Technology Ideas for Teaching the Alef Bet (by Jessica)

My final project is focused on teaching the Alef Bet. 

My goal is to have my first graders end the year being able to do the following:

— be able to recognize the shape of each letter, and say the letter’s name and sound

— explain that Hebrew is read from right to left

— be able to match simple Hebrew words (no vowels) to words in English by sounding out the letters.

— be able to recall the Marion Green mnemonics for each letter

I will use technology in three ways:

 At the beginning of class, I introduce a Letter of the Day and invite students to explore the letter’s shape. In the past, I set up stations for students arriving in class. Students might build a letter out of play dough or Lego. Next year, I will have students use the iPad to record short videos sharing their Lego/playdough creations and explaining the letter’s sound and mnemonic.

During class, students practice writing the letter of the day (in workbooks) and play games to review previous letters. Next year, I will use iPad apps to customize these experiences for students at different levels. For example, I will have different Quizlet practice games (basic = recognizing letters, advanced = reading simple words) or vocabulary apps or block-letter-writing apps so that students can practice material at their own level.

After class (at home), students practice what they’ve learned. Next year, I will create a website where students can review the Letter of the Day (even if he/she missed class), practice Quizlet flashcards/games,  and maybe even take quizzes. My hope is that kids will be doing more practicing at home, which should free up more time at school. My website will also include short videos that I create to bring the Marion Green mnemonics to life. (These will be made using Explain Everything, Tellagami, PuppetPals, Green Screen, iMovie, etc.) In addition, I’ll showcase videos and drawings that they students made during class. 

Here’s a link to my prototype:  http://jakuznick.wix.com/alef-bet-grade-1

Hazzan Devin Goldenberg
5th and 6th Grade
B'nei Mitzvah Tutoring
Temple Beth Sholom
Framingham, MA

Big Ideas from TTF Seminars

One of the strongest ideas I’m taking away from the TTF is the potential for a collaborative dynamic that’s infused in the classroom utilization of the iPad.  Before taking the seminar, I was wary of the potential for students becoming locked in to their own “zones” with iPad.   I’m so happy and thrilled to say that I could not have been more mistaken.

What do I mean by collaborative learning?  It’s learning in which collaboration, teamwork, and the collective talents of all participants are an integral part of the learning process.

This means not just publishing ideas (iBook, iMovie, etc.), but publishing them in ways in which creators can receive feedback, reflect and revise their own output and that of others.  This feedback and revision process is not merely an add-on but at the heart of the learning process.  This blog is itself a good example of this as we post our thoughts and plans with the primary intention of promoting feedback and interaction.

And it also means working together in real-time to accomplish collectively forged and monitored goals, whether we’re smashing apps in workgroups to create an audio-visual guide to holiday observance  or communicating and working with experts outside of the classroom on a presentation using Google Drive.

I’m excited about using technology in my classes to create and enhance such a collaborative learning process.  One in which all participants are learners/teachers – one in which I can spend more class time functioning as a guide and facilitator.

As my actual group class and individual tutoring time is very limited, I’m especially intrigued by the possibilities of the flipped classroom approach.  I hope to use what I’ve learned in the TTF to more successfully engage students from home.  The knowledge and skills I’ve gained will allow me to produce entertaining presentations of curriculum content that I feel confident students will enjoy watching.  Who knows? – their parents might get involved in the learning as well.  This will hopefully save valuable class time which can be better used for hands-on work, project based learning, and differentiated instruction that will benefit both the advanced and less advanced learners.

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.

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.