"Prayeraoke"

For years I have enjoyed my Hebrew teaching but found it to be challenging.   As you well know, those of us who teach in after school programs have very little  going for us.  With only an hour a week per class, students arrive to us tired, hungry, stressed and certainly not at their best.  On top of all of this, they have no incentive to do a great job or study at home,  since no one has given students the sense that we are giving them a skill that will be useful to them, outside of classic Bar Mitzvah preparation fear.

So naturally, teachers like us quickly realize that one way of motivating students to learn some Hebrew in the classroom is to make it fun.  There are lots of kitschy Hebrew games to play in the classroom, however the mileage varies with such games and usually we sacrifice content or leave someone behind as we give in to the feel-good.  We acquiescence to the begging for games.  In essence, we water down our efficacy by avoiding what really works for mastering Tefila skills.  Repetition, repetition, put it away, then repetition.  Did I mention repetition?

As a long time bar mitzvah tutor and Hebrew teacher, it has been proven to me time and time again that this is the simple formula for learning prayers and melodies.  Repetition scientifically contributes to short term memory,  and returning to it often contributes to moving knowledge to our long-term memory.

My final project started out with the intent to create a Hebrew prayer version of karaoke, called Prayeraoke. I have had this idea for years, but have never found software or a person that could create it for me. This remains in my list of things to do.  (Please feel free to use my idea, in return for free rights to use it!)

Quickly realizing that I wasn't going to fulfill my dream of creating real Prayeraoke, I started to think about my use of music in the classroom and out.

In many places that I go, I consider my guitar and my song leading skills to be tools that not too many other people have. So when GarageBand was introduced to me in TTF, I naturally gravitated to it.  I layed down a few tracks, using only a quiet room, the iPad and my musical ability (which is mediocre) as tools.  Very quickly and gratifyingly, I produced something that sounded decent and could be used in order to tell a digital story.

Once the audio was complete,  I was able to export it to iMovie and smash it with a little bit of ExplainEverything and Drawing Pad.  iMovie seems like an appropriate app to bring it all together because it is versatile and accepts virtually any media as an import.

I ended up using the final product to tell a digital story (visual and audio) with key values intertwined in the text and subtext.  Students were asked to sing  along with the intermittent prompts on the screen to snap them back to attention, if needed.

Below, I'm including the 5W's and an H as to why one might use this combination. While it lacks refinement that I would want to use it for REAL humans, here is the link to the beginnings of the project:  http://youtu.be/_TKSYYDpbRc

Stop reading here or read on to learn why this might be an interesting medium:

Using Music and Digital Story Telling to Teach Values 5 W's and H

Why?  

• Digital story telling may be a medium that better catches attention of our kids, due to conditioning and maybe wiring?
• It is a way to combat students' desensitization to the teacher talking all the time
• It may allow for greater creativity and encourage students to take on similar projects of their own
• May appeal to different learning styles due to use of visual and auditory sensory input
• Can be repeated more than once to reinforce, if needed

Who?

• Teachers or students can create edit, embellish, or just be receivers of media
• Parents can receive exactly what the kids saw via electronic media or email, blogs, etc.

How?

• Can be used in a flipped classroom, PBL, Philosophical inquiry, or other modalities
• Knowledge of the medium and software/apps can be part of the discovery process or part of a prerequisite
• Assumes that materials are available for presentation:  ie internet access, projector, smart-board, iPad, etc.
• Work toward goals and check in frequently on progress toward goal.  Don't use it if it will not help.

When?

• When you need a change of pace in your classroom
• When the goals of the lesson support using it
• When you can create or find appropriate materials
• The technology will not work against you
• You need to reach more or different students than you might usually
• Someone in contact with your material  (students, educators, parent) will  appreciate  the work

Where?

• This sort of materials can be used in informal settings, home, school, etc.  Important to use in appropriate setting.  (Example:  video around a campfire may not be the mood we are looking for)

What?

• We can create a digital version of almost any lesson.  Content can be anything
• Engagement is key - ask how often in your presentation people are asked to do something. Is it appropriate for your goals?

Values planned for this lesson:  Shalom and g'milut chasadim.

Shalom:  Lo Yisa Goi - Nation shall not lift up sword against nation  (Isaiah 2:4, Michah 4:3)

G'milut Chasadim:  Story of Two Brothers

Thanks for reading!

Big Ideas from the TTF Seminars--Sari Fein

I have taken away three primary ideas about using technology for learning. One, technology is adaptable for almost any age, ability level, and topic. In particular, apps that are used for presentation, such as "Explain Everything," are extremely versatile. Two, there is a wealth of resources provided by other educators, even Jewish educators, who are using technology in the classroom. Through sites such as Pinterest, Diigo, and the "blogosphere," I am easily able to connect to educators from across the world and learn from both their successes and their challenges in using technology. Three, technology makes differentiated and individualized learning easy. Activities can be easily tailored to meet a student's individual learning needs and style, and group work with technology brings out students' various skills in art, language, and technology.

