Technology in my classroom

Grade 1 Hebrew School

The grade 1 curriculum is to study the Jewish holidays, learning about the stories and people and why we celebrate the holidays now.  For some of the stories/holidays such as the story of Moses/Passover, we use Torah Alive and act out the story.  However, because each line has to be told by the teacher to the student, the students often struggle to follow what is going on and miss the main idea of the story.

            The goal is to find a way for the students to better interact with the information they are provided and creatively demonstrate that they understand the story.

           

Moses/Passover

·      The students will learn who Moses is.

·      They will read stories, watch short videos and discuss the story of Passover and why it is important for us to celebrate this holiday.

·      In small groups, they will be asked to recreate the story of Passover

o   Student can pick from using iMovie, Green Screen, iMotion and Book Creator (using one or multiple apps)

o   They will work together to plan their project and then create their project

§  Take or draw pictures, create script and act out, use whiteboard and draw part by part

o   Parents will be invited to come see finished projects

This can also be done for Joseph

Other ways to incorporate technology/ipads into the classroom

·      Book Creator to document work for parents

·      During group stations – Quizlet – students can make their own quizzes for each other or practice teacher made quizzes

o   Focus on lesson vocabulary, parts of stories, matching person to holiday/event, etc…

·      During stations - Tiny Tap - – students can make their own quizzes for each other or practice teacher made quizzes

·      Focus on lesson vocabulary, parts of stories, matching person to holiday/event, etc…

·      QR reader – have codes available that bring students to specific websites, videos or audiobooks

final project

For my final project I created a wiki page “Shabbat B’yahad”. In the past, in my kindergarten classroom, children took turns to take our Shabbat ‘Dubi’ in a Shabbat box. They drew pictures and wrote notes (with the help of parents) to share how Dubi celebrated Shabbat at their house. Now I plan to use the wiki page for parents to share pictures or write on the wiki page to share how Dubi celebrated in their house. I also used the app book creator to create interesting and interactive books to help children learn Hebrew vocabulary words and holiday ritual objects. I created a book that shows different cities in Israel and a puzzle using tiny tap to find those cities on a map. Using tiny tap app, I created games to learn א/ב and simple vocabularies. I am working on creating games to master confusing letters such as ו and ן, ט and מ, ס and ם. I used the app popplet to show parents in my preschool the areas of our classroom why and how we use them. I also plan to use this app to web curriculum ideas. With explain everything I make an interesting movie to help children learn vocabularies and song about Israel.

find the cities in Israel puzzle


hebrew vocabulary and alphabet game


learning shapes in Hebrew




This is the sukkah my family built

Using Technology in the Classroom

My Reflections....Thanks to this ongoing experience I feel more comfortable exploring a variety of apps to use the classroom.  I continue to expand my comfort zone by sharing what I am comfortable using with my students.  This year I videoed the Cantor and created a Utube video of the Havdalah blessings.  I shared a web of Havdalah customs with my class and used it interactively.

I have used explain everything, IMovie and assorted other learning games with my class as review and also to challenge my advanced students.  I have taken photos with the IPad and sued the projector to discuss the photos.  I videoed two plays my class performed.  I hope to experiment with Tiny Tap creating games I will use in my classroom next year.  This course has opened my eyes to many new programs and apps that I hope to use in my classrooms in the future.  It is an ongoing learning experience for me!  I feel that I am gaining self confidence in using iPads with my class.

Final Project

For my final project I focused on the Boston-Haifa project that Temple Emanuel has partnered with for many years.  This was my first year being involved in the Boston-Haifa Connection.  I chose to create an IMovie to heighten awareness to this outstanding program.
Although I took many pictures of the Temple Emanuel setting, I hope to update the trailer with pictures of the students and teachers actually creating their exchange items so that everyone would see the results of shared learning and building friendships across the miles.
Last year my class created dreidels to send to our sister school and unfortunately, I took no photographa or videos...that will definitely change!
I am looking forward to explaining how to use IMovie in our classrooms and will be making a presentation to the staff in the fall.

2nd Post---How I Plan to Use the Technology

I will be teaching students in the 4th and 6th grades who are struggling with Hebrew next year.
I know from previous experience that this frequently means that even letter recognition is a problem for these students.

Since reviewing lines of Hebrew letter with vowel markings under them, REPEATEDLY, is less exciting than watching paint dry,😴 I thought that maybe using the iPads to review letter sight and sound recognition would make it more engaging and interactive.

Here's the plan:

10 min. Physical Learning, or "Aleph-bet" Zen. Using a more developed presentation, (such as 'Lameds are Lazy' w/ the Explain Everything app), the students will try to make the focus letters, (there will be two), with their bodies. A partner will try to represent the focus vowels, (there will also be two of these). When they feel they have achieved the form, they will hum the sound. This serves a few functions.
1) It gets them productively moving
2) It combines two modalities---movement (gross motor) and auditory
3) Novelty

10 min. Traditional reading practice-now hopefully they will have excess energy worked off a bit---while they are doing this, I could have music playing (Jewish) music playing softly in the background from the iPad.

3) 10 minutes of an interactive game, which gives immediate feedback in Hebrew decoding----such as can be used via Tiny Tap.
4) The remaining 10 minutes would be spent with a limited written practice.

I see this as being the Tuesday plan, since attendance will be better, generally, and this method, ( I think), will have the largest impact with the widest reach.

The Sunday plan would entail 20 minutes of creating an aleph-bet journal, or lines of prayer journal, in which the students will have an artistic component using traditional materials----paper, crayons, markers, colored pencils, cut-outs from magazines, stencils, etc.  📒  This would be done by half the class.  The other half would be shown how to use one of the drawing/doodling apps to create a digital presentation. (Actually, I'd probably have to take one whole class period, to introduce a couple of these apps, and have the kids play with it). Eventually, the vision would be that the other half would be working on their digital presentations.  After 20 min., the groups flip.

I also see that Sunday's could alternatively be used to have the kids record their reading, and listen to it, and try to re read to improve, and re-record.

Of course, logistics would need to be worked out. I'd probably have to allot for the use of 4 iPads at a time---so that colleague(s) would also have access to iPads, but I think the technology could give that 'shot in the arm' to what has traditionally been a very dry exercise.

One can only try!👍

iMovie on Project Based Learning

The thing that I most appreciated about this project was that it was a perfect example of Project Based Learning. Tayech, Judy and I worked together to create a trailer for a "movie" about Project Based Learning. It was truly collaborative and we each relied on the other's strengths. It was truly the most fun I've had in this class, and thanks to Judy and Tayech, the technology was made to actualize this Luddite's artistic vision!

It also made the practice of exploring the app myself, so much more accessible to me---thanks to Judy's and Tayech's magic, flying, techie fingers! This is probably the ultimate goal of, and finest outcome of Project Based Learning----the inspiration and safety among one's peers to explore beyond one's comfort zones. When it works, it REALLY works!

Connected Learning

Today, Melissa and I used iMovie to make a movie trailer explaining connected learning.