jlearn2.0

We are pleased to welcome guest blogger, Debbie Harris, and to share her tribute to the great Jewish educator, Debbie Friedman, z”l.  Deb Harris is the technology coordinator at the Sager Solomon Schechter Middle School in Northbrook, IL and teaches religious school at Lakeside Congregation for Reform Judaism.

Note: This article was originally posted on Deb Harris’ blog, MuseForJews.  Be sure to read Deb’s blog for her regular musings on Jewish education, educational technology, and life.

Lessons From Debbie

There’s so much in the blogosphere right now about Jewish education – how to change it, how to improve it, how to invigorate it, how to re-vision it…

Of course this is not what I’ve been thinking about this week. I’ve been thinking about our dear Debbie Friedman z”l. Having known her for almost 40 years, I thought a lot about what it was like to be part of the “early Debbie” years, before all the records (and they were records), before Carnegie Hall, before the music was widely accepted. Back in the day when she couldn’t get into Hebrew Union College, let alone teach there.

She, too, changed, improved, invigorated and re-visioned. Synagogue music will never ever be the same.

Can we do for Jewish education what she and those who followed her did for Jewish music? Are there lessons we can learn from Debbie? I think so.

Here are a few I can come up with. Any more you can think of?

1. Make it relevant. Her music spoke to us because it sounded like what we were already listening to and loving. Is Jewish education relevant to our students? Does it speak their language? Use the tools they’re used to using? My synagogue bought a set of used Apple iBooks and I brought them out for my kids to use the other day. They beamed. These are old, old laptops, but the kids were as excited as if they were brand new. Is there anything I’m going to do with those laptops that I couldn’t do some other way? Maybe not, but it’s where the kids are NOW.

2. Make it engaging. We, of course, wanted to be there. The melodies were intoxicating. Debbie, undoubtedly, was intoxicating as well. She had a vibrant, exciting, huge personality. We joked about Debbie groupies. How engaging is Jewish education today? We can’t all be Debbie Friedmans, but are we attracting exciting, huge personalities and are we giving the space to be who they are?

3. Take some risks. I remember vividly the day that our cantor stormed out of the sanctuary because he and Sing Unto God just weren’t going to get along. Who won? But it was a huge risk. Singing those melodies in the sanctuary – pushing the organ out of the way to make room for the drums – had to piss lots of people off. I’m sure the synagogue lost a donor or two in the process. But certainly it was a risk that paid off.

4. Involve the kids. In 1973, those of us in Debbie’s youth group felt like we were in the inner circle. We heard songs before they were songs. She played with melodies during our song sessions. I know people who still have the scribbled sheets of lyrics composed during late-night sessions at camp and on retreats. Some of those things never became famous and never made it onto albums. We didn’t care. Everything was special because we were part of it. Her song Laugh At All My Dreams was composed for my graduating class. To this day, I can’t hear it without remembering that incredible time that we spent together. Lesson learned: involve the kids from the beginning.

5. It’s okay to tear it all down. Today, it’s not at all unusual to hear a Debbie Friedman melody sung in the same service as older tunes. They live comfortably with one another and everyone is comfortable (well, maybe not everyone, but many). Back in the day, though, we were bold. We tore it all apart and started from scratch. I remember sitting in the youth lounge trying to figure out a new way to do a responsive reading, to reinterpret the Aleynu (only we called it the Adoration at the time. Let us adore (let us adore) the ever-living God (the ever-living God). You remember, right?). Debbie and her music encouraged us to rethink all of it. Nothing was, you should pardon the expression, sacred. Let’s do that with Jewish education. Declare nothing is sacred and go from there.

Comments? Please chime in

[W]e’ve observed that class and student blogging success is strongly related to the teacher’s abilities.   The greater we support and increase a teacher’s skills, the better they are able to support their students use of web 2.0 technologies.  – Teacher Challenge: About

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You cannot get students to blog. Period. You cannot convince a single student to invest themselves into a long-term blogging journey if the educator is trying to convince them to participate with simple “carrot and stick” motivators. Students should instead enter into a conversation that encourages them and reassures them that their personal investment is worth the effort. This conversation should be moderated by a learning companion, by a mentor who is an active blogger, who is completely convinced of the significance of long-term sustained personal narrative as an end in itself, as an incredibly important tool that guides and shapes oneself over time, through transitional events, through courses and programs and seminars and conferences.

