jlearn2.0

Take a look over at On One Foot, Joshua Hammerman’s blog. His recent posting, “No More ‘Three Day’ Jews” reflects on the emerging cultural impact of the web 2.0 world on Jewish learning and identity. The article was also published in The Jewish Week.

And be sure to check out Joshua’s explorations of ethical issues related to digital life through a Jewish lens in his “Masechet Cyberspace,” another important resource for this continuing conversation.

Our friend, Reuven Werber recently started an after school club with his students. The club is focusing on developing web 2.0 skills for collaborative expression. Read more about it in English here and check out their wiki in Hebrew here. Looking forward to following this project!

And speaking of colleagues and communities of practice, Reuven Werber shared with me in a Skype conversation his experience participating in an online collaboration with other educators. Educator, Vicki Davis (aka Coolcat Teacher), used twitter to reach her colleagues and invited them to experiment with Google presentations – at least 40 educators from around the world responded. They were able to both present and chat online for free, using Google Presentations. The presentation they designed, btw, was on how to create Google Presentations. Read Vicki’s first hand account.

More and more of these types of stories are emerging in the education and not-for-profit blogosphere. Do you have a story to share?

Although the blog has been quiet, jlearn2.0 has been actively working behind the scenes to develop a new site (coming soon here it is…!) with new resources (coming a little later…!).

Things I’ve been thinking about lately in no particular order (coming soon… - really!): professional development 2.0, web cubed, social networking, communities of practice, facebook, sukkah building in Second Life, online conferences, web 2.0, technology stewardship, site visits to schools, cherishing colleagues, and, yes, anchovies.

Stay tuned…

One of the challenges of sorting through information on the web is accessing it in a way that is organized and efficient. Many webites and blogs, this one included, use syndication feeds like RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) or Atom to send updated material to one central site. These central sites are called aggregators, newsreaders, or feed readers and include Bloglines, Google Reader, and Netvibes.

Let’s say you look at five or six different websites on a regular basis. Instead of clicking on each site to view new information, you can set up a free account on an aggregator, through which you can subscribe to your favorite sites. In this way, you need only log onto one place to view new content.

To learn more, take a look at the slideshow, The New Information Pipeline about RSS feeds created by Dave Jakes for his recent presentation at the CUE 2007 conference. In addition to being informative, the slideshow is a nice example of how educators and students can create presentations and make them accessible online using sites such as Slideshare and Picasa.

Also see Jakes’ site for a compilation articles, educator guides, and resources on creative ways to use feeds for learning at www.jakesonline.org/rss.htm, especially Quentin D’Souza’s Web 2.0 Ideas for Educators, A Guide to RSS and More, and Will Richardson’s RSS Guide for Educators.

Check out TeacherTube, a new site that provides a safe, free venue for teachers and their students to post and access education-related videos. TeacherTube is growing its catalogue of videos and it is interesting to see the different types of resources that are available. The site is not affiliated with YouTube.

Imagine an online platform dedicated to video channels by and for students and educators engaged in Jewish learning.

Educators are using blogs as a means to develop reading, writing, and information and communication technology (ICT) literacies. Blogs also provide a forum for collaboration, information gathering, knowledge building, and publishing.

Below are a few examples of how blogs can be integrated into Jewish educational settings:

• Students in a writing class use blogs as their personal notebooks to share with their teacher for feedback on content and writing skills. The teacher and other students in their writing groups provide comments to help the authors refine, clarify, and strengthen their ideas. The blog preserves a running commentary as the work is created. Students also use images, original videos and podcasts to help tell their stories and to develop visual literacy and communications skills.
• A Jewish history class creates a “you are there” blog in which they write from the perspective of famous personalities or from a specific historical period.
• Learners in a North American class collaborate with Israeli counterparts to compare and contrast their everyday lives. Learners interview their grandparents and other older adults about their experiences growing up Jewish at a particular time or place. These interviews are edited and presented as video clips or audiocasts. Students track their families’ immigration patterns on Google Earth and link it to their blog.
• Jewish family educators post weekly guides related to the Torah portion for family discussions around the dinner table. Families build on this material, sharing their insights and related family customs with each other online.
• Congregational school students use a blog to continue their work on class social action projects even though they are not in the school building.
• A Hebrew language class practices their oral and written skills by producing podcasts and accompanying written materials in Hebrew. They exchange messages with native Hebrew speakers, discuss topics of mutual interest, and share photographs related to these topics through Flickr.
• Administrators post weekly updates about school events. Teachers use the blog to remind students and their families about homework assignments and keep them abreast of class projects.
• A beginning teacher in a day school keeps a blog journal that he shares with his mentor. The teacher journals about challenges he is facing in his new position. Each week he chooses a particular area to develop. His mentor reacts to his postings by providing feedback and perspective based on her own experiences. The teacher posts video clips of this work to his blog and reflects on what he had planned and what occurred in practice. Similarly, his mentor can post video clips that demonstrate alternate methodologies.

Feel free to share your own ideas!