Today marked the first day of the 2008-2009 school year here at Zurich International School. It was a crazy day, where students rushed from class to class for quick introductions and syllabus distribution, barely having time to learn each teacher’s name before rushing to the next one. But if things were crazy for the students, they were just as crazy for us teachers.

Here’s a summary of the year ahead for me personally at ZIS:

• I have five sections of Economics this year, with a total of 77 students.
• One AP Microeconomics - 17 students
• One Year 1 IB Standard level - 6 students
• One Year 1 IB Higher level - 19 students
• Two Year 2 IB HL/SL classes - 35 students
• My 77 students come from around 30 different countries
• In one IB class I have 16 students from 15 different countries, including: Bulgaria, Greece, Switzerland, Scotland, Italy, South Africa, Germany,
  Guatemala, Finland, Romania, Australia, US, Mexico, England, and India.
• I am joined by two other Econ teachers at ZIS: Joe Hauet and Sarah Goudy, both who have vowed to join this blog as occasional contributors this year.
• I have abandoned paper texts this year, and we will instead use e-book versions of McConnell and Brue’s 17th edition “Economics”. Students all have their own Lenovo tablet PCs, which will allow them to read and take notes digitally.
• This blog will continue to be used as a resource for expanding the learning that goes on in the AP and IB Econ classroom. In addition to the over 140 Econ students here at ZIS, around 70 students will be reading and commenting on the blog from Shanghai American School, where my colleague Michelle Close plans to continue her occasional posts on this blog as well.

With that I will wrap it up for today. It has been a truly long and exciting day here in Zurich. Tomorrow I’ll start with the year 2’s and begin picking up where their last teacher left off, with International Economics, and begin the long trek towards external examinations in May of 2009.

Goodnight, and I’ll see you all in class very soon!

About the author: Jason Welker is a teacher at Zurich International School in Switzerland, where he teaches Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Economics. Jason was an international school student in Malaysia before studying economics at Seattle University then earning his Masters in Education. He calls Seattle and Northern Idaho home. In addition to maintaining an economics wiki and this blog for economics student and educators, Jason also gives presentations on using Web 2.0 tools in education at workshops and conferences around the world. His economics wiki won the 2007 "Best Educational Wiki" award from the "EduBlog Awards".

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