Such a mentor would model the journey, model the processes, and model both the serious sense-making activities and the rehearsing and play-building and celebrating. Students need to experience the mentor’s blogging firsthand if they are to be convinced that the blogging journey that starts with a first step is worth embarking on at all.   – Glenn Groulx,  Facilitator, Blogging in Professional Networks: Nov 8-26, 2010 , on SCoPE

Have you wanted to start a blog but weren’t sure how? Do you have a blog, but want to raise it to the next level? Are you an educator who wants to model the blogging experience for your students… or use blogging for your own reflective work? Here are two resources that are sure to get you going – one new, one not so new but both have lots to offer!

30 Day Challenge to Kick Start Your Blog

Take the 30 Day Challenge to Kick Start Your Blog hosted by Edublogs*.  The first activity kicks off on Monday, January 10, followed by a new activity every day for the next, well, 30 days.  The Challenge will walk you through getting started on a blog, writing effective posts, commenting, widgets, building readership, and more.

Each day the Challenge will publish Beginners Activities, Advanced Activities, and Discussion Questions.  The Activities provide detailed “how-tos” along with easy to follow visual tutorials.

Access the Challenge the way you prefer: visit the site daily, add it to your RSS feed, or subscribe for daily updates.

Stay tuned for their upcoming challenges – this year is going to fly by!:

• 30 days to get your students blogging (this will also get you ready for their Student Blogging Challenge in March)
• 30 days to a whole new PLN (personal learning network)
• 30 days to use the best of the web’s free resources
• 30 days to ensuring privacy and student safety on the web
• 30 days to increased parent involvement

And be sure to check out Sue Waters’ blog, The Edublogger, for regular tips and techniques on blogging and other social media resources.

*Although Edublogs sponsors this Challenge and supports many terrific features for classroom blogging, feel free to use the blogging platform of your choice to participate; fyi, Edublogs runs on WordPress.  And you don’t have to be an educator to join in!

SCoPE: Blogging in Professional Networks

SCoPE is a personal favorite site for professional learning.  Wonderfully facilitated by Sylvia Currie and hosted by BC Campus, SCoPE is an open, online community for people interested in educational research and practice.  Last November,  Glenn Groulx facilitated a seminar on Blogging in Professional Networks.  The 3 week session focused on:

• strategies for gathering information from various online sources
• organizing these sources within blog posts, and
• connecting with experts and peers by engaging in way-making activities to explore, find and connect with others.

One of the great things about SCoPE seminars is the door is always open to continued conversation… so feel free to read the postings – and contribute!  And be sure to review previous and future seminars and join in.

What are some of your favorite blogging resources? What inspires you?

Check out the latest issue of  Jewish Educational Leadership, “j ed tech 2.0” in print and online, published by the Lookstein Center for Jewish Education (some articles are available to members only). [Update: all the articles are now accessible to the public - thanks Lookstein!]

Topics include conceptual pieces that address big picture issues around Jewish learning and identity in the 21st century, as well as articles on specific projects and curricular resources.  Zvi Grumet lays out the blueprint of the publication in his introductory remarks:

Our Research section opens with a mapping of the issues by Jonathan Woocher and colleagues*. Eli Kannai explores visions of the future of education; Judy Cahn and Rona Novick examine some of the social implications of new technologies; Devora Preiss shares highlights from her doctoral research on using technology to enhance spirituality in tefillah. Closing out this section is a short, insightful essay by Shifra Kaufman on how classical Jewish studies address some of the intelligences deemed necessary for the emerging new era.

Our applications section is rich with ideas from the field. Sholom Eisenstat presents an overview of the integration of hardware and readily available, often free, software into educational settings; Lookstein’s Esther Feldman shares insights from five years of experience using distance learning for Jewish studies; veteran educational technologist Meir Fachler introduces the latest software from Gemara Berura to aid in the study of Mishnah. Efraim Feinstein introduces us to the Open Siddur project, Yechiel Hoffman describes how technology integrated into and enhanced a high school Jewish thought class, and Avital Drory shares some of the pioneering work being done in Israel in Jewish educational software development.

Our Features section opens with Howard Blas’ description of the challenges, successes and lessons of creating an online Community of Practice. Selections from John Palfrey’s Born Digital provide significant food for thought, and Contributing Editor Levi Cooper continues to tantalize with a fascinating perspective on a previous technology revolution. Finally, our Perspectives column features Sam Lehman-Wilzig, a professor of communications, whose research at Bar-Ilan University focuses on the impact of future technologies on society.

