Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom, YULA HS, Los Angeles, CA

Rabbi Etshalom will establish a Tanakh learning center which employs the best in technological advances to enhance integration of various disciplines into study of the Book of Books. This includes web-driven concordance work, mapping, comparison of texts and much more.

Rabbi Tavi Koslowe, Yeshivat Noam, Paramus, NJ

Through the use of mp3 recorders, students will create digital audio portfolios of their reading ability in texts such as Gemara and Chumash.

Ms. Naomi Shenker, The Shlenker School, Houston, TX

The Shlenker School will develop and implement assessment tools to quickly and easily capture authentic speech patterns of students, thereby more effectively meeting the individual instructional need of each student.

Ms. Miriam Gold, The Hebrew Academy, Huntington Beach, CA

As enrichment to Hebrew Academy’s Hebrew language program, this project will bring current events in Israel and around the world to students in Hebrew by way of streaming media in real time. Hebrew Academy students will follow up this activity through discussion about daily living, culture and politics with their alumni living in Israel through web/video conferencing. Ms. Gold will use the technology of smartboard and related computer generated programs to project the media and enhance activities.

Ms. Yael Goldfischer, The Frisch School, Paramus, NJ

Ms. Goldfischer will create and utilize “Smart Ideas” software to map Tanach instruction and create charts and diagrams to establish a sophisticated and interactive learning environment.

Ms. Sheryl Schochet, Talmud Torah of St. Paul Day School, St. Paul, MN

Ms. Schochet will utilize digital video and audio recordings in three ways to enhance Hebrew learning. Her team will construct video portfolios of student progress. They will also digitally link to their Israeli partner school. Finally, digital recordings will be posted on the Talmud Torah website and be accessible for home practice.

Ms. Ilanit Curi-Hoory, Solomon Schechter School of Westchester, White Plains, NY

Da-Tefilla will be an online program using Tefilla text to teach and review decoding and basic Hebrew word comprehension. Students will use visual and audio cues, along with the color code from our Tal Am Hebrew curriculum to decode words. By using Voice Threads , these early elmentary students will be able to access this web site from school or home, so parents can reinforce lessons and learn with their children.

Rabbi Eliezer Kessler, Robert M Beren Academy, Houston, TX

Rabbi Kessler will be creating a series of videos illustrating each of the thirty-nine melachot of Shabbat. Students will see and understand the melachot that are not part of our daily life in the twenty-first century.

Rabbi Avi Bernstein, Moriah School, Englewood, NJ

With a vast variey of academic benefits, voice threads will enable Judaic and Hebrew classroom teachers to advance an array of skills even while the students are not in school, thus enabling them to utilize class time more efficiently.

Ms. Judy Doctoroff, Gray Academy of Jewish Education, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Ms. Judy Doctoroff will be using ipods for students' recordings to enhance their speaking skills (Oral Literacy).

Ms. Janice Odesnik, Donna Klein Jewish Academy, Boca Raton, FL

The Donna Klein team plans to integrate the use of student generated videos and audio recordings into a dynamic, engaging curriculum that best capitalizes on students’ interests and strengths (and learning styles), while allowing for better, differentiated assessment of students’ abilities and comprehension of our Jewish Studies programs.

Rabbi Daniel Rosenberg, Bialik High School, Cote St-Luc, Quebec

Rabbi Rosenberg will arrange an online homework help-line for Hebrew language instruction.

Mr. Jesse Gold, Bialik Hebrew Day School, Toronto, ON

Grade 7 & 8 Jewish Studies students from Bialik HDS in Toronto, Canada will use digital video to explore Jewish history and show how modern day issues have roots in Biblical times.

Ms. Leehe Matalon, Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School, Chicago, IL

Anshe Emet’s Zionism course explores the people and events that realized the dream of creating a Jewish homeland and then tracks the sixty years that followed. The addition of a Promethean board will enable students to understand that history taught with the introduction of the board’s applications that facilitate interactive work with documents, images, maps, videos, sound clips, etc.

Ms. Rochel Berkowitz, Beatrice J. Stone Yavne H.S. for Girls - Hebrew Academy of Cleveland, Beachwood, OH

As a way to revamp the Hebrew cirriculum and offer a unique approach to learning Hebrew in the classroom Ms. Berkowitz will implement weekly classes utilizing the Rosetta Stone method.

