Plan for using technology in the classroom

Option 1:
I have created a main wiki page for my 2nd and 3rd grade Bereshit class that will have links to every unit's individual wiki page. For example, the unit Joseph: From Pit to Palace has a wiki page with a webquest of sorts. On this wiki page, students will review the material (with embedded youtube videos as well as written instructions for book reading), answer a couple questions, and choose an option for their own creative final project.

 The options for the project include:

1. Being the rabbi and coming up with your own questions about the story (posted right onto that section by the student) 
2. Film a news report about the story (using my Iphone and/or TBZ filming capabilities with laptops and a handheld camera) 
3. Drawing a scene in the story (to be scanned and submitted onto the page) 
4. Create a wordle with the words that you think are most important in the story (I'm not sure how one would post this other than printing it out and scanning it) 
5. Write and record a song (Iphone and garageband on laptop) Again, all of these projects would be posted on the Joseph: From Pit to Palace wiki page.

Option 2: Using the same wiki page, students will be asked to take the following steps after review the material:

1. Come up with a list of questions about the story 
2. For each question, think of at least two possible answers 
3. Film a news report where you are trying to give the viewers all of the information but you keep running into questions! To make matters more confusing, the reporters don't agree on the answers to the questions. This would be done in two groups of 4, filmed in class with cutaways to side reporters, drawings, and wordle. I would then edit the material in imovie and produce it for the class to enjoy!

Prezi on The Book of Esther and Historical Contextualization

Hannah Lindholm and I created this prezi in order to explore the historical contextualization of the book of Esther. It is meant to be a way for a teacher to guide the students in an active text study and exploration of the book. It is very much a work in progress.

Wiki for Jonah Project based learning

I am currently running this project based learning experience at Temple Israel.

Here is the lesson plan:

Essential Questions:
What are the big unanswerable questions in the book of Jonah?
How can we learn about the difficulties of leadership from exploring the our questions?
How can midrash help us delve deeply into the Torah?

Enduring understandings:
-The book of Jonah is filled with unanswerable questions that push us towards contemplating the problems of leadership, and what makes leadership difficult.
-Jonah is a difficult, real character that makes decisions that aren't easy. Through exploring his decisions, we can have a better understanding of our own decision making and what keeps us from stepping up sometimes.
- Prophets are human beings just like us. Being a prophet doesn't mean being perfect. We can be inspired by the prophets and also learn "what not to do"

Procedure in short:
1. Read the whole book of Jonah
2. Post 5 -10 questions you have after reading the book
3. Discuss the difference between an "answerable" question and a "not answerable" question
4. Review our class rubric
5. In chevrutah or alone, choose one question and post it
7. In chevrutah or alone, create a project that answers your question
8. Present your project to the class

In order to structure a project based learning experience about Jonah, I created this wiki. I am running this lesson right now and the students are all doing digital projects including iMovies, a prezi and a powerpoint.

Wiki to help Students Learn Hebrew

I have created a wiki to help students learn Hebrew. It is very much a work in progress, but I hope that it will be useful for my students and the teachers I work with. I appreciate any and all comments, particularly suggestions for resources!

Hillel and Shammai Lesson

This is a lesson presenting the famous Hillel and Shammai "On One Foot" debate. It is part of a larger history unit that spans the course of our year.

The lesson is presented in the form of a web quest scaffold in a google presentation. The students will start by watching a movie on youtube and then prepare for a class discussion to make sure everyone is on the same page in their comprehension after the video. 

Then the students will make their own videos using their computers' webcams or one of the hand held video cameras our school has available. They will be making a series of two videos with their group, one a short video explaining how to tie one's shoes (sub ten seconds) and another longer video explaining how to tie one's shoes (a minute or longer.) 

As the students move through the lesson they will add their own slides on to the end of the presentation, the first being a slide with both of their videos uploaded. Afterwards, to take the idea an move in a more intellectual direction the students will read an article from DOGO, a kid friendly news source, and then create a short video or comic strip with the tools at Primaryaccess.org to explain their article in a Hillel and Shammai like manner. 

Once they have loaded this into a slide at the end of the presentation they will choose one other group's article and presentation, look through it, and comment. 

Reflections: I have found in teaching lessons in this style it is very important to put the right group of kids together. Technology seems to be able to exacerbate bad group dynamics, as everyone wants a turn and anyone who is not proficient in the use of the computer tends to feel a tremendous amount of pressure from their classmates. I have seen that different groups will try to share the computer in different ways, such as one student using the keyboard and another using the mouse. Creating clear rules about how the computer can and should be shared seems important to reduce the risk of problems arising in the groups.

Winship's big ideas from TTF

It has been a great seminar and I have learned a lot about the powerful tools that exist on the internet that can help present information and engage students in a new way in class. I think more than anything else, the tools I have seen on the internet creating an engaging way for students to collaborate together in the classroom, and perhaps even more importantly, at home. There isn't a lot of class time in our after school program and by creating school google accounts that students can access from home, they are able to continue working on projects that interest them together without the need for photocopying the work they have done at school to send home or asking them to find time to meet together outside of school hours.

When we first started this fellowship and I started using technology in my classroom I felt that it could only benefit all of the students in my class. Throughout this past semester I have run into several issues using technology with students with different disabilities, especially those with processing issues. It is not enough to put technology in front of the students, it is about finding the right tools to support different learning abilities and styles. 

Often in the beginning of this fellowship I used google docs as a mode for my students to work during class, and found that for those kids with dyslexia this was a frustrating class that created problems with their group dynamics. This was solved with a personal computer for these specific students, or by starting to use other tools, such as comic strip creators and movies to allow these students to respond to our class discussions in alternate ways.

In the future I would like to utilize the ease technology hands to moving projects between the classroom and home to deepen the homework assignments I ask my students to do and help them continue their learning throughout the week. I also hope to find more efficient tools so that less time can be used in class to accomplish more with technology.

Wiki for Ninth Grade Israel Beth El Class

Wiki for the Ninth Grade Israel Class at Beth El

Our second project for the Technology Fellowship was the creation of a Class Wiki for our Ninth Grade Israel Class, on which we could post Webquests and assignments and the students could post finished work , as well as answer the “question of the day”.  We have enough netbooks for each student to have one in class, so they can work on the projects in class.

The Wiki can be seen at http://bethel-grade9.wikispaces.com/. It currently has two projects.  The first is webquest for Wars in Israel  in which students are asked to make a Prezi  about one aspect of one war.  There is a Prezi I made as an example on the Wiki.  The second is a Webquest to research an itinerary in Israel that is based on the itinerary the class will be using next year on their tenth grade HiBur trip to Israel.  The project is to make a popplet about one of the places on the itinerary.

Mark and Judy