(Cross-posted on The AVI CHAI Foundation blog)
By: Michael Berger
We all knew it was coming. Technology is making its way into day
schools – like all disruptive innovation, it appears initially in a
small number of schools, and within a relatively short time, it’s
mainstream.
Julie Weiner’s balanced article
on iPad use in Jewish day schools highlighted that we may be observing
the emergence of a revolution. Was this what the move from hand-copied
scrolls to printed books was like in the late 15th century? Did
educators then sense that, to use Lisa Colton’s phrasing, a technological invention was becoming a societal innovation?
As someone who grew up in the day school of the 1970s, I recall the
experience of “looking things up,” whether in encyclopedias, large
Judaic volumes (Tanakh, Mishnah, Talmud) or dictionaries and
concordances. Learning to use these texts required skills of
_navigation_, honed by repeated use. Of course, which navigation skills
were needed depended on the sort of text. Some were basically
alphabetic, but required knowledge of grammar and identifying a word’s
root – and also spotting other uses of that word. Other texts, like
encyclopedias, involved an additional element of thematic classification
before pulling out the volume – “under what heading or topic would you
likely find X?” That was an intellectual exercise in organizing
information and knowledge, realizing that this or that fact actually fit
into a larger framework, which may or may not have been in my current
“database.” And finally, some texts required a sequential or
chronological navigation – where would one likely find the story of
Ishmael, or of the manna falling? Jeremiah’s prophecies of doom or the
story of Esther? These searches meant developing and committing to
memory a larger storyline or order of books in which to place Biblical
references, legal rulings (such as in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah or
Karo’s Shulchan Arukh), or Talmudic discussions. etc.
All this searching was accompanied by a tactile and visual experience
– holding large volumes, opening them up to early, middle, or later
sections, leafing through them to spot key words or chapter numbers, and
on occasion going back to the shelf to pull out another reference
source that could help in my frustrated search to locate a passage or
word.
According to several brain scientists, recent studies show how these
activities help deepen the channels in the brain that make for lasting
organization of the material, the creation of associations, and easier
retrieval at some future date. In other words, learning is not merely
access to information, but a process closer to internalization than
acquisition.
Looking back, these frameworks for remembering many things also
became a source of potential creativity: with the associations
established in the brain, one item or data point could lead to a host of
others. (Joshua Foer,
author of “Moonwalking with Einstein” about memory, notes that both
“inventory” and “invention” have the same Latin root – those with a
large inventory of facts and ideas were the ones capable of inventing.)
None of us really knows what will happen as generations of students hit
a few keys and up pops a source on a flat screen. What sort of “mental
scaffolding” are such students developing to organize the material they
study? How do they process it, or make connections and associations
when all they have to do is touch a screen and the device finishes their
word for them and locates the original source?
I don’t see myself as a Luddite, nor am I advocating for keeping
these advances out of schools. But we must also acknowledge that most
technological leaps forward alter our experience in profound ways, both
positively and in some unexpected ways. Technology no doubt helps many
students get to the original sources, but it also robs the experience
from its tactile dimensions and seems to sever those sources from their
natural – and critically important – contexts. If you’re an educator
who’s used iPads in your classroom, especially for Judaics, please share
what you did and how that affected students’ learning one way or the
other.
Michael Berger
Program Officer at The AVI CHAI Foundation
Click to see comments: The AVI CHAI Foundation blog
Monday, February 20, 2012
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
The iPad Effect in Jewish Day Schools
By Rabbi Jason Miller
A version of this appeared on the JTA.org website and at Blog.RabbiJason.com
Bill Gates paid a visit to Steve Jobs toward to the end of the Apple visionary’s life. The two technology giants talked about the future of education. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs, both men agreed that computers had made surprisingly little impact on schools. Gates said, “Computers and mobile devices would have to focus on delivering more personalized lessons and providing motivational feedback.” One of the many projects Jobs had hoped to develop before his life was cut short, Isaacson explained, was “to disrupt the textbook industry and save the spines of spavined students by creating electronic texts and curriculum material for the iPad.”
Rabbi Joshua Spodek regularly studies the Talmud at home with his son, but when he began using an iPad and the iTalmud app, he noticed how his son responded to the “fusion of modern technology with ancient text.” Spodek, who works at the Scheck Hillel Community Day School in North Miami Beach, thought of a way to bring that technology to the classroom. The school is now offering an entirely paperless Talmud course.
“The increased levels of engagement, portability, and space and cost saving have been enormous,” said Seth Dimbert, the school’s director of learning technologies. “Normally, when you study the Talmud, each page is covered with cross-references and tertiary commentaries, and you have bookshelves filled with dozens or even hundreds of secondary reference texts. Using an iPad application puts all of that reference material in hypertext. It’s an ideal way to study the Talmud, which is in some sense the original hypertext.”
At the Frankel Jewish Academy (FJA) in suburban Detroit, students began this school year with a nice surprise. Each student in the high school received a new 16GB WiFi iPad2. The school-wide distribution of the iPad to each student is the result of both a generous gift from an angel donor and the advantageous timing in the school’s computer lease agreement with Apple. Patti Shayne, the school’s director of technology, believes the iPad project is in line with FJA’s reputation as a cutting-edge institution, especially in the area of technology.