*The article, Technology and Jewish Education: A Revolution in the Making by Monica Rozenfeld, Jonathan Woocher, Lisa Colton, and Caren Levine is based on our work on the JE3 project over at JESNA’s Lippman Kanfer Institute.

So, kick up your feet and peruse away.  What captures your imagination? What are you integrating into your work? What are challenges that you are facing? What would it take to bring your work to the next level?

[cross-posted on JewPoint0]

A friend recently commented on how the change of seasons provides us with multiple points along the year for reflection and change in our lives.  And if anyone doubts that we have moved into a new season, just take a look out my window at all those beautiful white flakes.

So I am taking this opportunity to think out loud a bit.  Over the course of the last several months, I’ve developed a personal learning plan.  This plan includes:

• more Jewish learning (torah l’shmah)
• more learning about learning
• more sharing about what I am learning

I figure I’m doing pretty well putting the the first two items into action, although in an ideal world, I would spend even more time learning.  I’ve been blessed to have two friends with whom I have been studying Jewish text fairly regularly, face to face and through Skype.  I’ve been meeting new people through my professional learning networks and continue to connect in new ways with more familiar colleagues.  I have several stacks of books that I’ve been reading with varying amounts of intensity in assorted flavors:  Jewish history, theology, Jewish text, education, nonprofits, gaming, social media/ technology, elearning, social learning, online community, networked learning, communities of practice, professional learning networks.  I have lots of questions – what can learning be given all of these new resources? How can we re-imagine our “platforms” for learning – what works, what could be different? What is emerging? What does curriculum look like? Professional learning? Identity/ies?

I’m trying to create the space and time to deepen my own learning – and to share more deeply.  I would like to blog more frequently and differently.  I am finding that I go through phases with Twitter and lately I’ve been using it more actively. I use Delicious seemingly daily; it was invented for a resource-y person like me (a much kinder word than “pack rat”).  Facebook, virtual worlds, and other social network sites definitely have their charms. I like playing with different resources and platforms and seeing where we fit together.  It’s all a work in progress.

Interestingly, what I am learning is that the more I interact with colleagues and their ideas, the more I am motivated to raise the level of my thinking.  You challenge me and I thank you for that. I’m hoping that by putting out my personal learning plan to the world I will continue to propel myself forward.

What’s in your personal learning plan?

Wishing you a season of re-creation, meaning, and fun!

Lots of juicy resources out there! Below are a few to check out if you are not already familiar with them ((some are ongoing, others have deadlines*).  Please note that this is not a complete listing by any means.  Feel free to follow jlearn2.0 on twitter @jlearn20 for goodies on a slightly more regular basis.

Areyvut’s Annual Bnai Mitzvah Video Essay Contest*

Areyvut works with Jewish youth to infuse their lives with the core Jewish values of chesed (kindness), tzedakah (charity) and tikkun olam (social action).   Once again they are sponsoring a contest for B’nai Mitzvah students in grades 5-10 to share their mitzvah project experiences.  Details can be found here. But hurry, the deadline is coming up soon – December 31st – so act now!

BabagaNewz Technology Tuesdays

You probably are already familiar with BabagaNewz, the educational web site for Jewish middle school students and teachers.  Be sure to check out their teacher resources, including Technology Tuesdays.  Each week (on Tuesdays, in fact…), BabagaNewz sends out a brief enewsletter that features a different tool that can be integrated into your curriculum.  Learn more and subscribe here.

Darim Online: Shalom Sesame webinar*

Darim Online is hosting a webinar on Tuesday, January 11 at 1-2pm ET with the creators of the new Shalom Sesame dvd series and website which were designed to teach North American children of all ages about Israel and Jewish culture. Come and learn about the project and how it can be useful for educators and families. Meet the Shalom Sesame project directors and educators who are implementing this project in their work, learn more, and share your ideas – it’s free and fun – register in advance here!

Jewish Educational Leadership: The Lookstein Center

Keep a look out for the latest edition of the Lookstein Center’s journal, Jewish Educational Leadership: j ed tech 2.0.  Articles will be made available online sometime soon.  And of course, be sure to subscribe to the lookjed list, an online Jewish community that has been running strong for over a decade.  Props to the gang at Lookstein for their continued, thoughtful work in this area!

