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!

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!

Reflection on Teaching and Learning with Technology

As I look back and think about how did I become involved in this fellowship I remember our teachers meeting and when we were sharing new ideas, talking about lesson plans and creative ways to make our class time FUN... Well, as soon as our Education Director told us about availability of this fellowship , my hand went up first yelling "I AM IN!" People assume if you are young you are born knowing technology before you can begin  talking.
I have to admit that before this fellowship my technology use was very limited and BORING. I didn't feel comfortable using it, utilizing in class or even at home.
Svetlana and Julie showed me not just how to use it but also explained to me so I could do it myself.
The idea of a flipped classroom and project-based learning is definitely new, fresh and I can not wait to try it with my students and other teachers in September.
Knowlege is power that opens up many doors, and when it comes to technology that knowlege gets old every day. New things come out and as teachers our job is stay connected. I hope to continue with this attitude and share my learning with other teachers as well.
Besides teaching at Hebrew school, I am a substitute teacher at Jewish Day Schools and I am so impressed to see the level of technology use. Most importantly what concerns me is online safety.
After this fellowship I feel confident and aware of many kinds, names, websites and tools to help me in my learning so I could be more productive and helpful.
As I was creating this post my kids asked me "Are you doing your homework? Do you know how to do it?"

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.