“The move to this incredible new technology gives teachers access to so many more sources and enables students to leverage their learning. With the iPad, students have one central place for assignments, communications and in many cases, text books and reading material. They will be able to access sources not available before,” explained Shayne. “Our job is to make that learning as inspiring and exciting as possible and prepare FJA students for a future where competency with all web-based devices is the norm.”
The students aren’t the only ones in the school who have embraced the iPads. The teachers had a chance to play with them before the students even returned from summer break. One teacher at FJA was already an iPad pro. Robert Walker, a government teacher, has had an iPad since 2009 when they were released to the public. “Where I see the iPad really impacting learning is that it appeals to so many different learning styles. Students will have more freedom in choosing the direction they want to go to master their coursework,” Walker said. “While meeting the requirements, students will also have the ability to go above and beyond what they are required to do. It’s a powerful tool that will support learning in any number of ways.”
One way the iPad will help students learn is by giving them the opportunity to review a lecture they might not have fully understood the first time. FJA’s chemistry teacher videotaped himself going through a problem and then uploaded the informational video onto the students’ iPads. “Students now have the opportunity to watch his demonstration several times,” explained Shayne. “Sometimes you don’t catch it all and some students are hesitant to speak up. With the iPad they can listen to the explanation as many times as they need at home or at school.”
That same chemistry teacher uses a free app called Mahjong Chem, which his students use to practice matching elemental names to symbols, naming polyatomic ions, assigning oxidation numbers, earning electronic configurations and understanding metric prefixes. Other apps that are being used include Pages (for word processing), Keynote (for presentations) and Numbers (an app similar to Microsoft Excel). Students are allowed to purchase their own apps, as long as the apps meet the standards of the school’s Acceptable Use Policy. Teachers may even require students to purchase apps; a requirement explained to parents in a document from Shayne as the equivalent to asking students to purchase a calculator, notebook or other necessary school supplies.
Are the students using the iPads for serious academic work or are they just expensive video game consoles with a pretty screen? According to 12th grader Shira Wolf of West Bloomfield, it’s a mix. “In Jewish Leadership, our teacher, Mr. [Marc] Silberstein, is trying to be completely paperless so we went over the syllabus on our iPads and got to play around with the neuAnnotate app to annotate it.” She also noted that it’s common to see her peers playing the popular game “Words with Friends” on their iPads during study hall or even in class, which is frowned upon.
Other Jewish day schools across the country are incorporating iPads into the schools as well. While it’s mostly middle schools and high schools, there are also some elementary schools that have made iPads part of the learning process. At the Modern Orthodox Ohr Chadash Academy in Baltimore, all fourth-through-sixth graders have an iPad. As Julie Wiener, educational writer at The Jewish Week points out, the iPads “bring challenges as well: they are fragile, expensive, awkward to type on and chock full of distractions, especially when connected to the Internet. And it is unclear whether -- once its novelty wears off and if it becomes as commonplace as pencils and notebooks -- the toy-like iPad will retain its magical power over children.”
Some educators are quick to point out that if teachers use the new technology to teach the same way they always have then the technology is not being used correctly. “To let students simply listen to lectures on their own time – that doesn’t require an iPad. It requires a tape player. Or to study Talmud in the same way, just with a different visual – again, we’re not revolutionizing education,” argues Dr. Erica Rothblum, the Head of School at Beth Hillel Day School in Valley Village, California. “At our school, we have a 1:1 iPad program for all students in grades 4-6, but we are very aware that this is a tool. There are times that a pen and paper are better tools, and students will use those. The iPad does allow us, however, to encourage discovery, play and research.
At Rothblum’s school, the students are creating a “visual tefillah” by finding visuals that represent their prayers and using keynote, including animation, to illustrate what the prayer means. Students there are also creating “voicethreads” in Hebrew in which they record themselves telling a story or a conversation in Hebrew and then parents, teachers and their peers can listen to the recording and leave comments.
So, what’s next? Mobile device learning is certainly the wave of the future and school administrators are predicting innovations that never would have been believed a decade ago. When cell phone technology became inexpensive enough for high school and middle school students to be able to bring their phones to school, policies were quickly implemented to first ban the communication devices and then eventually place restrictions on their use.
One thing that has changed with this younger generation is the innate comfort level they have with technology. After all, this is the generation that has grown up with iPods, digital cameras and smartphones. Shaindle Braunstein-Cohen, former director of the Hermelin ORT Resource Center, underscored this when she said, “We used to teach technology as a subject. We would teach how to use a device. It’s no longer the ‘something’ that we teach; it’s the platform on which we deliver information.”
When asked how long Shayne expects FJA will keep the current crop of iPads until they become stale or even obsolete as Apple continues to release more powerful versions each year, she responded, “We are looking at a three-year refresh rate. As to what the future holds, maybe one of our students will invent it.”
