warned it will take all measures to protect "legitimacy" and the president — comments that signal further violence may lie ahead.

Responding to the Blog Current Event!

This is a picture of our World History students collaborative reading and learning how to blog!  The students are now responding to the current event on this page each week.  They are also posting responses on student projects and current events!  They are really bringing the class to life!

World History Current Event 12/4/12

 

(CNN) -- Enrique Pena Nieto was sworn in as Mexico's new president Saturday, returning his party to power and promising to change the country's fight against organized crime.

Pena Nieto belongs to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for more than 70 years before losing the presidency in 2000.

"We are a nation that is going at two different speeds. There's a Mexico of progress and development. But there's another, too, that lives in the past and in poverty," he said during his inaugural address at the National Palace in Mexico City.

"Mexico has not achieved the advances its people demand and deserve," he said.

What Mexico can accomplish for U.S.

Pena Nieto, 46, promised to create economic opportunities and reduce violence. Peace, he said, would be his government's first goal.

More than 60,000 people lost their lives in drug-related violence during the six-year term of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon.

Without jobs and social programs, Pena Nieto has said, millions of people will turn to crime.

Pena Nieto said earlier this week that his security strategy will focus on reducing the drug-related violence, though he provided few specifics about how he would stem the violence or what aspects of Calderon's strategy he will change.

The two men took part in handover ceremonies.

Exactly as scheduled, at 12:01 a.m. local time, Calderon and Pena Nieto walked down the escalators to a patio in the National Palace.

In a ceremony lasting about five minutes, Calderon received the national flag from a military school cadet and immediately handed it to Pena Nieto. The act symbolized the transfer of command of the security forces.

Afterward, both men greeted members of the new Cabinet, then the outgoing Cabinet members.

Minutes later, in a separate ceremony, Pena Nieto conducted the oath of office of the new Security Cabinet, comprised of Miguel Angel Osorio Chong as the head of the Ministry of the Interior, Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda as head of the Ministry of National Defense and Vidal Soberon Sanz as Secretary of the Navy.

Pena Nieto said the new government had taken office "from the first minute of this day."

"A governmental transition has been completed in an orderly, legal and transparent fashion," he said.

"This process has helped to preserve the political stability, economic and social development of the nation. Mexico has shown democratic maturity and institutional strength," he said. "In accordance with Article 83 of the constitution, today I begin to exercise the honorable position of president of the United States of Mexico."

As Pena Nieto was being sworn in, his opponents clashed with police outside Congress. Video showed protesters hurling rocks at metal barriers, as police fired back with tear gas.

Pena Nieto won 38% of the vote in July, besting his closest competitor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who garnered some 32% of the vote and refused to accept the result.

Pena Nieto and Calderon took to social media to commemorate the transition.

"My term ends, but not my commitment to Mexico, which I will continue fighting until the last of my days," Calderon tweeted.

Another of his tweets read: "The handover of the national flag for the change of guard from the president to the president-elect symbolizes the transfer of command."