My new insights will change my approach to teaching. I have long been a believer in collaborative, project-based learning. Yet, it is sometimes a struggle to design units and lessons that lend themselves to that type of activity. Project based learning and group work are made much easier by the use of technology. With iPads, students can research, create, and share their work using a variety of apps and other tools. The ability to share is perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of a technology-integrated classroom. Student work can be easily shared with a variety of communities--the class, the synagogue, even the larger Jewish world. Students can easily connect, share ideas, and receive feedback thanks to the power of the internet. 

My main goal for applying what I learned in the Fellowship to my teaching in the future is to more thoroughly and naturally integrate technology into my curriculum. Due to limited resources and knowledge, in the past I have used technology in only certain capacities (for research, word processing, showing videos, and working one-on-one with struggling students). I can now envision a classroom in which technology is an integral part of our learning process. For example, I plan to begin my curriculum next year with a "Discovering the World of the Bible" webquest, which will serve not only to orient my students with the iPads, but also to engage them in the content and bring it to life. This will be the foundation of what I hope will be an exciting and enriching 21st-century classroom.

My reflections on the TTF class

I'm so excited about the possibilities of integrating more technology into the classroom.  As both a teacher and education director, I have an interest in constantly changing and improving the curriculum to keep students engaged.  This past week I experimented with the ipads and the students were so excited. 

We've been studying the Amidah and we used the ipads to view different ways different children around the world sing the prayers.  They were amazed that Jews everywhere sing the same prayer, and this made the experience of learning more meaningful.  The music and visual imagery added excitement and interest.  Even the students' expressions showed their renewed energy and curiosity.

They were later asked to use Tellagami to make a presentation on a geographic location they studied in Israel. They were able to watch videos, see pictures and gain access to new information.   They loved the control of this self-directed learning.

Technology changes the way we teach, giving us ways to reach all types of learners and assess student understanding. It also changes the relationship between teacher and student. When technology is used effectively, teachers grow into an advisory role--students are more in control of their learning. Technology helps make teaching and learning more meaningful and fun.

My goal is to become more familiar with the ipad platform. The possibilities for creativity and integration into the daily lessons are seemingly endless. I appreciate all the guidance and resources we've been given on this site and look forward to exploring it further.

Please click below to see my wikispaces page.
http://cjpttfipad.wikispaces.com/Temple+Shir+Tikvah+4th+Grade+Caring+Corps



I've also created some fun projects in tellagami:
https://tellagami.com/gami/2A068H/

The Family Tree of Abraham and His Future Family

The 4th graders are off and running, actually walking, in their search for the familial relationships found in Bereshit, the Book of Genesis.  Students have been divided into teams of four or five members to work collaboratively.  Each team will design, develop and produce a Family Tree of Abraham and His Future Family including the generations of Abram and Sarai through Jacob and Esau.  Some teams are finding a good balance of individual contributions and shared responsibility.  Some teams are struggling to develop a strong collaborative work style, learning to support each other in their individual strengths and personal challenges.  It is hard to always be patient!

In the next implementation of this unit, I will devote more time up front walking the students through the development of the Glossary.  The class will be guided through the Introduction, the Task and the first few searches in the Process.  Once I am confident that they grasp the concept of academic teamwork and how to navigate the various components of the WebQuest, they will be better equipped to succeed in their teams. As I reflect on the progress of each team and individual over the entire project, I expect more tweaks or larger changes will become evident.

Feel free to check out this WebQuest at The Family Tree of Abraham and His Future Family.

Abraham's Family Tree Unit

4th Grade ~ Temple Isaiah

Over the year, 4th grade students will be exploring key texts of Bereshit from Abraham through Joseph. After the introduction and some scaffolding, students will be using a WebQuest to create Abraham’s Family Tree (from Terach through Jacob’s and Esau’s children). The Family Tree will require students to identify some middot/Jewish virtues from a partial list and explain how each middah connects to an individual and what source text student is using to support.

The whole exploration will be facilitated through a wiki (not yet created) and involve extensive use of project-based learning. The following is just the intro unit.

September 29 Genealogy – What is it?