Follow Rabbi Jason Miller on Twitter @RabbiJason
A version of this appeared on the JTA.org website and at Blog.RabbiJason.com
Bill Gates paid a visit to Steve Jobs toward to the end of the Apple visionary’s life. The two technology giants talked about the future of education. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs, both men agreed that computers had made surprisingly little impact on schools. Gates said, “Computers and mobile devices would have to focus on delivering more personalized lessons and providing motivational feedback.” One of the many projects Jobs had hoped to develop before his life was cut short, Isaacson explained, was “to disrupt the textbook industry and save the spines of spavined students by creating electronic texts and curriculum material for the iPad.”
 |
| High School students using their iPads at the Frankel Jewish Academy in Metro Detroit |
Rabbi Joshua Spodek regularly studies the Talmud at home with his son, but when he began using an iPad and the iTalmud app, he noticed how his son responded to the “fusion of modern technology with ancient text.” Spodek, who works at the Scheck Hillel Community Day School in North Miami Beach, thought of a way to bring that technology to the classroom. The school is now offering an entirely paperless Talmud course.
“The increased levels of engagement, portability, and space and cost saving have been enormous,” said Seth Dimbert, the school’s director of learning technologies. “Normally, when you study the Talmud, each page is covered with cross-references and tertiary commentaries, and you have bookshelves filled with dozens or even hundreds of secondary reference texts. Using an iPad application puts all of that reference material in hypertext. It’s an ideal way to study the Talmud, which is in some sense the original hypertext.”
At the Frankel Jewish Academy (FJA) in suburban Detroit, students began this school year with a nice surprise. Each student in the high school received a new 16GB WiFi iPad2. The school-wide distribution of the iPad to each student is the result of both a generous gift from an angel donor and the advantageous timing in the school’s computer lease agreement with Apple. Patti Shayne, the school’s director of technology, believes the iPad project is in line with FJA’s reputation as a cutting-edge institution, especially in the area of technology.
“The move to this incredible new technology gives teachers access to so many more sources and enables students to leverage their learning. With the iPad, students have one central place for assignments, communications and in many cases, text books and reading material. They will be able to access sources not available before,” explained Shayne. “Our job is to make that learning as inspiring and exciting as possible and prepare FJA students for a future where competency with all web-based devices is the norm.”
 |
| Kindergarten students at the Bohrer-Kaufman Hebrew Academy of Morris County, New Jersey (Photo by Johanna Ginsberg) |
The students aren’t the only ones in the school who have embraced the iPads. The teachers had a chance to play with them before the students even returned from summer break. One teacher at FJA was already an iPad pro. Robert Walker, a government teacher, has had an iPad since 2009 when they were released to the public. “Where I see the iPad really impacting learning is that it appeals to so many different learning styles. Students will have more freedom in choosing the direction they want to go to master their coursework,” Walker said. “While meeting the requirements, students will also have the ability to go above and beyond what they are required to do. It’s a powerful tool that will support learning in any number of ways.”
One way the iPad will help students learn is by giving them the opportunity to review a lecture they might not have fully understood the first time. FJA’s chemistry teacher videotaped himself going through a problem and then uploaded the informational video onto the students’ iPads. “Students now have the opportunity to watch his demonstration several times,” explained Shayne. “Sometimes you don’t catch it all and some students are hesitant to speak up. With the iPad they can listen to the explanation as many times as they need at home or at school.”
That same chemistry teacher uses a free app called Mahjong Chem, which his students use to practice matching elemental names to symbols, naming polyatomic ions, assigning oxidation numbers, earning electronic configurations and understanding metric prefixes. Other apps that are being used include Pages (for word processing), Keynote (for presentations) and Numbers (an app similar to Microsoft Excel). Students are allowed to purchase their own apps, as long as the apps meet the standards of the school’s Acceptable Use Policy. Teachers may even require students to purchase apps; a requirement explained to parents in a document from Shayne as the equivalent to asking students to purchase a calculator, notebook or other necessary school supplies.
Are the students using the iPads for serious academic work or are they just expensive video game consoles with a pretty screen? According to 12th grader Shira Wolf of West Bloomfield, it’s a mix. “In Jewish Leadership, our teacher, Mr. [Marc] Silberstein, is trying to be completely paperless so we went over the syllabus on our iPads and got to play around with the neuAnnotate app to annotate it.” She also noted that it’s common to see her peers playing the popular game “Words with Friends” on their iPads during study hall or even in class, which is frowned upon.
Other Jewish day schools across the country are incorporating iPads into the schools as well. While it’s mostly middle schools and high schools, there are also some elementary schools that have made iPads part of the learning process. At the Modern Orthodox Ohr Chadash Academy in Baltimore, all fourth-through-sixth graders have an iPad. As Julie Wiener, educational writer at The Jewish Week points out, the iPads “bring challenges as well: they are fragile, expensive, awkward to type on and chock full of distractions, especially when connected to the Internet. And it is unclear whether -- once its novelty wears off and if it becomes as commonplace as pencils and notebooks -- the toy-like iPad will retain its magical power over children.”
