jlearn2.0

The Lippman Kanfer Institute, in cooperation with CAJE, is sponsoring a new project investigating the impact and potential of new media on Jewish education. Jewish Education 3.0, aka JEd3.0, will result in a working paper that focuses on technology and Jewish education. JEd3.0 invites collaboration from the field – contributions are welcome to the project wiki.

The project is examining the impact media and technology has on Jewish education today, and how educators, learners, and other Jewish education stakeholders can utilize these tools to improve and empower their own learning and teaching. Current wiki topics include the changing role of educators, Jewish values and ethics, issues of identity, and more.

If you are at CAJE, join us at the JEd3.0 reception on Tuesday, August 12 at 4:45pm - 6:15pm in the Mildred Livak Room (419), Davis Center. In either case, let your voice be heard on the wiki!

The Lippman Kanfer Institute (LKI) is an action-oriented think tank for innovation in Jewish learning and engagement. The Institute identifies and disseminates new ideas, new thinking, new practices and new organizational designs to keep Jewish education relevant and effective in a changing world. More information can be found at JESNA.

Thanks to Beth Kanter over at Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media for highlighting resources on The New Jew: Blogging Jewish Philanthropy, especially Maya Norton’s post To My Readers: Avoiding Plagiarism, Understanding the Creative Commons License. And be sure to take a look at Getting the Message Across with YouTube: Taking Your Nonprofit to the Next Level.

Esther Kustanowitz of JTA blogging, MyUrbanKvetch, PresenTense, and Jewish Week fame, recently posted on the need for Jewish education to embrace new media for learning:

What CAJE’s next conference needs — and really what the whole Jewish non-profit world could benefit from — is a systemwide technology overhaul from an equipment and a human resources/skills perspective. What CAJE did was a tremendous stride forward, expressing the hope and trust that if they built it, the educators would come to use it and populate it with fresh content. But educators, both formal and informal, require the tools and the skills to reach students who live their lives online even more than I do. If those students are listening to MP3 players, let them listen to Jewish educational podcasts and music in addition to the soundtrack from “High School Musical.” If they are reading blogs, let them be Jewish blogs. If they are using e-mail, expand their use to a joint wiki with another school to cross-pollinate ideas and experiences and build a stronger Jewish people.

As usual, Esther writes thoughtfully and passionately about the topic. Take a look at the full article on JTA and be sure to read the article that Esther co-authored with Ariel Beery in the recent issue of CAJE’s JEN, Jewish Education News, “Information Nation: Expanding Education’s Frontier to Find ‘Generation Tech.‘”

The paper provides a brief overview of the educational landscape and focuses on issues related to building capacities for change.

• Vision and leadership are crucial. Educational stakeholders must continue to serve as advocates for quality Jewish education and recognize the role that technology can play in support. They need to understand that successful implementation of educational technology is accessible, achievable, and incorporates elements of good practice. These leaders should convene on a regular basis and use technology to support their work.
• Administrators and teachers need to understand issues around educational technology so that they can make informed and educationally sound decisions based on their learner’s needs.
• Cadres of technology-using educators – in addition to technology coordinators – need to be nurtured through a range of professional development and networking, and be given opportunities and the support to experiment. Early adapters and peer leaders can be enlisted to assist their colleagues.
• Teachers must be provided with incentives and opportunities to move from adopting applications to truly appropriating them as new ways to achieve their curricular objectives. Ultimately, they should be able to transform their practice by integrating technology in a seamless way as another resource to foster deep learning.
• Students and educators alike must become critical connoisseurs of multimedia resources and opportunities and develop habits of lifelong learning.
• Schools of higher learning, in particular teacher preparation programs, need to implement and model the integration of technology into content and teaching technique on a regular basis.
• Research and evaluations must be conducted and disseminated to help identify promising practices, to better evaluate digital learning in Jewish settings, and to avoid reinventing wheels.
• Financially viable venues need to be developed for the creation and dissemination of quality educational resources and initiatives that take advantage of the opportunities new technologies can offer.
• Creative ways to address funding issues should be developed and promoted.
• Support should be given to both cutting edge projects and more modest endeavors that integrate technology in relevant and appropriate ways. Attention should be paid to innovation, but also to what is more easily doable and accessible to most people. Opportunities should be provided to build on successes.

