Sunday, June 30, 2013
Technological Exploration of Bible Stories
As a new program at our religious school, we have moved towards project based learning. Next year’s big idea will be the Torah. Due to this, I decided to make my project an exploration of the Torah stories. My goal for the project was to assign each student one of the better known stories from the Torah, and to have them create a presentation that they can proceed to share with the class.
To start, I will use www.randomizer.org in order to fairly assign the students a story from the following list:
Creation
Adam & Eve
Cain & Abel
Noah’s Ark
Tower of Babel
Sodom & Gomorrah
Binding of Isaac
Jacob & Esau
Joseph
Moses
They will then be tasked with reading the portion in which their story takes place (or compiled excerpts based on the length.) I will point them towards http://www.biblegateway.com in order to find an online copy.
Once they've absorbed the material, they will be asked to create a graphic, using either wordle or tagxedo and the text from the passage. They will be asked to write a short analysis of why they think some of the words were so common.
Their next task will be to create a summary of their passage, and to use voki to present it.
Following that, they will be asked to use http://www.timetoast.com/ in order to create an interactive timeline of the passage. They will be required to include descriptions with each plot point, as well as a minimum of 3 images.
For the final presentations, they will be asked to dress as a character from their passage. They will then share the passage with the class, and they will present their word clouds, vokis and timelines.
Through this each student will have at the very least a rudimentary grasp of the stories.
CJPTTF: Take-Away Big Ideas
From the beginning, the idea of
this fellowship excited me. As someone who has grown up surrounded by
technology and who is just delving into teaching, the intersection of the two
was a point of difficulty. I lacked ideas of how to meld the two, but I was already
optimistic of the benefits the combination could impart to the classroom.
Having seen how integral technology was in the lives of my students, it was
crucially important that I use it to attract their attention to class.
I have learned many varied things
from this fellowship. On a class wide scope, learning how to manufacture
quizzes with Google documents, how to make flash cards online with quizzlet, and
how to make entrancing visuals with programs such as tagxedo and wordle will all
be used weekly in my class. On a macro level, our in depth exploration of the
uses of wikis has inspired me to, in my role as technology coordinator for the
religious school, to create a wiki for our school. This will be extremely
useful to connect to parents, keep track of kids' work, and to keep track of
the multiple facets of the technology we use.
I intend to use all we've learned
as both a springboard for further exploration, as well as to pass it on to my
fellow educators and down to my students. I hope to encourage our school as a
whole to take advantage of this opportunity to forge forward, and to avoid
stagnation. I am most excited to see in what ways I can use what I learned to
engage my students, and to relate better to them. Many of the ideas shared with
us were new and fresh to me, and I can't wait to try to fit them into a lesson
plan. These ideas include web quests, vokis, online games, and the various
timeline generators.
The final, critical idea I took
away from the fellowship came from my own experiences learning during its
duration. I discovered that technology can be a useful tool, but cannot replace
classic instruction. I was reminded of the dangers of overwhelming students. I
hope to avoid that pitfall, and to apply all we have looked into as part of
next year’s curriculum.
Abraham's Family Tree Unit
4th Grade ~ Temple Isaiah
Over the year, 4th grade students will be exploring key texts of Bereshit from Abraham through Joseph. After the introduction and some scaffolding, students will be using a WebQuest to create Abraham’s Family Tree (from Terach through Jacob’s and Esau’s children). The Family Tree will require students to identify some middot/Jewish virtues from a partial list and explain how each middah connects to an individual and what source text student is using to support.
The whole exploration will be facilitated through a wiki (not yet created) and involve extensive use of project-based learning. The following is just the intro unit.
September 29 Genealogy – What is it?
Computer etiquette:
treating them with care; logging on; gmail a/c’s; saving & shutting down
Computer search and google doc definitions:
create your team definition of genealogy and begin building a Team Glossary – explore and add the following definitions:
ancestor, descendant, sibling, cousins, begot, family tree
Format and save file in the cloud:
identifying docs with file name & team member names
October 2 Finding Torah
How to navigate the Hebrew Bible:
3 sections: T, N, K: focus on T [Torah] ~ create list of a.k.a’s: chumash, 5 Books of Moses, 5 Books of Torah, Pentateuch, The Law,
List books in order in English: Gen, Ex, Lev, Num. Deut: English meanings (beginning; we’re out of here! laws; census, second law)
List books in order in Hebrew: Bereshit, Shemot, Vayikra, BeMidbar, D’varim ~ Hebrew meanings
Add all to their google doc Glossary
October 6 Invitation to Grade 4 Wiki
Review logging on, etc.
Explain the WebQuest idea: will complete project with team members – team to decide how to divide up work, discovering and using individual gifts, understand what project is, how project will be evaluated, resolving differences appropriately, collaboration, communication, where responsibility for learning lies; tools available for research, group work and presentations
Begin WebQuest!