Mrs. Ruth Gavish, American Hebrew Academy, Greensboro, NC

Using inexpensive video cameras students will substantially increase their opportunities to practice speaking Hebrew and improve their self assurance by making conversing more involving and fun.

Frisch Integration

The end of the school year has been very busy, as Frisch's Educational Technology Director Tzvi Pittinsky and I met with most of the departments in the school to prepare for next year's wikis. This past year's wiki, which was for the ninth grade and integrated under the theme of identity, is going to be repeated for the incoming ninth grade. We're going to create a new wiki with basically the same pages, fine tuning what we didn't like and building on what we did. In addition, because Judaic Studies rotates its curriculum yearly, we have to plug the theme into the new sefarim being taught. Tzvi and I met with the head of Tanakh at Frisch as well as with head of Talmud and a Chumash teacher to discuss where the theme could be applicable in the curricula for Tanakh and Talmud.

We also created the new tenth grade wiki and are integrating the tenth grade year under the theme of exploration. Since the ninth graders looked inside themselves, in the tenth grade we're going to look at the outside world. That's not to say that we aren't also focusing on self-development. The quest, for example, a genre of exploration, turns out really to be about what one learns about himself.

In any case, as we did last year, we've made pages with ideas pertaining to the theme, rather than pages that are subject-specific. In this way, students see and learn the integration model and begin to copy it themselves. So far, our pages include Visions, Rules of Engagement, Traveling Through Time and Space, the Enlightenment, Getting to God, Exploring Diverse Cultures, and Cause and Effect.

The subjects students are learning that pertain to these ideas are American History I, European and non-Western Literature, Chemistry, Foreign Language and Culture, Masekhta Berakhot, Melakhim Bet with parts of Yeshayahu, Amos and Hoshea, and Devarim.

To illustrate how we've integrated so far: The Rules of Engagement was born from the Devarim curriculum, which is going to include an analysis of wars of choice vs. wars of obligation. We then posted an article by William Safire about the idea as it pertained to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Safire references Devarim as well as Rambam's views of war in the article. We also posted the Geneva Conventions. Chumash will probably tackle this entire unit. However, American History also posted the Declaration of Independence, the colonists' reasons for engaging in war. We posted both the final and rough drafts on the page for history students to contemplate. I teach English and realized the page can be used for any type of etiquette needed to "engage" with something. For example, grammar is the rules we use to engage with language. I'll be posting grammar on that page. I already posted information about a work I teach, The Importance of Being Earnest, a comedy of manners which is all about how we get engaged, the "rules of engagement."

Another page is Visions. We have a lot of visions for this page. In Nach, Melakhim Bet teachers will begin with the vision of an ideal monarchy that is set up in Devarim coincidentally, so Chumash and Nach will link there. Then the students will see how that vision failed as absolute power corrupts absolutely. American history will explore the same idea as students consider how America was set up to counter the corrupt systems of government in Europe. Yeshayahu will explore the eschatological utopian visions of the prophet, while American history will again show how America was set up as a new Eden, Jerusalem, a "shining city on a hill." Students will explore the utopia theme in literature as well, with works such as Candide, Out of the Silent Planet and even The Merchant of Venice, which contrasts the dirty, money-tainted city of Venice with ideal Belmont.

Traveling Through Time and Space was suggested by the head of Talmud as a way of looking at Berakhot, since many of the laws apply in certain zemanim. However, Chemistry jumped right on the page with atomic models, and we have posted different timelines for the year, one for American history and one by fellow AVICHAI grant recipient, Joseph Sonnenblick, on Jewish history. We also have a great YouTube moving map of Israel. English is on the page as well, as the quest is obviously a great genre to explore for the theme of exploration. We've put up our first quest book, The Canterbury Tales, and will contrast its satirical style with Shrek's.

The above are some of the ideas we've started with. There are already many more, and we're looking forward to adding even more. We're much further ahead this year than we were last year at this point, because we've already done a wiki, and the administration is completely supportive, giving me and Tzvi the time to meet with the various faculty members, who are also on board and getting on board.