Jewish Educational Change Network

Get in on the conversation about change in Jewish education with the Jewish Educational Change Network guided by Jon Woocher and sponsored by the Lippman Kanfer Institute at JESNA.  The network is designed “to enable all of us who are working for change in Jewish education – educators, parents, volunteer and professional leaders, financial supporters, advocates, and learners – to connect with one another, to learn what leaders in the field are doing, to share our work, and to access ideas and resources that can help us make Jewish education a more engaging, satisfying, and impactful experience for learners of all ages.”  Lots of robust discussions are emerging – be a part of it!  And save the date for the upcoming webinar on January 20, 4:30-5:30pm ET,  “The Future is Now: From Innovation to Integration – Web conversation with Charlie Schwartz and Russel Neiss.”  And don’t forget to (re)visit the JESNA Lippman-Kanfer’s JE3 Project.  Lots of important resources related to Jewish learning and technology sponsored by an organization that has been involved in this endeavor for decades!

Limmud 30 online*

Many sessions will be steaming live online – check them out!  And feel free to add your two shekels … er pounds… to Daniel Needlestone’s session, “e-Tools, e-Learning, and e-Communication for e-veryone” on Tuesday, December 28 (check out your local time here).  Daniel is looking for people to drop in and share their favorite tools and/or case studies, either asynchronously via VoiceThread or synchronously on the broadcast; share what you’re willing to share here.

SJED*

The Legacy Heritage’s SJED Lesson Stimulus Contest is still on through May 15, 2011.  Submit qualifying lesson plans to their SMARTBoard Jewish Educational Database (SJED).  It’s an instant win-win in that educators have the opportunity to share their best work with the learning community; the prizes are an added bonus.  Details can be found here.

YU 2.0

YU 2.0 is a new online community created by the Institute for the University-School Partnership, a division of the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration of Yeshiva University (be sure to check out their series of social media webinars). The network describes itself as “the intersection of technology and Jewish education. We are a community of educators invested in learning, collaborating and integrating technology into education.”  A big shout out to Eliezer Jones for his exemplary network facilitation.  Eliezer, you make it look so effortless; it’s a pleasure to watch you in action!

Got More?

Share your favorite resources in the comments section below.

A question I  am often asked is, “Yes, but what are some examples of how these resources are integrated into the curriculum? By real live educators with real live learners!”

Presenting two free ebooks to whet your appetites and tickle your imaginations:

The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators: A comprehensive guide to technology in all k-12 classrooms.  Articles include perspectives from administrators and teachers, as well as elementary school, middle school, and high school projects, and projects centered around particular subject matter or tools (ESL, Skype, blogging). Contributors  include notable education bloggers Steve Anderson, Richard Byrne, George Couros, Larry Ferlazzo, Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano, and others. Check it out!

But wait, there’s more!  Be sure to read through Terry Freedman’s The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book, a compilation that is chock full of practical ideas for the classroom. The many contributors include an international cast of educators such as Terry Freedman, Jackie Gerstein, Julie Lindsay, Sharon Peters, Shelley Terrell, Silvia Tolisana, Jen Wagner, and Reuven Werber, to name drop just a few.

Enjoy!

What are some of your favorite curricular activities? Anyone interested in compiling practical resources and projects for Jewish studies?

This year, the ISTE Conference (formerly known as NECC) will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, June 26-29, 2011.  The conference is billed as the world’s premier education technology event.

It’s huge. It’s overwhelming. It’s what you make of it. And there is always something for everybody whether it’s sessions on getting started with educational technology, tips and techniques, research papers, student project displays, intense networking in the hallways, a labyrinthine exhibit hall, quiet corners for reflection.

Conference tracks include: School Improvement; Technology Infrastructure; Professional Learning; Digital Age Teaching and Learning; and, Virtual Schooling/ E-learning.

Be sure to make hotel reservations early – spaces fill quickly.  Super early-bird registration closes March 31, 2011.  Details, including registration and housing can be found here.

We are also pleased to announce the 11th annual meeting of the Jewish Educators Network at ISTE. Details to follow – but give a yell if you are interested in attending and be sure to join our google group to receive updates and connect with other like-minded Jewish educators:

Subscribe to jewish educators network

Email:

Visit this group

Chag sameach!