Some Preliminary Reflections: So What's the Big Deal?

When Svetlana came to visit (see my "In the Classroom" post), I shared my slightly ironic view that I found my choice for our class, "Pesach Karaoke," a bit perplexing.  Why, I asked - knowing full well that the students would immediately engage with the app - was iPad use so much more powerful than the traditional learning that I could have (and have) provided to the students:  a piano accompaniment, drums handed out to the students for fun accompaniment, and a list of lyrics?  What was it about the iPad experience that so fascinating and captivating?

The immediacy, according to Svetlana.  Students could receive instant gratification and experience learning directly through interactivity.  But couldn't I achieve the same thing by recording a "traditional" performance, I wondered?

As we sat with the iPad with the dancing figure, the words, the ability to turn the music on and off as well as controlling the voice, a thought started to occur to me.  Our subsequent GarageBand recording, with the students vying to give input, corrections and even control the editing themselves, confirmed my thought:  Empowerment.  The students were no longer subject to my whims as leader; they had control!  And they used that control wisely, to learn - even chiding an occaisional "outlier"  for not participating fully or seriously enough.  The balance between empowerment and responsibility had been struck!  Eureka!

P.S.  My next class involved an app that allowed for coloring pre-drawn scenes from the Exodus story.  Needless to say, it was way more fun on the iPad than with crayons, especially the ability to simply hit the "trash" button if the drawing was not 100% acceptable and start all over again from a fresh template.

Our classroom visit by Svetlana

Shavua tov!

We had a wonderful visit with Svetlana on March 19.  My Siddur Hebrew 2 class (Grades 4 & 5) has been learning the songs from the Haggadah.  We took the opportunity of Svetlana’s visit to inaugurate iPad use with a wonderful interactive app called Passover Karaoke, which can display original Hebrew as well as transliterations of the song text in English, Russian and other languages.  We chose Hebrew and, although the students were concerned at first that the letters were written in scroll script, without vowels, they easily got past this because they could simply sing along with the Israeli-accented vocal track.  We sang several songs and tried with and without instrumental accompaniment, and we also bravely sang without the accompanying vocal track.  The students especially loved the images that join and dance along with the singing.

After gaining confidence in singing “Ma Nishtana” – always a favorite! – we used GarageBand to make our own recording.  Some of the students were already very well versed in its use and were eager to help with some of the technical difficulties.  We layered a rock drum beat loop and the students sang with great gusto!!  It was the best class ever!

My Cohort Experience

I never knew how much the iPad could come into play in a Hebrew School classroom. I thought we would be learning a few things but my world has opened up. The excitement from my 5th grade classroom at Temple Israel Sharon has been beyond my belief. These children love the technology and they have united together in a way that I have not seen. The different groups of kids are now working together and utilizing their knowledge of the IPAD. My curriculum for this grade is really teaching the service. Bringing the iPads in has surely made this more exciting and so much better. I look forward to adding a lot more to the service learning experience. Thank you.

My Cohort Experience

I never knew how much the iPad could come into play in a Hebrew School classroom. I thought we would be learning a few things but my world has opened up. The excitement from my 5th grade classroom at Temple Israel Sharon has been beyond my belief. These children love the technology and they have united together in a way that I have not seen. The different groups of kids are now working together and utilizing their knowledge of the IPAD. My curriculum for this grade is really teaching the service. Bringing the iPads in has surely made this more exciting and so much better. I look forward to adding a lot more to the service learning experience. Thank you.

Using Technology to Teach Passover

In my Passover unit for second and third grade I am focusing on the story of the Exodus and the items we put on the Seder plate and Seder table.  Students will be familiar with the story, will know what items are used at the Passover Seder and understand how these items are connected to the Passover story.  They will also learn how to use an iPad app to create a final project to demonstrate their learning.

For this Passover, we are still in the process of setting up our school iPads, therefore students are doing their technology work on my iPad in small groups while other students are completing other activities.

To introduce the Passover story, I showed my students a movie trailer that I made in iMovie.  Students used the information from the trailer to make predictions about what happens in the story.  They were then divided into groups to do a readers theatre of the Passover story.  After each group had an opportunity to read the script they were re divided into smaller groups (of 2,3 or 4) to make a Tellagami to demonstrate what they had learned.  Since we are currently only using my iPad, each group was assigned a section of the readers theatre to turn the dialogue into a narrative. (Students did a really good job with this - a very creative group!).  Each group used my iPad to make their Tellagami.  Two groups still need to make theirs and once they are done, I will combine all their Tellagamis into one iMovie by the Gimmel class!  My goal for next year is for each group to make their own movie of the whole Passover story.

Over the course of the spring I plan to introduce the students to some of the more basic apps like book creator, quizlet, popplet and explain everything.

For the Seder symbols portion of my unit (which we might not get to this year), students will do a Webquest to find out about the items used at the Seder.  For this year they will be given hard copies of the resources and will probably need to create a project without technology (either game cards or flip book).  Next year they will use the iPads for the Webquest and will use an app to create a final project.

I look forward to my students completing the class Tellagami if the Passover story!

TTF Reflection

As I reflect on my 3 months as a Teaching and Technology Fellow, I realize that, at the start, I was half expecting to learn about some fabulous new technology that would completely revolutionize my teaching and create an atmosphere in which my students were always engaged in Jewish learning. The truth, however, is that there is not a technology that can solve all of our problems, only tools to help us as educators.

I believe that there are 2 primary ways that we can use technology in our classrooms. The first is as a tool that can help us create interactive content. Students will respond more positively and openly to content that is delivered to them in a “language” that they speak. To this end, I have included a training with the teachers during our upcoming orientation and made the school’s iPads available for their use outside of school hours.

The second way that we can use technology in our classrooms is as a tools for students to create projects of their own. However, the technology needs to be seamlessly woven into the curriculum, rather than tacked on as a “special event.” To this end, I have hired a technology specialist to work with all of our classroom teachers to develop age-appropriate projects that enhance the learning students are already doing. My goal is to help the classroom teachers to become more comfortable with using technology in their classrooms to enhance learning.

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!