The Jewish Educators Network met at NECC 2007 for the seventh year in a row. Twenty-four participants from the United States and Canada attended the session, which was co-facilitated by Caren Levine, jlearn2.0, etheoreal, and Sara Seligson, Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York. The following schools were represented: Associated Hebrew Schools of Toronto; Bialik High School, Montreal; Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, Rockville, MD; Epstein School, Atlanta; Greenfield Hebrew Academy, Atlanta; Jewish People’s Schools and Peretz Schools, Montreal; Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County, NJ; Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston; and the Solomon Schechter Day School of Raritan Valley, East Brunswick, NJ.
Sara distributed the White Paper: Jewish Learning in the Digital Age, authored by Caren and published by the BJE of Greater New York in collaboration with JECC, Cleveland, and in conjunction with ATT of Chicago and the BJE of Greater Boston. The paper was supported through a grant from the Covenant Foundation. Participants at last year’s NECC Jewish Educators Network had an opportunity to comment on the pre-publication draft. The paper is also available online at www.bjeny.org.
This year, the Jewish Educators Network explored specific challenges in Jewish schools related to the integration of educational technology into the curriculum. Below are issues that were raised:
- There are enormous time constraints on Jewish day schools. Most Jewish day schools follow a dual Judaic – general studies curriculum. In addition to Hebrew, some schools also focus on Yiddish and French.
- Teachers feel pressured to fit in a lot of content in a limited amount of time. Integrating technology is perceived as an additional burden on teachers.
- We have to help teachers understand that educational technology is relevant to their work and not an additional burden.
- Many Judaic studies teachers do not have additional time to commit to professional development outside of school hours. Many of them also teach in local afternoon schools.
- Teachers need training and professional development. There need to be real incentives.
- There are additional challenges for teachers who are not native English speakers; they are not only negotiating the technology, but also learning in a second language.
- Some Orthodox schools have difficulties with aspects of technology.
- Technology curriculum specialists and administrators would like to see Judaic studies teachers use technology more, and differently.
- Educators need a central repository for electronic white board-based lesson plans for Judaic studies. [Note: The jlearn2.0 wiki (jlearn20.wikispaces.com) includes a page for this kind of resource sharing; a more complete resource database approach is under development]
- Israeli schools have wonderful websites that can be used.
- How do we create relevant rubrics to assess content and learning? Students need to know what they are being assessed on.
- Students are already familiar with technologies like GarageBand and Audacity (for creating podcasts). It is important that teachers and administrators trust their students.
- How do we take the integration of educational technology to the next level? How are students using technology to create their own learning?
- Educators are always looking for new resources and lesson plans.
- Educators need to be encouraged to share their work and ideas with their professional community.
- Technology-using educators in Jewish settings are eager to connect with one another to share ideas and projects, and to use each other as resources.
Participants shared some of their successes:
- Students use the same software in Judaic and general studies. The Hebrew teacher conducts joint projects with the secular studies teacher.
- Yiddish and Hebrew teachers find the use of electronic white boards to be an excellent tool.
- Students have had great success in creating podcasts and integrating audio into the curriculum with the use of iPods. The music and elementary school teachers use podcasts to enhance prayer skills, Torah readings, Shabbat service skills, etc. Teachers also record books and songs that are used in their community and send them home for the parents.
- Sixth graders create podcasts in which they summarize readings in Hebrew and English.
- Podcasting projects bring together children in different grades. Kindergarten students and elementary school students work collaboratively on podcasts. They record songs together and share them with other students.
- Podcasts allow for alternative assessments.
- Students create videos using Photoshop and special effects.
- Students developed a play about Israel in preparation for their school trip which they developed into a video. The students performed the play in Hebrew and distributed it on CDs.
- Students created a Photo Story slide show about their twin Israeli city prior to their class trip.
- Jewish Educators Network participants were referred to AVI CHAI’s Educational Technology Experiments blog to follow grant recipients’ progress and to get ideas for projects and potential funding: edtechexp.blogspot.com.
- Jewish Educators Network participants were referred to the second place 2007 SIGTel Online Learning Award winning project shared by the Neveh Channah School and Lower Canada College, “ International Collaborative Literature Project: From Jerusalem to Montreal.” A poster session about the project was on display at NECC. The project was cited as an example of a cross-cultural project and as an exemplar of wiki use in education. The site can be found at: jerusalem.wikispaces.com.
Follow Up
Sara and Caren will discuss the timely implementation of a discussion list and resources for this group and others who are interested in ongoing networking and sharing.
Jewish Education Network participants are encouraged to take part in the growth and development of jlearn2.0 and its associated wiki which can be found at: jlearn20.wikispaces.com. Caren is in the process of developing an expanded version of jlearn2.0 to include a more fully developed online resource center for Jewish educators by Jewish educators. Feedback will be solicited from group participants.
Next year in San Antonio!
Submitted by Caren Levine and Sara Seligson.