Advocacy Tools: Making the Case
There are many reasons for using technology for Jewish learning. These include, but are not limited to the ability to:
- customize individual learning experiences
- create enriched learning by supporting an array of different learning modalities
- provide adaptive strategies and scaffolding techniques to help learners overcome barriers to learning, especially those with special learning needs
- engage students in complex projects
- provide access to resources that are not locally or easily available, in addition to those that are
- provide opportunities for learners to strengthen their Jewish content knowledge, skills, and abilities
- provide professional development opportunities for educators to further develop their content knowledge, teaching techniques, and reflective learning to support their personal and professional growth and that of their students.
Resources have been developed to help educational stakeholders make the case for the integration of technology for learning. Among these are: ETAN: EdTechActionNetwork which is sponsored by CoSN and ISTE and ISTE’s own Advocacy Toolkit which includes success stories, templates, and starter kits that target specific audiences (see under Advocacy). The publication, Technology in Schools: What the Research Says produced by Cisco Systems and Metiri Group, provides a good review of different tools and what current research implies about their use. The Lookstein Center’s Jewish Education Leadership issue on technology(Spring 2003)includes the article, “Teachers’ Use of Computers in the North American Day School: A Research Study,” by Shalom Berger, as well as the review, “Digest of Literature on the Impact of the Computer in Instruction” by Stanley Peerless, Esther Feldman, and Chana German. And Jonathan Woocher of JESNA takes a big picture approach to the use of technologies for Jewish learning in his article, ”Jewish Education in the Age of Google,” published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.