Another new idea Frisch is implementing to deepen the wiki/integrated theme experience is seminars. The ninth and tenth grades will meet as a grade at different points in the year to have supplemental seminars on topics connected to the grade's themes. For example, in the ninth grade, one category of identity we're going to draw out is what it means to be a modern Orthodox Jew. The summer reading for the ninth graders is The Chosen and The Color of Water. The grade will meet to launch the theme and we'll discuss the books. Then we'll give the students a letter by Rabbi Broyde with his definition of modern Orthodoxy. The students will respond to the letter on a wiki discussion post and then be gathered again for a grade-wide discussion about it. One of the characteristics of modern Orthodoxy that Rabbi Broyde mentions is adherence to Torah u'Maadah, so the students will comment on that and then through the year be given the Torah u'Maadah model. After they learn evolutionary theory, they will get a seminar in Jewish thought and Darwinism. After they learn genetics, they'll learn about eugenics, watch Gattaca as a grade-wide activity, and then be given a presentation on the halakhic positions on IVF/PGD.

For the tenth grade theme of exploration, we're going to give grade-wide seminars on Comparative Religion. Students will explore the basic tenets of Christianity and Islam -- and even Judaism. We'll deal with how moderate Islam should look at jihad and at the end of the year, integrate with Yeshayahu, and explain how Christians use the book in their theology.

If anyone wants to see the wikis, feel free to contact me at artikw@yahoo.com. The wikis are password-protected for students' safety.

Power points on the Miracle of Jewish History & Dead Sea Scrolls

I am posting links to 2 sample Power point Jewish history presentations to the Slide Share website - www.slideshare.net. The first entitled “The Miracle of Jewish History” focuses on the miracle of Jewish survival through our long history. I show this Power point both at the beginning and at the end of the year. I show it the beginning even though many students don’t know all of the events but many do know enough to relate to it. By the end of the year, after we have covered a good portion of the material, they can really put the whole picture together and see Jewish history from a broad perspective.

Although the slides depicting suffering and persecution are depressing there are a number of points which I believe are uplifting and can inspire the students. First, the very fact that the Jewish people have been able to survive is in of itself a miracle. From its earliest beginnings Israel was surrounded by mortal enemies. That idea is unfortunately quite relevant today as the Jewish state deals with the likes of Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah. The point is that history repeats itself and just as we faced those existential threats early on, we face those same threats again with hope and faith in G-d. These are ideas that the students are attune to in a very real way.

A second message is that not only have we survived but we have flourished despite the trials, tribulations and persecutions. The Jewish people have been at the forefront of the societies they lived in terms of Nobel prize winners and in our contributions to the world in the areas of science, technology, etc. More important we produced great works of Jewish scholarship in the areas of Bible commentaries, Talmud, halacha, moral works and Jewish thought. All of this is a testament to our determination to retain our identity and traditions and to our faith in G-d, especially during the terrible times. You may view the Power point at the following URL - www.slideshare.net/joesonnen/miracle-of-jewish-history.

The second Power point features one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20^th century, the Dead Sea Scrolls. Included in the presentation are essential accounts of the discovery itself, the types of scrolls found and why they are so important to Judaism and Christianity.

I have embedded clips from the news channels and various science museums such as the Pacific Science Center in Seattle which held an exhibit of the scrolls there. In the post to Slide Share at - www.slideshare.net/joesonnen/dead-sea-scrolls-sound-and-video-youtube-1557004. Unfortunately I was limited by the site which only allows Youtube video clips and has a limit of 5 clips per presentation. In my full blown Power point on the Scrolls I also include clips by Professor Lawrence Schiffman as well as numerous clips about the scrolls from other sources such as the Israel Antiquities Authority. I hope to make those available shortly.
Throughout the year the video clips have enlivened the subject material immensely. History and Jewish history can be a dry and boring subject for many students and the images, documentaries, news items clips really brought the material alive. I hope sometime by the of June to make the series of DVDs available and will post again when they are ready.

Frisch wiki

The students have begun working on their group projects, and Tzvi Pittinsky, Director of Educational Technology, and I are really pleased so far with the way the students are working. They're so interested in their work that when the bell rings they don't get up; I have to make an announcement that they should shut down their computers and go to the next class.

