Technology Plans

In regard to my final project for the seminar, I've prepared a flipped classroom lesson.  It would be a segment in a series on Biblical cantillation aimed at an audience of grades 6+.  It is a video-lecture that was prepared by smashing the following apps:

• iMovie
• Green Screen by Do Ink
• DavkaWriter
• Explain Everything
• Garage Band
• Drawing Pad
• Tellagami
• Action Movie

After viewing the "lecture," students would be directed to an activity such as:

• Blogging observations and questions.
• Practicing skills using auditory feedback.

For this coming school year, I hope to utilize the flipped classroom approach frequently for instruction, demonstration, and modeling in a variety of subject areas.  Then, depending on the subject, the learning objective(s), and the need for accommodation and scaffolding, I have the choice of many tools for:

·      Guided Practice – helping students start practicing new skills and applying new knowledge (Google  Docs (recording/audio feedback, project based learning, webquests, Google Docs self-grading quizzes, Quizzlet, and more).

·      Independent Practice — turning them loose to work on their own and in collaboration (digital storytelling, blogging, et al.).

I also look forward to the innumerable benefits of encouraging students’ creativity and providing opportunities to publish and share their individual and collaborative work with one another and the school community.

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.

Initial Uses of Technology in My Own Teaching

This year, as I began to learn with TTF, I integrated technology in two ways. I created flashcards on the website we learned about for my 3rd grade Hebrew class and with my 6th graders, we used Quia.com to create an end of the year Jew-pardy game to review the year's learning with the 4/5th graders who the 6th graders were sharing their learning with throughout the year. In both cases, I saw how much more excited and engaged the students were. They all thought that using computers in class was very cool and their energy around learning and participation was markedly different.
One of the projects that I have devised for my 5-7th graders for next year (as a part of our new Project Based Learning curriculum) is a Digital Midrash project. This project will be presented with them with a Prezi (created on prezi.com), one of my favorite on-line teaching tools. I used Prezis with my Adult Ed course this year and they LOVED the slide presentations (and a Prezi is SOOOOOO much easier to create than a Power Point!). The Digital Midrash project will encourage the students to use a variety of the technology tools/ideas I learned about in TTF this year including (but not limited to): word clouds, timelines, Ted Talks, Blogs/Vlogs, and more! I'm very much looking forward to sharing the Prezi with the TTF class and to getting their feedback on how I can make this lesson even better before sharing it with the students next year!

Initial Technology Ideas

These are my initial thoughts of technology applications given our current 7th grade curriculum.

Topic: Jewish Life Cycles

Lesson Layout:
Introduction of Jewish life cycles with brainstorming session to assess students' understanding

Key Technologies:
Common Craft. I can see students having a lot of fun creating their own explanations of Jewish Life Cycles using this approach. I've seen it done with drawings instead of the paper cut-outs; either way, or a combination of the two, would make this a more engaging process for the students.


Topic: Purim
Lesson Layout:

Read the Purim story, discuss different ways to retell it. Do some online research for different Purim Spiels, music. 

Key Technologies:
Common Craft. Students could take their live presentation script or write one of their own. They could then collaborate to create their Common Craft pieces to retell the story in a way that the younger classes would enjoy. This is something that could then go into an area where teachers could just take it to present, or it could become part of an expanded Learning section of the temple web site.

Our 7th graders present a Purim play to the religious school each year. This will give them an opportunity to present the play in a lasting way. They could also use this same approach to create short plays for some of the younger classes.

Another fun approach for students might be to create a storyboard or comic strip version of the Purim story. That's even something they could put together and use as a donation to the temple library, or as a fundraiser, depending on how it's done.

Topic: Holocaust
Lesson Layout:

Flipped Classroom mode. We have an extensive Holocaust study packet. The problem is that we never make it through the whole thing because it's just too long.

It will take some commitment on the part of the students, their families, and the religious school to get students to read this material outside of class so that we can jump right into the discussion and project work.

Technologies:

An all-class collaborative timeline using Timetoast or similar online timeline creating program. I envision students each taking a different aspect/person/time period of the timeline, and adding in what they've learned from their reading. Also, if the families are amenable to it, students could add in family history, making this timeline unique. At the end of the project, we will have a lasting timeline that will become part of the temple archive.

I think this approach is useful because of the amount and type of information you can add to the timelines. It's also important for the students to see what else was going on in the world around them -- in the arts, sciences, sports, politics, etc. -- to gain a better understanding of how something like this could happen and go unnoticed or misunderstood for so long.

TTF: Big Ideas

I have to say that my head is still spinning with all the options I now see are available for me to use in the classroom. I am more inspired than intimidated. This has been a wonderful learning experience!

Technology in and of itself is not necessarily something that will benefit students in the classroom. However, after extensive exploration (and diving down numerous, fascinating rabbit holes), I can see ways to apply different technologies to various subject areas in the classroom.
   
I will be more likely to go to my extensive bank of online resources to look for more innovative ways to engage my students in the topic at hand. While Life Cycles are an important part of our religious school curriculum, the textbook we have is fine, but it doesn't grab the students' attention. The funny thing is, I think that if I took the activities in the textbook and converted them to some online format (blog, game, flash cards), the students would jump right into it and actually enjoy it more!
 
I hope to find the right match of technology to enhance my students' understanding of the topic material. There's so much available that I think it will wind up being fairly easy to find programs that are suitable matches for the tone of the lesson I want to present; the challenge, I think, will be winnowing down my choices. I look forward to checking in here for future input and inspiration!

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)

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.

Project Based Learning

PBL, better known as Project Based Learning, is a creative way to include all students in our learning environment. Students have various needs and learning styles.  PBL allows for differentiation to include everyone, making them feel special and bringing out the best of each student. The multi disciplinary approach encourages collaboration, multi tasking, problem solving skills, utilizing the community and staff as mentors in the learning process. Creating a newspaper by  having a local printer come in and help them produce their work. This collaboration improves the quality of the final project. The learning becomes relevant and connects to real life issues that provide a wonderful community service, taking students to the next level.

To get started the kickoff event helps to generate questions from the students which inspires and directs them in their research. Creativity is used by students in their researching the project. Research is not limited to the computer or books but through keeping data on experiments they have created. They share their research for feedback from classmates and mentors to improve the quality of their project. Each student works on their strengths to the best of their abilities collaborating together to support their challenges.

Final presentations are made to a broad audience including parents, general public, specialists, faculty, and the remainder of the school community. PBL is a very effective educational model for all types of students.

For more information go to Edutopia.org http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning

http://www.edutopia.org/stw-maine-project-based-learning-six-steps-planning

http://www.edutopia.org/project-based-learning-student-motivation

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/project-based-learning-getting-started-basics-andrew-miller

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.