Some educators are quick to point out that if teachers use the new technology to teach the same way they always have then the technology is not being used correctly. “To let students simply listen to lectures on their own time – that doesn’t require an iPad. It requires a tape player. Or to study Talmud in the same way, just with a different visual – again, we’re not revolutionizing education,” argues Dr. Erica Rothblum, the Head of School at Beth Hillel Day School in Valley Village, California. “At our school, we have a 1:1 iPad program for all students in grades 4-6, but we are very aware that this is a tool. There are times that a pen and paper are better tools, and students will use those. The iPad does allow us, however, to encourage discovery, play and research.
At Rothblum’s school, the students are creating a “visual tefillah” by finding visuals that represent their prayers and using keynote, including animation, to illustrate what the prayer means. Students there are also creating “voicethreads” in Hebrew in which they record themselves telling a story or a conversation in Hebrew and then parents, teachers and their peers can listen to the recording and leave comments.
So, what’s next? Mobile device learning is certainly the wave of the future and school administrators are predicting innovations that never would have been believed a decade ago. When cell phone technology became inexpensive enough for high school and middle school students to be able to bring their phones to school, policies were quickly implemented to first ban the communication devices and then eventually place restrictions on their use.
One thing that has changed with this younger generation is the innate comfort level they have with technology. After all, this is the generation that has grown up with iPods, digital cameras and smartphones. Shaindle Braunstein-Cohen, former director of the Hermelin ORT Resource Center, underscored this when she said, “We used to teach technology as a subject. We would teach how to use a device. It’s no longer the ‘something’ that we teach; it’s the platform on which we deliver information.”
When asked how long Shayne expects FJA will keep the current crop of iPads until they become stale or even obsolete as Apple continues to release more powerful versions each year, she responded, “We are looking at a three-year refresh rate. As to what the future holds, maybe one of our students will invent it.”
Follow Rabbi Jason Miller on Twitter @RabbiJason
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Examples of EdTech at the MHA
As a co-facilitator in Michael Minno's mini-keynote on 21st Century Learning Environments at last week's NAJDS Conference, I was asked to collect samples of various ways in which we are using new "environments" for learning in our school. I tried to so from all of our divisions - Early Childhood, Elementary School, Middle School, and High School - and from all of our subjects, General Studies and Judaic. I posted them to this site and hope to continue to update it with new examples as they emerge from our classrooms.
Let us know what you think and be sure to let us know what you are doing in your schools so that we can all continue to learn from each other!
Let us know what you think and be sure to let us know what you are doing in your schools so that we can all continue to learn from each other!
Monday, January 23, 2012
#JEDCHAT: The NetWork At-Work - Thoughts on the Washington Post Article
(cross-posted on the #JEDCHAT blog, jedchat.edublogs.org)
Well, we hit the big time today.
In a matter of speaking.
The Washington Post had an article in their Saturday edition, entitled “Teachers take to Twitter to improve craft and commiserate,” and it was all about how more and more teachers are turning to Twitter to connect with other educators for resource sharing, camaraderie, and support through tough times. In particular, educators are discovering a “community of mentors offering inspiration, commiseration and classroom-tested lesson plans,” through weekly twitter chats on a variety of education topics, the granddaddy of them all being #edchat.
And then, in the middle of the article, #jedchat got a shout out. This amazing community, a group that has only been chatting regularly on Wednesday night’s at 9 EST for a little over 3 months, made it into the Washington Post.
Now, we could all stop here, content that we as a community (and perhaps the larger Jewish educational community) got our 15 minutes of fame, and move on.
But I think there is more at play here, and it bears some reflecting.
A network is a powerful tool. In the age of the internet and social media, it has become something that is infinitely more far reaching and stronger than before. Starting with little more than an idea of “hey, we can do this too!” a group of Jewish educators came together on Twitter to have a conversation. And all of a sudden, it became a “thing,” something real, a destination.
It became a network.
With this transformation, ideas were shared, and people were inspired to bring these new ideas back to their own classrooms and schools. To me, this all culminated with the tweeting frenzy that took place during the North American Jewish Day School Conference last week in Atlanta, GA. Through Twitter, educators and other educational stakeholders were extending the ideas and messages of the conference beyond the walls of the hotel, with the #jedchat hashtag being one of the primary ones used to spread the knowledge (alongside #NAJDS & #NAJDSconf, of course!).
The people in our network are truly wonderful and inspiring educators. They are the ones, in the words of the Washington Post article, who “tend to be creative, motivated people with high standards for their own performance — the type who would rather try something new than pull out the yellowed lesson plans they’ve been using for years.” And when all these people come together through the internet, the network goes on hyperdrive.
I am reminded of a famous TED talk by Chris Anderson, entitled “How Web Videos Power Global Innovation.”
In this talk, Anderson notes how YouTube has revolutionized the development of dance worldwide, as dancers now find themselves with a global audience. He quotes Jon Chu, a movie director: "Dancers have created a whole global laboratory online. Kids in Japan are taking moves from a YouTube video created in Detroit, building on it within days and releasing a new video, while dancers in California are taking the Japanese video and remixing it to create a whole new dance cycle"
Chu actually harnessed this increased power of the network to put together an all-world troupe known as the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. These performers were all recruited through YouTube, and the result is, well, “Extraordinary.”