I mentioned that one group is basing their page around four cultures they're going to explore. Students today came up with more exciting ideas. One group is entitling their page, "Have We Really Changed?" and is looking at the topic of "evolution" in biology, obviously, but then in most of their other subjects, seeing how different subjects have evolved over time: how Talmudic law has evolved, how history and literature have developed, etc. Another group, working off of the idea of damages as seen in Bava Kama, is going to explore the idea of how lack of civic responsibility ends in disaster for civilization. The group is going to use the gemara as a jumping off point and then discuss the civil feud in Romeo and Juliet as well as the arguments and discord in Bamidbar. Another interesting discussion of the topic is going to be biology and how we can see harmony in nature by looking at symbiotic relationships. I'm really excited about what the students are doing so far and can't wait to see how their projects come out on the wiki.

Frisch Wiki

For the second semester wiki/integrated curriculum that I've been working on with my class, I had the students do two major projects. One was to write an essay explaining what they thought in the curriculum impacted their identity the most. The students had to choose two subjects/topics from Judaic studies and two from secular studies and could discuss tefillah under Judaic studies gym, lunch and extra-curricular activities under the secular studies. Students handed in their essays before the Pesach break. Here is a small summary of the findings:

1) A good number of students found very compelling one rabbi's question about whether to send a child to an ultra-Orthodox school or a Horace Mann type school if a modern Orthodox school like Frisch didn’t exist. Most students admitted that their knee-jerk response was to send to a Horace Mann school, but the question and their answers made them rethink who they were and what was important to them. The question was part of the Greek influence integration week.
2) A large number of students’ identities were affected by a Hebrew Language poem about every person’s having a name. The poem states that a person is known in many ways – by his name, by his family, by his reputation, etc. Students revealed that the poem made them think more deeply about who they are and how their actions make others look at them.
3) The unit on genetics in Biology also made a deep impression on many students. It forced them to consider how much of themselves is from their parents and how their genes affect their behavior.
4) A great number of students found history affecting, particularly the election journal. Hearing others’ opinions on the election was interesting to the students and helped shape their political views. Students also liked the integration of history with Nach and found the study of the two aspects of the Persian Empire – the world one and the Jewish one -- fascinating and thought-provoking.
5) A lot of students drew many lessons from the Nach curriculum, Shivat Zion, the return to Zion. The students learned that the Jews during the Persian Empire faced the same problems Jews today and earlier in the century face and faced when resettling Israel.
6) Rabbi Michael Broyde’s article about modern Orthodoxy also affected the students. They said they hadn’t considered defining who they are as Orthodox Jews, and they found the letter helpful in doing so.
7) Many students found tefillah a time that is meaningful for them, a time to connect with God and who they are as individuals. One student wrote that seeing some friends’ cavalier attitudes towards prayer surprised and disappointed him and made him all the more committed to his principles.
8) Students also mentioned individual teachers they found inspiring and so enthusiastic about their subjects that the students were also turned on to them.

I thought this information was really interesting and helpful in enabling Frisch to give the students an even more solid sense of self than we are doing. I also think the students are learning how to think in an integrated way because of the wiki/identity theme. One student who recently took a Romeo and Juliet reading quiz wrote that he didn’t think Friar Laurence was responsible for Romeo’s and Juliet’s deaths, because Bava Kama teaches that if one is not directly responsible for damage, he is not held liable for it!

The essay was obviously not technologically based, but the second project is. Today I divided the class into groups of three's and four's and am having them create their own wiki pages. They again have to take two topics from their Judaic classes and two topics from their secular studies ones and present on the wiki how those topics affected them. Thus, the students now have to contribute individually to a group's sense of identity.

The assignment requires students to summarize their idea on their wiki page and include on the page images; headings; and widgets such as scribd documents, PowerPoints, videos, podcasts and Photosynths. I'll grade the students on the complexity and meaningfulness of their selections as well as on originality, creativity and oral presentation to the class.

I'm already excited by what the students are coming up with. One group decided to choose four cultures to present and are going to look at three they learned about already -- Israeli, Hispanic and Greek -- and one they're going to study on their own and present to the class, such as African culture. I love the idea and am impressed that the students not only can think critically about what they've learned but are willing to explore topics they haven't!

Frisch Integration

I've finalized with the assistant principal the subjects of my integration units for the next school year. In Chumash, the students will be studying Devarim, and in Nach the students will be doing Melachim Bet and parts of Hosea, Amos and Yeshayahu.

For Devarim, the integration presentations will be:

1) Avoda Zara in Devarim: a study of the the worship of celestial bodies, which was so common in the ancient world, and a look then at how the sun, moon and stars are viewed in Devarim. The presentation will also include other forms of avoda zara mentioned in the sefer, including the cult of Asherah, child sacrifice and the Golden Calf.

