jlearn2.0

EDC’s Center for Children and Technology created a website for teachers and students to help promote digital literacy. The interactive website, Digital Literacy: Skills for the 21st Century – Digital Literacy Toolkit, includes online tutorials and activities that emphasize the different uses of media and their powers of persuasion. The site focuses on the grammar of sounds, images, and animation for learners who are both consumers and producers. The site is particularly useful for the critical analysis of videos, propaganda, and digital communications. It is also a good primer for aspiring producers of digital media.

The site represents just one of the many projects and reports that the organization produces based on educational research and development. CCT investigates the roles that technology can play in improving teaching and learning within children’s classrooms, schools and communities. They also design and develop technology applications that support engaged, active learning and student-centered teaching practices.

ISTE is sponsoring a Technology in Practice Webinar, Teaching with Digital Images: Acquire, Analyze, Create, Communicate. Based on the ISTE book by the same name, authors Glen Bull and Tom Hammond will discuss how to acquire images, analyze them, and use them to create and communicate in classroom settings. They will also discuss the latest research on ways to use images to enhance student achievement and learning outcomes, and will provide practical tips on seamlessly integrating this technology into the standard curriculum.

Registration fee: $50 for ISTE members / $125 non-members; includes a copy of the book. Time: 12 PM Pacific /1 PM Mountain /2 PM Central /3 PM Eastern. See the ISTE site for further details and registration.

The webinar is the first in a series of seven online seminars planned for 2007 that will feature authors and/or ISTE book topics of wide appeal to ISTE members and non-member educators. Each session will be 60 minutes, with approximately 35 minutes of presenter content.

ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) provides leadership and service to improve teaching, learning, and school leadership by advancing the effective use of technology in PK–12 and teacher education.

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!