Well, we start the 2008-2009 school year tomorrow and it’s going to be a very exciting year on several fronts:

• First off, in the world of politics we’ll be following a historic and competitive race for the White House and we’ll jump right in with an expected VP pick from Sen. Obama expected by the end of this week and then both major party conventions in the first 3 weeks of the school year.  We’ve adjusted our usual curriculum to focus on this historic election.  We’ll move right into Political Parties, Campaigns and Elections, The Media, Interest Groups, and the Presidency in the first two months of Government.
• Secondly, we’re excited to announce that the CHS Government teachers received a national “Save Our History” grant from The History Channel.  We’re partnering with the Albemarle-Charlottesville Historical Society and the University of Virginia Center for Digital History.  Here’s the brief synopsis of the project from the Save Our History website:

1. Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society

Charlottesville, VA
Partner: Charlottesville High School, Charlottesville City Schools
Description: The Tale of Two Schools: Promoting Community Unity through a Historical Study of School Integration

The Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society will partner with Charlottesville High School government teachers to educate and encourage students to conduct historical research using primary source documents from Charlottesville City Schools’ history. Students will document and preserve the voices of individuals who lived during the turbulent years of desegregation in Charlottesville by collecting oral histories. The final product, hosted by the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society, will be a museum exhibit consisting of oral histories combined with copies of School Board primary source documents, and an online exhibit featuring photos, oral histories and related historical documents.

You may have seen Ms. Lewis on TV discussing this project.

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.  Please let me know if you have any questions about summer work or anything else as we start our year.

- Mr. Daly

Okay, I think we’ve finally made the full leap to WordPress to run the site. The ability to easily add blog posts, links, auto-posts from del.icio.us, and to allow students to subscribe to updates through RSS feeds will hopefully be worth the efforts. At the least, I learned a fair amount about WordPress in the process.

One of the main reasons for the switch is an ambitious plan to have students create review podcasts for AP Government over the next 5 weeks as we prepare for the exam. Hopefully the project will add some fun to the review process, and in the end provide an additional study guide before our exam.

Please bear with any glitches as I attempt to get this new version of mrdaly.com off the ground. Don’t worry, if I get stuck, I plan on asking some of my students for help.