Well, we hit the big time today.
In a matter of speaking.
The Washington Post had an article in their Saturday edition, entitled “Teachers take to Twitter to improve craft and commiserate,” and it was all about how more and more teachers are turning to Twitter to connect with other educators for resource sharing, camaraderie, and support through tough times. In particular, educators are discovering a “community of mentors offering inspiration, commiseration and classroom-tested lesson plans,” through weekly twitter chats on a variety of education topics, the granddaddy of them all being #edchat.
And then, in the middle of the article, #jedchat got a shout out. This amazing community, a group that has only been chatting regularly on Wednesday night’s at 9 EST for a little over 3 months, made it into the Washington Post.
Now, we could all stop here, content that we as a community (and perhaps the larger Jewish educational community) got our 15 minutes of fame, and move on.
But I think there is more at play here, and it bears some reflecting.
A network is a powerful tool. In the age of the internet and social media, it has become something that is infinitely more far reaching and stronger than before. Starting with little more than an idea of “hey, we can do this too!” a group of Jewish educators came together on Twitter to have a conversation. And all of a sudden, it became a “thing,” something real, a destination.
It became a network.
With this transformation, ideas were shared, and people were inspired to bring these new ideas back to their own classrooms and schools. To me, this all culminated with the tweeting frenzy that took place during the North American Jewish Day School Conference last week in Atlanta, GA. Through Twitter, educators and other educational stakeholders were extending the ideas and messages of the conference beyond the walls of the hotel, with the #jedchat hashtag being one of the primary ones used to spread the knowledge (alongside #NAJDS & #NAJDSconf, of course!).
The people in our network are truly wonderful and inspiring educators. They are the ones, in the words of the Washington Post article, who “tend to be creative, motivated people with high standards for their own performance — the type who would rather try something new than pull out the yellowed lesson plans they’ve been using for years.” And when all these people come together through the internet, the network goes on hyperdrive.
I am reminded of a famous TED talk by Chris Anderson, entitled “How Web Videos Power Global Innovation.”
In this talk, Anderson notes how YouTube has revolutionized the development of dance worldwide, as dancers now find themselves with a global audience. He quotes Jon Chu, a movie director: "Dancers have created a whole global laboratory online. Kids in Japan are taking moves from a YouTube video created in Detroit, building on it within days and releasing a new video, while dancers in California are taking the Japanese video and remixing it to create a whole new dance cycle"
Chu actually harnessed this increased power of the network to put together an all-world troupe known as the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. These performers were all recruited through YouTube, and the result is, well, “Extraordinary.”
The idea is that, through the power of the internet and the talented people that participate in the global sharing process, dance innovation moves at a much faster pace, as new moves and techniques are spread, copied, and improved upon at lightning speed.
Is it any wonder you end up with amazing feats like this?
This is what technology is doing to networks in all sorts of fields. Education, and specifically Jewish education, is no exception. #JEDCHAT is one of the ways that we, as Jewish education stakeholders, are capitalizing on the incredible talent and power of connectivity that Twitter affords, in spreading innovation in our field.
How many Jewish educators are in situations not so different to Nineteen-year educator Ron Peck, who, as profiled in the Washington Post piece, “teaches in a small public high school tucked up against the rugged Klamath mountains in southern Oregon, hours from the nearest big city. Resources in his district are limited, he said, and innovation is slow. He said Twitter has been a lifeline to the larger world, infusing his classroom with new ideas and technologies that he wouldn't otherwise know about.”
So at the end of the day, it is wonderfully exciting for #jedchat to be included in an article by the mainstream press, especially in a publication as respected as the Washington Post. But to me, and to many others in our growing community, the real excitement lies in who will learn about #jedchat through this and other articles and references, and in turn, help the network grow and create even stronger connections. Because as much as we look around and see a network of educators looking to share and learn from others online, we must remember that we are still the minority. Within the world of Jewish education, most educators do not even know what a hashtag is, let alone know that something like #jedchat exists.
Kol hakavod to all of you who have brought us to this point, participating in the weekly chats and sharing resources throughout the week.
What you are witnessing is the network “at work,” and it is indeed a beautiful thing.
Is it any wonder you end up with amazing feats like this?
This is what technology is doing to networks in all sorts of fields. Education, and specifically Jewish education, is no exception. #JEDCHAT is one of the ways that we, as Jewish education stakeholders, are capitalizing on the incredible talent and power of connectivity that Twitter affords, in spreading innovation in our field.
How many Jewish educators are in situations not so different to Nineteen-year educator Ron Peck, who, as profiled in the Washington Post piece, “teaches in a small public high school tucked up against the rugged Klamath mountains in southern Oregon, hours from the nearest big city. Resources in his district are limited, he said, and innovation is slow. He said Twitter has been a lifeline to the larger world, infusing his classroom with new ideas and technologies that he wouldn't otherwise know about.”
