Reflections

Coming into this fellowship I was very excited and hopeful of expanding any knowledge I may have had or thought I had. I had been using my laptop in my classrooms and I thought that was fairly advanced, however not being part of the iPad or any pad type of technology I knew that I was still way behind.

As we met each week and learned some form of application, I would try the applications within the week in any class that I felt it could be applied. My goal was to see where – what application could fit.

My experience was amazing and this opened an entire world for me that I had been oblivious to.  I learned an abundance of information at times I felt it could be overwhelming in the sense that you want to use everything however that may not possible. The goal is to “right” fit the applications to the class.

I fortunately teach different ages and subjects so this provided me a platform to try different applications on different levels.  Even in a setting where Wi-Fi / Internet connection is not available. As I planned and executed lesson plans utilizing my iPad I would survey the kids to see what their take was and they had some really positive feedback for me and they definitely liked what I had brought into the lessons.

I found the fellowship very educational and I believe it will enhance my teaching methods and my curriculum. I notice that technology is still not as popular within the Jewish Educational system but it seems to be growing and I feel that the teachers participating in this fellowship are being awarded a great opportunity to be in the forefront of bringing technology into the classrooms.

This is a great tool to interweave within each curriculum and I sat and evaluated each grade, age and ability to use iPad in the class. This has created awesome opportunities not only for classwork but it has provided an opportunity for me to set up webpages the kids work on at home and they come to class prepared and more confident with themselves because they have a connection to me – their teacher at home and they practice with me using web pages set up for homework.

In summary I feel that I came in expecting to learn the basic concept of iPad usage and I feel I am walking away extremely confident in my capabilities with an iPad, I feel I can provide amazing lessons plans that are educational and engaging to my students and I feel a drive to continue on and learn more and expand on what we have done thus far to create stimulating an engaging lesson plans that take Jewish Education to that next level.

Reflections

I am very excited to be using technology in my classroom and the students have had a lot of fun with it.  My third grade class just completed a class Tellagami project about the Passover story.  They had a great time making their Tellagami and were even engaged with the paper work portion of the project.
I have enjoyed learning about the different apps and am amazed at how many different onescan be used to enhance learning in Hebrew School.
To start I will most likely use iPads to enhance student learning in content area subjects such as holidays, Bible, Jewish History and Israel.  I will also start off with the more basic apps and then move onto the more involved ones like green screen and puppet pals.  This will continue to be a learning  curve for me as well as my students.
Over the next few months I plan to investigate the iPad further to see how I can use the apps in the Hebrew language classes.  In the spring I would like to introduce my students to doodle buddy so that they can practice writing their script letters.  I have also used quizlet in the older grades to help them review their vocabulary.
Of course we also take lots of pictures and videos of students at work!
Thank you for the opportunity to be part of this cohort.

Cohort 7 Reflections

After being part of the Teaching and Technology Fellowship cohort 7, I have a lot of takeaways that I am excited to integrate into my classroom. When I started the fellowship I was excited to learn about new technology, and looked forward to sharing it with my fellow teachers, but was also slightly worried about finding technology/apps that would fit into my young classroom. The projects that I do with my students now usually involve crayons and washable markers, so I wasn’t sure how to integrate an iPad into class. Through this year I have found that my class loves to tell stories, so I focused on this while in the fellowship, and found creative ways to use the apps – such as Explain Everything – to supplement the things my students love instead of trying to create something entirely new. I know that my students this year as well as in years to come will love to integrate iPad and technology into their learning all year long with me.

Teaching about Pesach with the iPad

As soon as I started experimenting with the first set of Apps, such as Explain Everything, Popplet, and Tellagami, I could envision the endless possibilities that were available to me as a teacher and to the students, in learning about Pesach, notwithstanding other subject matter such as Holidays, Bible, Hebrew language, and Reading. My first graders are mentored by fourth graders on Thursdays, during the Mincha service in the sanctuary. The fourth graders are experts in Pesach, as they follow a curriculum based on the Haggadah, and so I decided to enhance their experience and that of the first graders by videotaping them and creating an iMovie which I will show to them and to my first grade class. The children were very excited to be in the movie and to recite, sing, dance, and show what they have learned. We did our videotaping in February, and I posted some of the videos on You Tube. I made the iMovie, using some of the videos. Now that we have the iPads in the school, the children will be involved in making their own movies, and trailers, and we will share them with their parents and the other classes. Next week, the fourth grade is conducting a "Walk-Through Seder" in which the parents participate in the steps of the Seder by going to different "centers" and the children engage them by sharing what they've learned. The iPads will be used to videotape this experience. After Pesach, I would like the students to either create their own Haggadah in Book Creator, make a puppet play using Puppet Pals, make a Tellagami, and as I said before, make an iMovie. Thank you to Sara for the information about Passover Karaoke.

Reflection on my TFF experience

The experience of learning about Technology in the Classroom during this Fellowship has undeniably made me more confident to want to explore all kinds of ways of enhancing teaching and learning, and to "speak the language of technology" ! I love reading the blogs by the current and past Cohort Fellows, and I have gotten some excellent ideas from them. I look forward to being able to share my experiences and ideas in using Technology in my classroom.

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!