Computer etiquette:
treating them with care; logging on; gmail a/c’s; saving & shutting down

Computer search and google doc definitions:
create your team definition of genealogy and begin building a Team Glossary – explore and add the following definitions:
ancestor, descendant, sibling, cousins, begot, family tree

Format and save file in the cloud:
identifying docs with file name & team member names

October 2 Finding Torah

How to navigate the Hebrew Bible:
3 sections: T, N, K: focus on T [Torah] ~ create list of a.k.a’s: chumash, 5 Books of Moses, 5 Books of Torah, Pentateuch, The Law,
List books in order in English: Gen, Ex, Lev, Num. Deut: English meanings (beginning; we’re out of here! laws; census, second law)
List books in order in Hebrew: Bereshit, Shemot, Vayikra, BeMidbar, D’varim ~ Hebrew meanings
Add all to their google doc Glossary


October 6 Invitation to Grade 4 Wiki

Review logging on, etc.
Explain the WebQuest idea: will complete project with team members – team to decide how to divide up work, discovering and using individual gifts, understand what project is, how project will be evaluated, resolving differences appropriately, collaboration, communication, where responsibility for learning lies; tools available for research, group work and presentations
Begin WebQuest!


October 9 Continue on WebQuest! The Family Tree of Abraham and His Future Family

October 13 - No School

October 16 Constructive criticism:
its purpose, how to offer it
Review other teams work
Class discussion on work

October 20 Consider classmates comments and decide whether or not to incorporate into project

Reminder that next Sunday will be a program with parents and students will share their family trees of Abraham and Future Family

October 23
Finish up loose ends
Last minute ideas on how to share work with all parents and rest of class

October 27 4th Gr. Family Program
Short story about where you come from; integrate Torah blessing into story (what kids have been doing in class)
Introducing the genealogy
Jewish Genealogy Expert & Clergy ~ brief introduction to what we can learn from genealogist and Clergy to specifically interact with students about what they learned from exploring Abraham’s Family Tree and how to take it further
Set up we are all responsible for one another and l’dor v’dor; bring cutting/peeling tools and veggie, cutting board and 1 recipe typed – collect and “publish” later
Stone Soup activity with soup being delivered to Bristol Lodge after program

Learning Center/Parent/Teacher Resource

Being the Learning Center Specialist at two temples is challenging. Not to mention that one is conservative and the other is reform. I see students from Second through Sixth Grade so the needs are very diverse. My plan is to make a place where teachers, parents and students could go to and learn, explore, practice...

I have started on this quest for the "ultimate website." It is still at the planning stages because it will take me all summer to complete. However, a great majority of it is done and her is a sampling of what it will offer...

Click on the hyperlinks to get a navigate through a sampling of my blog.
Learning Letters
Learning Words
Learning Prayers
Holidays
Games

Reflections on TTF at 6/28/13

• I believe that much of the technology that we (CJPTTF fellows) have been exploring over the past few months will allow for deeper content exploration for more learners within the classroom. Technology provides great tools for project-based learning by providing portals into resources online not easily accessible offline and also expands the possibilities for creative student-directed exploration. I have learned about many tools that will assist and support students who need to move faster, those who need to move either more slowly or those moving in different directions or those taking alternate routes to the same destination. Using wikis and webquests, google docs and other tools along with appropriate scaffolding provides a safe way for shifting greater responsibility for learning into the hands of the students.

• I have already begun integrating a little technology into my fourth grade class this spring. In a lesson reviewing the Ten Commandments, I located a YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoXyk5AFAvs with kids doing a “rap boogie” (my definition!) of the Ten Commandments. Before giving my students the assignment to dramatize the meaning of a Commandment of their choosing, I shared this video. By the end of the short video, most students were already doing their own interpretive dance and rap. They also volunteered where the commandments were slightly different from what we had studied (i.e. resting on Sunday). I then handed groups a video camera to record their Command(ment) Performance. We did not have time to view the videos during that class so I created a Ten Commandment video loop for the next class and left it running as they arrived. They loved it and they demonstrated what they had learned.

• This positive experience linked with the work we did in and out of these seminars, has set me off on another adventure of creating a wiki and webquest for the first half of the coming year. I already have the complete buy in of the grade coordinator and director of congregational learning in re-creating the Judaic curriculum for the coming year using whatever technology/creative tools I can. At a minimum, the months (about 4) devoted to exploring Bereshit will be learning constructed through a grade wiki and using many different internet/digital tools. In addition, the website I created this past spring for the entire 6th grade as a home base for creating a siddur, will become a wiki so that students can be their own editors in the same process of creating a siddur. The wiki will also connect students to diigolet to find useful information in building their understanding of prayers and the construct of a Shabbat shacharit service. The siddur they create serves as the liturgy for a 6th grade family service near the end of the school year which the students lead from beginning to end including chanting from Torah. Students will be able to access trope, prayer and their individual verse melodies directly from this wiki as they prepare for this service.