So at the end of the day, it is wonderfully exciting for #jedchat to be included in an article by the mainstream press, especially in a publication as respected as the Washington Post. But to me, and to many others in our growing community, the real excitement lies in who will learn about #jedchat through this and other articles and references, and in turn, help the network grow and create even stronger connections. Because as much as we look around and see a network of educators looking to share and learn from others online, we must remember that we are still the minority. Within the world of Jewish education, most educators do not even know what a hashtag is, let alone know that something like #jedchat exists.
Kol hakavod to all of you who have brought us to this point, participating in the weekly chats and sharing resources throughout the week.
What you are witnessing is the network “at work,” and it is indeed a beautiful thing.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
My new Favorite tool...
With thanks to AVI CHAI for the ISTE experience, Adam Simon for first mentioning using phones in class, and Tech Rav for his post about using polleverywhere.com as a ticket to exit. I confiscated a phone from a kid a few weeks ago and decided that I needed to start using phones in class as a tool. The result is chronicled in last week's E-tone, Beth Tfiloh's weekly newsletter.
And, if you haven't glogged yet - try it! It was a lot of fun and I got some really interesting projects from my students.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Is it time for a Jewish Education Technology Conference?
I recently returned from the Virtual School Symposium Conference in Indianapolis. AVI CHAI sponsored the conference and accommodations for a number of key players who occupy space in the area of technology within the day school movement in North America . Since we are planning for the next version of Gemara Berura to be web-based, this was a great opportunity to learn what else is happening out there in the on-line and blended learning school environments.
One of the more valuable benefits of participating in the conference was the fact that the sponsored invitees had the opportunity to network and schmooze. Using the (catered) report-back sessions (that were scheduled and sponsored by AVI CHAI) as a springboard, the discussions invariably lead to how Jewish day schools could/would/should adopt some of the learning modalities discussed at the conference.
At one of these sessions I raised the idea that it is time to organize a conference dedicated to servicing and furthering the cause Jewish Educational Technology (JET). For the sake of full disclosure I need to reveal my bias. I have been involved in JET for a long time . I believe passionately that we as a community need to ensure the provision of quality JET, and I directed and organized the First International JET conference in Israel back in 1999.
The Gemara Berura related work I do in dozens of schools across N. America allows me a unique insight into how school utilize technology for the furthering of Jewish education. This includes hardware, software, depth of use, teacher readiness, administration readiness, etc. Some of the issues that keep coming up include: the MAC vs. PC debate, especially as it relates to Hebrew and Hebrew software support, should there be computers in every classroom? should student be allowed/encouraged to bring laptops/tablets to school? are interactive whiteboards a necessity for every classroom? what are considered minimal levels of computer competence that teachers (and principals) should be expected to demonstrate in their work in the classroom and administration? etc. And as we move into the online/blended environment models raised at the VSS conference, the issue of how Jewish schools could benefit from these models is also a serious topic that needs to be addressed.
At the network session in which I raised this idea, one of the other participants objected quite strongly, suggesting that in the current economic environment, other venues could be utilized for such JET-related topics to be addressed, such as the National Jewish Day School Conference. We as a small niche community, it was suggested, could not afford or support a separate conference just for JET.
Notwithstanding my learned colleague's opinion, here is why I think we urgently do need a dedicated JET Conference. Technology is not simply a tool. It represents a cultural transformation with its own language, a language that today’s students speak. The level of success regarding the adoption of technology in our schools has overarching implications on the image our schools portray to the community it wishes to serve. Our ability to successfully adapt to these new cultural norms and language will impact on our ability to: recruit and retain our students, teach them effectively, and harness the new opportunities that technology affords to make Jewish schools more sustainable. We need get this one right. I believe that today we aren’t. An annual national Jewish day school conference needs to cater to all issues on the Jewish Education agenda. Attempting to peg on a kind of sub-conference to the main one will not do sufficient justice to the cause. A dedicated JET conference will be held once in a few years, with on-going, online initiatives in-between. We urgently need to begin a collaborative process with a view to develop shared dynamic protocols for many of the types of issues mentioned above. We need to get technology heads together, we to bring school principals together to understand the options, to have educated discussions with the technology department. We need Jewish Studies teachers to adapt to the emerging technologies and learn how to integrate them into their teaching practice. Most importantly we need schools to develop a coherent strategic approach to technology as opposed to the somewhat cumbersome and haphazard approach so many schools still unwittingly adopt.
The question of who should organize and fund such a conference still needs to be addressed.
Thanks again to AVI CHAI for providing us with the opportunity to attend this conference, and to network with such a high quality group of like-minded colleagues.
Meir
Rabbi Meir Fachler
Director
Gemara Berura (www.gemaraberura.com )
Phone (US and Israel) (917) 779 8056
Israel cell ++ (972) 52 385 8455
meir@jet-start.com
One of the more valuable benefits of participating in the conference was the fact that the sponsored invitees had the opportunity to network and schmooze. Using the (catered) report-back sessions (that were scheduled and sponsored by AVI CHAI) as a springboard, the discussions invariably lead to how Jewish day schools could/would/should adopt some of the learning modalities discussed at the conference.
