We’re looking forward to this year’s NECC Conference June 28 - July 1, 2009! The tweets are already flying among participants gathering in Washington DC (#necc09 and #necc are the most popular conference hashtags). We plan to tweet over at jlearn20.
The Jewish Educators Network Birds of A Feather will meet for it’s ninth year: Monday, June 29, 4:45pm–6:15pm WWCC 150 A. Come join us! Network with other educators, learn about new initiatives for Jewish educators, share ideas and challenges!
If you have not already done so, please feel free to join the Jewish Educators Network discussion list, Jewishednet, below.
JEN also sponsors a wiki, ChaiTech, that was developed based on our meeting last year. We are experimenting with creating a directory of interested educators here.
The United States House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing today in Washington DC, “The Future of Learning: How Technology is Transforming Public Schools.” Seven speakers, including Aneesh Chopra, Chief Technology Officer White House Office for Science and Technology and Abel Real, a student at East Carolina University Greenville, North Carolina, testified to the impact that technologies, used well, can have on learning.
Below is the testimony of Lisa Short, a science teacher at Gaithersburg Middle School, who demonstrated the power of an interactive whiteboard for learning and teaching:
What might the Future of Jewish Learning look like? Not only school-based learning, but authentic, engaging Jewish learning for all in this digital age…
Our friends over at JESNA’s Lippman Kanfer Institute are coordinating the Jewish Education 3.0 Project (JE3). Project members are in the process of developing and collecting articles, case studies, and resources towards a working paper that focuses on technology and Jewish education. [Full disclosure: jlearn2.0 is involved in this project as well] Several articles have already been posted, including:
Share your “testimonies” about what Jewish learning and Jewish education can look like – not just for the future, but now! Post them on the JE3 wiki or below in the comments section.
Follow us on twitter! We’re at: jlearn20. Do you tweet? Let’s pull together a twitter listing of educators in Jewish schools / Jewish educators. Got a blog? Share it with the rest of us! Add your twitter name and blog info in the spreadsheet below. Thanks to Joe Corbett of isteconnects for sharing how to embed google docs into a blog.
Just click on this link to enter your information.
Join our friends at Second Life Israel for the opening of the exhibit, ‘The Israeli Entrepreneurial Spirit’ on Sunday May 31st at 10 AM SLT (1 PM NYC, 8 PM Jerusalem time). Click here to access Second Life Israel (if you are new, you will need to download the Second Life software and join Second Life).
From their press release:
The Israeli Entrepreneurial Spirit highlights 16 leading Israeli companies in the social, environmental, medical and technological fields. Each of these companies represents the best in Israeli innovation, making a difference in ways that better their communities and the lives of people from around the world. This exhibit is a natural fit for Israel, long described as a second ‘Silicon Valley,’ and Second Life’s technologically savvy membership.
Dr. Yesha Sivan is the founder of Metaverse Labs, and has consulted on technologies for knowledge infrastructures to many companies based in Israel and around the world. His field of expertise is the linking of second life and real life. Dr Sivan received his PhD from Harvard University and teaches at the Software Engineering Department of Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. He has previously taught at Bar Ilan and Tel Aviv University. For the event opening Dr. Sivan will speak about ‘Israel, entrepreneurship, and Virtual Worlds.’ He will then take questions from the audience and cut the ribbon for the Israeli Entrepreneurial Spirit exhibit.
Following Dr. Sivan’s address there will be a musical surprise for all attendees.
Want more information on the exhibit or Second Life Israel? Contact Chaim Landau, SL Israel Founder. SLisrael8@gmail.com
Kudos to AJWS on their new project, On1Foot. On1Foot is an an open-source online database of Jewish texts on social justice. This is a resource that educators, service learning facilitators, rabbis, and learners of all ages can really dig into.
The database includes the Hebrew and English citation of the text, the text itself in the original language, and discussion points as well as contextual information related to the citation. You can create, edit, publish, print, and share your own source sheet developed from the online texts. Contribute to the project by uploading your own favorite Jewish texts to share with the rest of the community. Users are also encouraged to comment on the texts as living documents, and share how you are using the texts in your work.
Texts can be searched by subject, type (commentary, legal text, narrative text, prayer and poetry, philosophy, prophesy and wisdom literature), and/or time period (biblical, rabbinic, medieval, modern, contemporary). Categories include Advocacy, Civil/Human Rights… through Tzedakah and Women’s Empowerment.
To quote On1Foot quoting Hillel, “Go and learn it!”
See You At Sinai! Chag Sameach from jlearn2.0
May 27th, 2009Parshat Yitro: A rerun for Shavuot from G-dcast.com
More Torah cartoons at www.g-dcast.com
Tags: g-dcast, torah_commentary
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