Israeli Spies

For my final project, I used many of the resources that we acquired during the fellowship to create a wikispace for a class on Israeli spies for my 7th grade class.

The iPad platform seems especially suited to the subject matter. Students begin with a webquest to introduce themselves to the topic, trying to ferret out information just as a real spy has to do. I have pages on the different topics that I plan to cover (some of them are still a work in progress), including videos and documents. Finally, I created a final project/spy mission for the students for the last day of class. New clues can be air dropped to the students as they successfully figure out and complete previous clues.

The page can be found here. I hope that you have fun exploring it. Please let me know what you think!

Technological Exploration of Bible Stories

As a new program at our religious school, we have moved towards project based learning. Next year’s big idea will be the Torah. Due to this, I decided to make my project an exploration of the Torah stories. My goal for the project was to assign each student one of the better known stories from the Torah, and to have them create a presentation that they can proceed to share with the class.

To start, I will use www.randomizer.org in order to fairly assign the students a story from the following list:


Creation
Adam & Eve
Cain & Abel
Noah’s Ark
Tower of Babel
Sodom & Gomorrah
Binding of Isaac
Jacob & Esau
Joseph
Moses

They will then be tasked with reading the portion in which their story takes place (or compiled excerpts based on the length.) I will point them towards http://www.biblegateway.com in order to find an online copy.

Once they've absorbed the material, they will be asked to create a graphic, using either wordle or tagxedo and the text from the passage. They will be asked to write a short analysis of why they think some of the words were so common.

Their next task will be to create a summary of their passage, and to use voki to present it.

Following that, they will be asked to use http://www.timetoast.com/ in order to create an interactive timeline of the passage. They will be required to include descriptions with each plot point, as well as a minimum of 3 images.

For the final presentations, they will be asked to dress as a character from their passage. They will then share the passage with the class, and they will present their word clouds, vokis and timelines.


Through this each student will have at the very least a rudimentary grasp of the stories.

Country Report 5 grade

The idea of Country Reports was born 7 years ago when I had to explain to my students in 5 grade how is that possible to be a Sephardi Jew, who grew up in Russia. It was me, their teacher and I had a challenging task to teach , so I decided that the best way for that class to learn would be through Project- based learning. First, we would use a map in class to find Spain and Portugal for Sefarad - Spain, Then we would find Germany and Eastern Europe ( Poland and Russia) for Ashkenaz. Creating a WebQuest for students to use at home and in class.The Big idea of a Flipped Classroom will be utilized next year when I will be teaching this section again but this time the technology will be used. I will have a list of resources, helpful information that will include both Judaic and secular facts. During this project each student will learn and explore; Map and general population Flags( your country, Israel, US Facts about Jewish Life (population, Jewish communities,houses of worship, kosher markets,Jewish schools, hospitals. Can Jews practice religion openly? Are there any diplomatic relations between country you chose and Israel and USA? Have a short report about a famous Jewish person who connected to this country(was born, lives there today or lived in the past) Include a picture,short bio and who is this person ( sportsman, actor, scientist, fashion designer, politician)

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.