At one of these sessions I raised the idea that it is time to organize a conference dedicated to servicing and furthering the cause Jewish Educational Technology (JET). For the sake of full disclosure I need to reveal my bias. I have been involved in JET for a long time . I believe passionately that we as a community need to ensure the provision of quality JET, and I directed and organized the First International JET conference in Israel back in 1999.
The Gemara Berura related work I do in dozens of schools across N. America allows me a unique insight into how school utilize technology for the furthering of Jewish education. This includes hardware, software, depth of use, teacher readiness, administration readiness, etc. Some of the issues that keep coming up include: the MAC vs. PC debate, especially as it relates to Hebrew and Hebrew software support, should there be computers in every classroom? should student be allowed/encouraged to bring laptops/tablets to school? are interactive whiteboards a necessity for every classroom? what are considered minimal levels of computer competence that teachers (and principals) should be expected to demonstrate in their work in the classroom and administration? etc. And as we move into the online/blended environment models raised at the VSS conference, the issue of how Jewish schools could benefit from these models is also a serious topic that needs to be addressed.
At the network session in which I raised this idea, one of the other participants objected quite strongly, suggesting that in the current economic environment, other venues could be utilized for such JET-related topics to be addressed, such as the National Jewish Day School Conference. We as a small niche community, it was suggested, could not afford or support a separate conference just for JET.
Notwithstanding my learned colleague's opinion, here is why I think we urgently do need a dedicated JET Conference. Technology is not simply a tool. It represents a cultural transformation with its own language, a language that today’s students speak. The level of success regarding the adoption of technology in our schools has overarching implications on the image our schools portray to the community it wishes to serve. Our ability to successfully adapt to these new cultural norms and language will impact on our ability to: recruit and retain our students, teach them effectively, and harness the new opportunities that technology affords to make Jewish schools more sustainable. We need get this one right. I believe that today we aren’t. An annual national Jewish day school conference needs to cater to all issues on the Jewish Education agenda. Attempting to peg on a kind of sub-conference to the main one will not do sufficient justice to the cause. A dedicated JET conference will be held once in a few years, with on-going, online initiatives in-between. We urgently need to begin a collaborative process with a view to develop shared dynamic protocols for many of the types of issues mentioned above. We need to get technology heads together, we to bring school principals together to understand the options, to have educated discussions with the technology department. We need Jewish Studies teachers to adapt to the emerging technologies and learn how to integrate them into their teaching practice. Most importantly we need schools to develop a coherent strategic approach to technology as opposed to the somewhat cumbersome and haphazard approach so many schools still unwittingly adopt.
The question of who should organize and fund such a conference still needs to be addressed.
Thanks again to AVI CHAI for providing us with the opportunity to attend this conference, and to network with such a high quality group of like-minded colleagues.
Meir
Rabbi Meir Fachler
Director
Gemara Berura (www.gemaraberura.com )
Phone (US and Israel) (917) 779 8056
Israel cell ++ (972) 52 385 8455
meir@jet-start.com
Friday, November 18, 2011
Making it personal..
Making it personal
I come to the world of ed/tech from a decidedly bricks and mortar background. For close to 25years, my presence in my students’ lives has been built within classroom spaces that I helped create. Is it possible to bring the intimacy and community that can be created within the walls of a classroom into the world of online/blended teaching?
One of the encouraging answers I got from attending the recent INACOL sessions was a decidedly strong “yes,” with the caveat that presence is only achievable if it becomes an explicit curricular goal.
Kristin Kipp, a noted teacher from Jeffo Virtual Academy in Colorado, shared many of the ways in which she accomplished presence in her online teaching. Her blog www.educationfrontier.org offers a practical ‘nuts and bolts’ look at the life of an online teacher and the constant challenges and opportunities presented by online teaching.
She offered three guiding principals that must be addressed in planning effective online/blended learning:
- connection to content
- connection to other students
- connection to teacher
Some examples of application:
- connection to content
§ If one wants to promote critical thinking, assignments must be ‘non-googleable’
- connection to other students
§ Having students facilitate discussion board
§ peer review
§ collaborative learning projects
§ cyber café spaces on your LMS
- connection to teacher
§ providing thoughtful, in depth feedback
§ maintaining contact outside of ‘school hours’
· as an example, what follows is an excerpt from her December 2010 blog:
My biggest “aha” moment lately has been from a really simple strategy I started using about a month ago, the “Touch base email.” Basically, I send five types of regular emails during the week:
Attendance emails: Sent to students with 3+ days of absences and no recent contact
Reminder email: Send to all students to remind them of the weekly due date
Touch base email: Sent to students in the B, C, and D range. Just touch base and make sure they’re doing ok. I pick about 6 students per week to get this email.
Way to go email: Sent to students whose grade has gone up by 8% or more in the past week
Weekly email: Sent to all students at the beginning of a new week to remind them to get started on the next week’s work
§ Useful tools for enhancing connection to teacher
· Voice Thread (http://voicethread.com ) was suggested as a very powerful tool.
