Thoughts and Musings

CJP's Teaching and Technology Fellowship has opened the door to many possibilities to integrate technology in my classroom.  I came into the fellowship feeling confident in my understanding of iPad's and technology both inside the classroom and not.  I was already attempting to to include technology into the learning process before even hearing about the fellowship.  I am impressed by the tools and strategies we were introduced to and am coming out of the fellowship with a strong feeling that I am prepared to add technology into my classroom.

This fellowship further reinforced my belief that technology in the classroom is the future.  Our society is developing into a technology driven culture and the best way to prepare our student's to be empowered Jewish adults is through embracing the benefits of this change.  It is essential that Jewish schools embrace technology in the classroom.

The fellowship also introduced me to some incredible apps that I am looking forward to using in the future.  I was particularly drawn to the possibility of integrating Blogger, iMovie, and Book Creator into my curriculum.   Apps like this have the possibility to enhance the learning, while also creating excitement among  the students.  After learning about iMovie, I experimented with it in my classroom and was impressed by how serious and creatively my student's took the assignment.  To add to that, the students have been talking about it frequently and have been asking to use it again.  These apps have the possibility of students not only learning from them, but also allow the student to gain ownership over the material by encouraging creativity and self expression.

Moving forward, I plan to integrate technology into all of the classes that I teach.  As I explained in a previous blog post, I plan on using technology in my 7th grade Holocaust curriculum.  I strongly believe that technology will benefit the student's ability to understand subject matter and to reflect on what we are studying.  I plan to have students work on a long term project throughout the semester, focusing on an individual community that was destroyed in the Holocaust and preserve the story of their community using Book Creator and other apps.

I also plan on continuing to use online learning (both in class and at home) via a class website.  Check out my 5th grade class website by clicking here.

I have been very impressed with all that I have learned from CJP's Teaching and Technology Fellowship and am grateful for have been given this incredible opportunity to improve my teaching.