4th Grade Aliyah Video Project

My 4th grade classes are really really different. In one class, I have a group who feel much more traditionally spiritually connected (most believe in a more traditional concept of G-d, they really enjoy and buy into more traditional prayer) my other class has a more diverse range of opinions on both G-d and Jewish practice. Our core curriculum focus this year is "What does it mean to be a part of the Jewish people?" for both groups this is a tough question, especially when thinking about Israel, a country that most of them have never been to but have learned so much about.

In our Israel curriculum this year, we are focused on some of the recent Aliyot to Israel: Yemenite Aliyah, Ethiopian Aliyah and Aliyah from the former Soviet Union. However, the idea of moving to Israel, Lashanah habaah is still really foreign to all my kids. Yes, they have heard of the Holocaust, but most of them have been lucky (depending on how you look at it) to grow up in the Boston area never having heard, seen or felt antisemitism.

In planning how I wanted to teach this, I sat down with one of my coworkers to brainstorm our goals.

• Students are able to empathize with those who faced antisemitism and oppression
• Students understand although they do not need to agree, with the Jewish concept of Lashanah Habaah
• Students are engaged and excited to learn about the process of making Aliyah from each country
• Students work with two or three other students and work well as a group
• Students are able to creatively present their findings in a 3-10 min video clip
• Students have a better understanding about the need for a Jewish state

To do this, we decided to break our three classes of 4th graders into nine small groups and assign them to topics as follows:

4B will focus on the culture of each country (Yemen, Ethiopia, former S.U.); what Jewish practices were like there, etc 

4C will focus on the reasons that the Jews left that country; oppression, isolation, general conditions

4A will focus on the Journey itself, what did it take for them to make it to Israel, how did they get there? Who helped, etc

In making movie trailers for this project, it was helpful to suss out each student's current tech abilities and resources in addition to other talents so that making the groups can be as successful as possible. Students will be able to play around with animation, documentary style productions and pretty much anything else that they can come up with that still will convey the process of Aliyah in a respectful way.

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.

Shabbat With Moses - A retreat

Shabbat with Moses: A retreat for Grades 3-6

One of our projects for the Teaching Technology Fellowship  at Beth El was a movie making retreat during which our students created a video of the life of Moses.  The retreat lasted from Friday evening until Saturday evening and the goal was to shoot the footage on the retreat and edit it when we got home so that we could show it to the students and their parents on the last day of school, which is also our Fiftieth Anniversary Birthday Party.

We shot the video in three separate sessions, working around the usual Shabbat retreat activities (dinner, Maariv prayer,  Breakfast, morning prayer, sports, Havdallah).  We used the new video camera we got at the last session on a tripod, and a second camera for close up shots We knew we would not have time to make the scenery so we shot against a green screen (a trick we learned from the Cameron video).

We began the first session by teaching them three songs that were written for the movie. Then the students heard the script and recommended people for parts (We allowed students to reject the part if they chose, but we did not allow them to volunteer.  They had to be volunteered by someone else).  Then the students in the act went off to rehearse while the rest of the students worked on making props (They made the Nile River,and  a doorway) We shot the scene before lunch.

At the second session the teen volunteers shot a funny scene of their own making (a video within the video about Moses killing the taskmaster) to the "live audience" of the students interacting with the teens.  Then we shot the three songs they had rehearsed in the morning. 

At the final session, which was held after free time, we incorporated our traditional retreat talent show into the video by presenting the short talent skits as performances that were done before Pharaoh's throne.  While they were presenting these, another group rehearsed a second scene (the burning bush) , and we shot that scene as well. 

The final scene was shot on the Sunday following the retreat , when we were back at  Beth El.  The final movie is still being edited.  When it is done we will upload it to the wiki.

The retreat was a huge success.  It was wonderful to see the students of different ages cooperating on the project, and the combination of music,drama, and art allowed everyone to find their strength.  The students are excited about seeing the final result.

Judy and Mark

We are teaching a unit on Passover. Students will learn about the Seder Plate and Passover Songs.

• Students will learn the parts of a Seder Plate by going to a website that will describe the Seder Plate.
• In teams, they will be given a section of the Seder Plate. Then they will google an image, write a definition about it and print this information on posters.
• The teams will then practice saying their definitions and will be video taped.
• The videos will be uploaded into a "choose your own adventure" Seder Plate.
• The students will make Pharoah hats and learn the song Pharoah, Pharoah.
• Using video Star app on the iphone, they will be videoed singing and dancing to this song. It will be a music video.
• The key technologies: Computers, Video camera, iphone 
• Students will be be using digital storytelling that will be uploaded to You Tube

I think the hardest part is realizing how time consuming using technology can me.  It is also difficult when students is absent to keep them still involved when they missed the week before.  I do think the students are more engaged and just loving using technology.