¨ This is a useful tool that invites students to ask questions, vote on a topic of debate, or make comments during a synchronous lesson.
In a traditional school environment, these three realms of connecting often emerge organically from the physical presence of teacher and students ‘living’ together in the same space. In online teaching, whether synchronous or asynchronous, it is also possible to keep the educational process “personal.” However, it will not happen without the teacher’s continuous conscious effort to do so.
Susan Yammer
Educational Coordinator, Lookstein LIVE
Lookstein Center, Bar Ilan University
National Online Teacher of the Year, Kristen Kipp, confirmed as a Keynote at North American Jewish Day School Conference 2012
January 15th-17th 2012, is the upcoming North American Jewish Day School Conference in Atlanta, GA. Click here for up to date information on the conference a,nd registration information. However, the current line up of keynotes (including Michael Mino, David Streight, Joy Anderson, and Larry Rosenstock), panels and workshops makes it clear why this is the premiere conference for any and all involved in Jewish education. Today, the most recent confirmed Keynote speaker, only highlight this.
Kristen Kipp, the National Online K-12 Teacher of the Year, will be on of the Monday keynote speakers at the conference. I had the privilege of taking a workshop with her at the recent Virtual School Symposium 2011 and to say she is fantastic would be an understatement. She is a master teacher that embodies everything that is positive about online learning. I learned much about how to teach a successful online course and what I learned was easily applicable to online Jewish education. Feel free to click here and read a previous post here highlighting that session.
To learn more about Kristen, here is a press release by the Southern Regional Education Board of Kristen receiving this prestigious award:
"Kristin Kipp of Evergreen, Colorado, an online English teacher at Jefferson County’s 21st Century Virtual Academy, was named 2011 National Online Teacher of the Year for K-12 education last night by the two nonprofit organizations that founded the program, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) and the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL).
The 2011 SREB/iNACOL National Online Teacher of the Year Award recognizes an outstanding online teacher for exceptional contributions to online K-12 education. The judging committee selected Kipp and four other finalists from 65 nominations of online educators in public schools and state virtual schools in 25 states.
The award winner and four finalists were recognized at the Excellence Dinner during the SREB Educational Technology Cooperative Teaching and Learning Symposium, March 10-11 in Atlanta.
For the past three years, Kipp has been an online English teacher at Jefferson County’s 21st Century Virtual Academy, which is based in Golden and serves high school students throughout Colorado. A nine-year teacher and resident of Evergreen, she teaches 11th- and 12th-graders and is instructional leader for the English department. Called an "extraordinary practitioner," Kipp also serves as a course reviewer/reviser and part-time adjunct English teacher with Colorado Online Learning.
Her director has noted that Kipp "has particular expertise in the art of teaching writing; however, her skills have impact beyond daily instruction." Kipp "uses her expertise to empower students, parents and fellow faculty toward the highest academic standards," and she "creates innovative and engaging" methods that she evaluates constantly in order to maximize the academic potential of her students."
 |
Allison Powell of iNACOL, award winner Kristin Kipp and Myk Garn of SREB |
Kipp has noted that she loves online teaching because it often reaches kids that were untouched by the traditional classroom. "I teach at-risk students, gifted and talented students, elite student athletes, pregnant teens, and teen moms. For all of these students, online education opens up opportunities that would otherwise not exist."
Kipp said in accepting the award that it was "the bells and whistles" of online learning that first attracted her to the field. "What has kept me there are the kids," she said. "Some students, without online education, would not be able to graduate from high school." Kipp spoke of several students who have inspired her, including a girl who nearly dropped out after an illness in ninth-grade and now will graduate at the top of her high school class – or another who was pregnant and would have struggled to finish school otherwise. "I can never give up on a kid, no matter how far they fall behind," she said, adding that all students deserve access to high-quality online teachers.
As the National Online Teacher of the Year, she received a crystal Flame of Excellence and will spend a day with Karen Cator, the director of the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Department of Education. Kipp also gets an all-expenses-paid trip to iNACOL’s Virtual School Symposium this November in Indianapolis and will be featured on the SREB and iNACOL websites. The finalists received award certificates and other honors. Sponsors of the award include Connections Academy LLC, Blackboard Collaborate!, Florida Virtual School, Pearson Foundation, SAS, and emantras.
Additional finalists include: Thomas Landon from Virtual Virginia, Dianna Miller from Florida Virtual School, Emily Parrish from North Carolina Virtual Public School and Andrew Vanden Heuvel from Michigan Virtual School.
"Online learning is the leading edge of American public education. SREB and iNACOL are proud to honor Kristin Kipp and the four other finalists for their excellence and creativity in teaching our growing number of online students," said Myk Garn, the director of the Cooperative.
"Online teaching is a demanding profession with high levels of student interaction, feedback and communication. Research shows that effective online teaching requires exceptional verbal, writing and motivational skills for inspiring today’s students to perform at their highest levels. The online teachers who are national finalists are shining stars with the quality attributes students value most in learning online," said Susan Patrick, President and CEO of iNACOL."
Cross posted in yuelearning.org and yu20.org
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