Welcome to My Blog

This is the blog that I will use this year to share what is happening in our American Studies and IB European history classes. Individuals use blogs for various reasons but for me, it is a place to write about the topics, concepts, learning, etc. that goes on in my classes. I will use the Edline online tool mainly to list homework assignments as I feel that it is important for me to model a skill that your students will be performing as they become bloggers writing about their learning, reflecting, understanding of current events, etc for me classes.

I will be introducing myself to my students during class time but for parents here is some information for you before we meet in person. I am married to Margaret Carpenter who is the Lower School librarian. I have two sons- Samuel (grade 8) and Maxwell (grade 6). We are an international family having lived in Central American, Scotland, Europe and Asia. Samuel was born in Saudi Arabia and Maxwell in Panama.

My skills as an educator include teaching social studies/humanities, counseling, instructional technology, and curriculum development. My guiding principle has always been to focus on working with others to develop and facilitate the most meaningful learning possible for my students.

As part of my effort to be a lifelong learner, I have written several articles for magazines as well as being an active blogger at Lessons Learned and U Tech Tips and podcaster as well.

One of the first questions you might have is "what are blogs and why use them?" A blog is an online journal that allows for two way communication. I will write in this blog about what is happening in my classes and you as readers can use the comment tool to share your thoughts, reflections, ideas, etc. We start having a conversation which leads to learning from each other. We begin the process of forming a learning community.

So what is going to happen during our first week of classes? The American Studies and the IB history courses will do similar activities as we get to know each other, set some goals and prepare our technology toolkits for learning.

Questions we will discuss:

Why blog?
Who am I today and who do I want to be in June?
Why study history?
What are skills world citizens and workers need today and in the future?

American Studies:

We will begin our study of the colonization of North America.


IB History:

We will begin our study of the time period between World War I and II. The students read a chapter from Europe 1870 - 1991 over the summer using their analysis and summarization skills to prepare an outline that is due the first week of school.

I look forward to a fantastic year with your children. Please contact me at dcarpenter@cas.ac.ma if you have any questions about my classes.