We encourage you to read the full text of the paper. It is not intended as a definitive piece, rather, it was meant to serve as a means of engaging educators and educational stakeholders in deeper conversations about Jewish learning and the role new media play.

Take a look at the following publications for some interesting articles on social networking, online learning environments, and what it’s like to be Jewish in a virtual world:

The Wall Street Journal published a series of articles in its June 18, 2007 print edition Report on Technology. Copies of select articles are available online including the following:

“A Job Interview You Don’t Have to Show Up For: Microsoft, Verizon, Others Use Virtual Worlds to Recruit; Dressing Avatars for Success” by Anjali Athavaley, Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2007.
“All Things Digital” by Walter S. Mossberg and Kara Swisher. Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2007.
“Making Sense of Social Software.” Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2007.
“Matters of the Mind” by Lee Gomes. Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2007. Want something more substantive than YouTube? Here’s where to find highbrow videos on the Web.
“Playing Well With Others” by William M. Bulkeley. Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2007. How IBM’s employees have taken social networking to an unusual level.
“Social Studies” by Michael Totty. Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2007. Companies of all kinds are figuring out which tools work and how to use them.
“Wikis at Work” by Vauhini Vara, Wall Street Journal, June 18, 2007. Companies turn the Wikipedia concept into a powerful corporate-information tool for employees

For an education perspective, see ISTE’s May 2007 issue of Leading and Learning with Technology.

2Life - The Jewish Magazine in Second Life presents its June 2007 issaue, “Hiders and Seekers - The Inter(net) Faith Issue, in which they explore aspects of Jewish identity and faith identity in the virtual world.

It’s been a good season for sharing ideas about educational technology and Jewish learning in print. Two Jewish educational publications recently highlighted the use of technology in Jewish learning. RAVSAK devoted their Pesach 2007 edition of HaYidion to “Technology and Jewish Education.” The entire issue will be available online at www.ravsak.org under “Publications.” For further information, contact info@ravsak.org.

CAJE’s Spring 2007 Jewish Education News focuses on “Educational Resources for Schools.” A substantial amount of the magazine’s content centered on aspects of digital learning. Select articles, including those published only online can be found at: www.caje.org/learn/Winter07/jen-winter07.asp. Copies of the print edition are available from CAJE for $7.00.

And speaking of CAJE, the organization has put out a call for articles for the next two editions of JEN which will focus on the 21st century landscape of Jewish learning, and 21st century learners and educators respectively. Digital culture is certainly a key influence – consider submitting an article; consider attending the conference:

The 32nd annual CAJE conference will be held August 5-9, 2007 at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. In conjunction with this year’s conference theme, “Engaging 21st Century Jewish Learners,” CAJE is devoting the next two issues of its publication, Jewish Education News, to exploring the 21st century landscape of Jewish learning (Summer) and 21st century Jewish learners and educators (Fall). The request for articles, excerpted below, includes works that address the following areas:

• Who is the 21st century learner?
• What does it mean to be a learner in this new landscape?
• What resources do educators need to work in this new landscape and what do they need access to?
• How do we meet today’s learners “where they are?”
• What roles can technologies play in creating new environments for Jewish education?
• How can social networking platforms support increased Jewish identification and professional networking?
• How are new technologies shaping Jewish education and learning?

Contact Judi Resnick, CAJE Communications Coordinator, at jresnick@caje.org for the complete Call for Articles and submissions guidelines. The deadline for the Summer publication is May 15, 2007; June 4, 2007 for the Fall publication. Submissions should not exceed eight double-spaced typed pages and no more than 2,500 words. See the CAJE website for details about the annual conference: www.caje.org.

This appears to be the authorized Norwegian Broadcast version of “Medieval Help Desk” (aka “Introducing the Book”), a video that has been making the rounds recently on YouTube.

Originally created as a skit for the show, “Øystein og jeg” in 2001, the clip remains humorous and relevant.

In addition to its entertainment value, the video would make a good trigger for professional development sessions or discussions about the evolution of text and technologies (in this case, from “paper rolls” - that is, scrolls - to the book). It could also be used to start a dialogue between tech support and the people who use them…