jlearn2.0

Google Labs is brewing up a number of new tools for educators and learners. Included among them is Accessible Search, web searching for the visually impaired. Accessible Search identifies and prioritizes search results based on their usability by users who are blind or have other visual impairments. Users can conduct searches in a variety of languages, including Hebrew, by clicking on the advanced search feature.

Google Page Creator allows users to create web pages easily. Just like Google’s Blogger software, technical expertise is not required, and the service is hosted free on Google’s site.

Google’s Picasa, by the way, is a handy tool for locating, organizing, and editing photos on one’s computer. A Linux version is now available.

Google also maintains Google for Educators which includes teachers guides to a number of their applications, including Docs and Spreadsheets, Google Earth, Maps, Picasa, and Google Calendar. In addition, they sponsor online and onsite workshops for educators.

Do you use these tools? If so, how?

And speaking of social networking, the Jewish Week published an article by jcampus.com in its January 2007 education section on how college students and Hillels are using Facebook to connect. The article, “Creating a Facebook Community: Networking site changing the face of Jewish campus life,” can be found on the Jewish Week website.

Social networking sites aren’t only for teens, college students, and young adults. Organizations are also beginning to capitalize on this phenomenon. As cited in the Jewish Week article, Hillel has a presence on Facebook. Another example is ISTE (International Society for Technology), an organization that recently created an area on MySpace to promote their work and foster connections among members (www.myspace.com/iste_org). Increasingly, marketers are using MySpace to promote movies, music, and more.

Those sites tend to be more free ranging than others that were created for more specialized purposes. LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), for example, is a social networking site designed to foster business networking. Participants are encouraged to highlight their professional achievements and interests. LinkedIn tools help users interact with colleagues and facilitate introductions to potential contacts.

Imagine a social networking site where Jewish educators, other communal professionals, lay leaders, and organizations would post their contact information, areas of expertise, and interests. Shiddachs could be made for projects or grants. Colleagues could problem-solve together and share resources. Job-seekers and potential employers could reach out to each other. And it would be interesting to see how so many of us in the field are already connected with each other and in what ways – probably more than we think.

Do you participate in any of these social networks? What is the experience like? How do they address privacy concerns? What additional features can you imagine for these sites? How might they be used for Jewish education and communal work?

By now, most web surfers are familiar with bookmarking favorite websites. Bookmarking allows users to save shortcuts to their favorite websites locally on their computer and accessing them from their web browser. This traditional form of bookmarking is useful but limited – users are unable to access their favorites from other computers. Google and Yahoo, among other services, solve this problem by offering bookmark tools that are accessible through a user’s account from any computer.

Social bookmarking is another way to store and organize favorite websites on a bookmark service that is accessible from any computer with an Internet connection. A social bookmark can be used to house private bookmarks, or to share favorites with others. Users are encouraged to include a description of the site that they select. In addition, the tag feature allows users to categorize their content in ways that are meaningful to them or by following more standardized taxonomies for tagging. Another advantage of social bookmarking is that users can identify others in cyberspace who are interested in the same sites (the “saved by x number of other people” feature), which can lead to learning about more resources on a particular topic by reviewing other bookmarked lists, discovering unanticipated relationships within subject matter, and/or connecting to a community of people with similar interests.

Educationally, there are many ways to employ social bookmarks. For example, social bookmarks can help schools keep track of favorite websites in a central location. Students can use social bookmarks to demonstrate their Internet research skills, and to share and evaluate sites appropriate to their work. Students and faculty alike can access course-related bookmarks, including online references, booklists, class web activities, and more from home as well as from school.

Del.icio.us is an example of a social bookmark service; there are other sites as well. It is fairly easy to create a free account on del.icio.us. Go to del.icio.us at http://del.icio.us and explore. If you register for it, you can include a button on your web browser that will let you add websites to your del.icio.us account easily. Many webpages and blogs include a del.icio.us “badge” on their sites so that visitors need only click on the icon to add the resource to their account.

See jlearn2.0’s site on del.icio.us by going directly to the site at: http://del.icio.us/jlearn2.0 or by clicking on the del.icio.us icon on the bottom of this page.

Do you use social bookmarking? Share your ideas, successes and challenges!

Learn more:

del.icio.us help to get started
7 things you should know about… Social Bookmarking, Educause, May 2005
Simply Del.icio.us: Online Social Bookmarking, or: Tagging for Teaching by David Muir. An educator’s introductory guide to using social bookmarking and getting started on del.icio.us.
Tag – You’re Delicious by Andy Carvin. An introduction to del.icio.us for educators published in learning.now, hosted by PBS TeacherSource.

There are a number of ways to use Flickr in educational settings, as discussed previously. Here is a short tutorial to show some features.

Go to the Flickr home page and try this out: in the search area, type the word “synagogue” and hit Go. This will call up photographs collected on Flickr that are accessible to the public which are tagged by the word “synagogue.” These photos can be sorted by “most relevant,” “most recent,” and “most interesting.” The photographs are also categorized by Groups (shared collections of similarly tagged photographs in one place) and People. Searches can be refined using Advanced Search to include photos that are available for use according to specific licensing agreements.

But wait, there’s more!

Users can take advantage of the bonus map feature. Many of the “synagogue” entries are tagged with a “geotag” designation by the person who uploaded them. Geotags allow users to call up photographs from specific regions around the world. Go to Explore and select World Map. Once the map downloads, enter “synagogue” in the search box and click Go. The search will return an interactive map of images of synagogues around the world. Click around the photos and become acquainted with different architectural styles across the continents. Try out other key words to help illustrate the Jewish experience around the world. Have students upload images of their family in a private section and geotag the pictures to depict immigration patterns. Share this project with Jewish students around the world to trace commonalities and differences.

Flickr is a free image management and organization tool. Most people use it to upload and share their photographs, but other images like digital art, clip art, and primary documents can be uploaded as well. These images can be grouped into online albums (“sets”) and slide shows, and shared publicly or with a select guest list. In addition, Flickr provides tools with which users can create captions and add comments to these images. Educators are using Flickr to promote visual literacy; support history, social studies, and math curriculum; and develop digital storytelling projects. Examples of how Flickr can be used with primary documents and photographs can be found at jlearn2.0 at Flickr. Click on each image for more details.

There are a number of places to find images related to Jewish life. Below are a few suggestions to get started - also check online archives and museums.

Jacob Richman has collected a number of “hot sites” of Jewish interest, including links to Jewish clip art and photographs that depict every day life (neighborhoods, shopping, arts and crafts) and special events (holidays, aliyah, snow in Jerusalem) in Israel. See especially Jacob Richman’s Jerusalem Picture Gallery and Jacob Richman’s Ma’aleh Adumim Picture Gallery.

Panoramic images provide viewers with a more immersive experience. Take a look at the Israel Panorama Gallery, especially the Bedouin Goat Market and The Shuk! which create environments through interaction, images and sounds.

3D Israel Virtual Tours of Israel represent another type of learning experience.

Be sure to become familiar with fair use and copyright issues. American Memory provides a good overview and the Creative Commons section at Flickr discusses licensing issues and options and offers links to images according to licensure.

Start your own image collection on Flickr or a similar site!