2) Laws of Devarim: a look at the arrangement of the laws in the sefer and a comparison of the laws in Devarim with laws from other ancient societies. We'll accomplish the latter by highlighting key and interesting laws mentioned in Devarim that have counterparts in the ancient world.

3) Perceptions of God in Devarim: we'll study how Devarim asks us to perceive God, as warrior and as suzerain, and we'll then analyze how those perceptions are analagous to the way the ancients viewed their kings. We'll see that Israel is asked to transfer those perceptions to God. This last presentation will also tie in with Nach, as the idea of God as Israel's bridegroom will also be presented, and the groom/bride relationship is an important one in Navi.

For Nach, I'll put Sefer Melachim Bet and the accompanying books of the prophets who prophesied during the time of the late/split monarchy into the context of the larger world, which was dominated then by the Assyrian empire. We'll take a look in one (perhaps two) presentations at the many Assyrian kings who ruled and the kind of empire they established. We'll also study the important ancient cities of the time and see what Samaria looked like.

In another presentation, I'll continue to explore a topic that I began this year, the types of prophecy that existed in the ancient world and the kinds of prophets there were in Israel. I'll obviously emphasize the prophets the students will be studying, Amos, Hoshea, and Yeshayahu, but I'll also discuss Eliyahu and Elisha.

Next year, the seniors will be taking electives during what would be their Nach period. Some of the electives will allow me to present my last presentation, which I'll also give to the entire 11th grade. The presentation will be Women in the Ancient World. We'll start by looking at Atalia and discuss how it was possible for a woman to get to a position of power in such a patriarchal world. We'll analyze the reigns of Hatshepsut and Theodora to see other powerful female monarchs and may also consider some Christian medieval saints and Queen Elizabeth.

Finally, I'm going to have my AP Art History students prepare towards the end of the year a presentaion on Isaiah in Christian art. The prophet makes many appearances in Christian art, and by the end of the school year, my AP students should be able to convey the formal differences among the ways Isaiah is shown. The Frisch administration and I thought the presentation could be a springboard for a comparative religion lesson that shows students the differences between Judaism and Christianity. In the past, when the school studied the Five Megillot for the Nach curriculum, I had students prepare a lesson on the influence of nature in art, with Shir ha-Shirim as a springboard for the lesson. I thought the exercise was a valuable one as preparation for the AP exam and as a way of having the students do integration on their own.

Obviously, as I do research and any of the above ideas become non-feasible for some reason or another, I'll reassess and do something else, but for now, I'm looking forward to a busy summer preparing the topics I just outlined.

Frisch Integration

I've completed my last integration unit of the year, for Nach. The presentation is actually linked to my last Chumash presentation of the year, which was on sorcery and divination in the ancient world, as seen through the Balaam story. For the Nach presentation, I continued to look at prophecy in the ancient world and how it compared with prophecy in ancient Israel. Since the students are studying the books of Shivat Zion, I then brought the presentation to their home page by showing the importance of the prophets in the Shivat Zion era when there was so much upheaval in B'nai Yisrael. The presentation, entitled "The Role of the Prophet," is now on www.slideshare.net/artikw. Some of my presentations are understandable if you simply view the slides; for the prophecy presentation, you really need the notes, which can be viewed by accessing the slideshow fully.

Next year at Frisch, the students will probably learn Yeshayahu and Yirmiyahu, so I look forward to delving into the topic of prophecy more with them. There's a lot of interesting information about prophecy in the ancient world.

Getting to know you (by video . . . )

Right after Pesach, in April, our 8th graders will fly to Israel to continue their work on a joint science project with our sister class at Ironi Gimel in Haifa, Israel. In May, the Ironi Gimel class will come to us to finish working on their projects and to be part of a science fair at our school. At the fair, the American and Israeli students will become one team, as they present the projects they have been jointly working on all year.

A few weeks ago, our 8th graders made videos introducing themselves more personally to the Israelis they are soon going to meet face to face. In return, the Ironi Gimel students have made a video and sent it to us so that we can get to know them better as well.

This is the first year we have used videos as a way to get to know each other better, and they have been a smashing success! The Ironi Gimel kids are already asking for more! more! more!

--Miri Chorev and Ghilly Einhorn