October 9 Continue on WebQuest! The Family Tree of Abraham and His Future Family
October 13 - No School
October 16 Constructive criticism:
its purpose, how to offer it
Review other teams work
Class discussion on work
October 20 Consider classmates comments and decide whether or not to incorporate into project
Reminder that next Sunday will be a program with parents and students will share their family trees of Abraham and Future Family
October 23
Finish up loose ends
Last minute ideas on how to share work with all parents and rest of class
October 27 4th Gr. Family Program
Short story about where you come from; integrate Torah blessing into story (what kids have been doing in class)
Introducing the genealogy
Jewish Genealogy Expert & Clergy ~ brief introduction to what we can learn from genealogist and Clergy to specifically interact with students about what they learned from exploring Abraham’s Family Tree and how to take it further
Set up we are all responsible for one another and l’dor v’dor; bring cutting/peeling tools and veggie, cutting board and 1 recipe typed – collect and “publish” later
Stone Soup activity with soup being delivered to Bristol Lodge after program
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!
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!
Take-away Ideas from TTF
There are so many take-away ideas that TTF has provided me, and I am so grateful to have had this experience. I think the overall thing I am coming away with is a deeper appreciation for the importance of integrating technology into Jewish education, and perhaps more importantly how much easier it is to do so than I had expected, and how many more ways there are to do so than I expected.
Learning about the different tools, websites & resources had been invaluable but even more so has been the sharing of ideas. Each kind of technology we learned about - each website, each modality - has sparked so many ideas in me that I am excited to bring to my school, teachers & students. I am so looking forward to seeing how much more our students will enjoy learning with the added fun and creativity that these technology tools and resources will provide us/them. I know that this experience has changed my approach to teaching as I will now always be thinking about how we can weave technology into what we are teaching/doing.
My initial goals going forward are twofold: one is to encourage, teach & empower our teachers so that they can meet the expectation I will now have to see technology integrated into our lessons & classrooms. The second is to create a wikispace for the school to act as a hub for all of our teachers, students, parents, and the wider community and to link all of the technology tools & experiences of the coming year to one place. I'm really looking forward to seeing this come to fruition and to sharing it with the parents, students and community - I think everyone is going to be really excited about it!
Learning about the different tools, websites & resources had been invaluable but even more so has been the sharing of ideas. Each kind of technology we learned about - each website, each modality - has sparked so many ideas in me that I am excited to bring to my school, teachers & students. I am so looking forward to seeing how much more our students will enjoy learning with the added fun and creativity that these technology tools and resources will provide us/them. I know that this experience has changed my approach to teaching as I will now always be thinking about how we can weave technology into what we are teaching/doing.
My initial goals going forward are twofold: one is to encourage, teach & empower our teachers so that they can meet the expectation I will now have to see technology integrated into our lessons & classrooms. The second is to create a wikispace for the school to act as a hub for all of our teachers, students, parents, and the wider community and to link all of the technology tools & experiences of the coming year to one place. I'm really looking forward to seeing this come to fruition and to sharing it with the parents, students and community - I think everyone is going to be really excited about it!
Saturday, June 29, 2013
How Different Families Celebrate Shabbat
For my lesson plan, I decided to focus on the class I will most likely be teaching next year, which is called Shabbat Club. Shabbat Club is a Friday afternoon class for kindergarteners. Although the class is not only focused on Shabbat, this is what I decided to focus my lesson plan on. I want the children to learn about how they all celebrate Shabbat differently at home. Through sharing their different family traditions students will be able to see that everyone celebrates differently and that there is not one set way to celebrate Shabbat.
This lesson will be one that is ongoing throughout the year, since it will involve each family taking home a "Shabbat box" that I put together. Each Friday evening a different family will take home the "Shabbat box" which will contain candlesticks, a kiddush cup, a challah cover, and a flip camera. The families will have the opportunity to record how they celebrate Shabbat together and show the class actual footage of their Friday night traditions. Because we are a reform community I don't foresee any issues with using technology during Shabbat.
In addition to the weekly "Shabbat box," I will ask the students for words that they would use to describe their own shabbat celebrations and together we will turn them into a tagxedo that the students can take home and share with their families. An example might look like this:
To wrap up the lesson we would have a discussion about how our families are different and how they are similar. Students would be able to see that everyone celebrates Shabbat differently and there is no right or wrong way to do it.
This lesson will be one that is ongoing throughout the year, since it will involve each family taking home a "Shabbat box" that I put together. Each Friday evening a different family will take home the "Shabbat box" which will contain candlesticks, a kiddush cup, a challah cover, and a flip camera. The families will have the opportunity to record how they celebrate Shabbat together and show the class actual footage of their Friday night traditions. Because we are a reform community I don't foresee any issues with using technology during Shabbat.
In addition to the weekly "Shabbat box," I will ask the students for words that they would use to describe their own shabbat celebrations and together we will turn them into a tagxedo that the students can take home and share with their families. An example might look like this:
The final component to the lesson would be allowing students to each use a netbook and create a popplet diagramming how they do Shabbat at home. The popplet could look something like this:
To wrap up the lesson we would have a discussion about how our families are different and how they are similar. Students would be able to see that everyone celebrates Shabbat differently and there is no right or wrong way to do it.
Initial Technology Ideas
These are my initial thoughts of technology applications given our current 7th grade curriculum.
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.
Topic: Jewish Life Cycles
Lesson Layout:
Introduction of Jewish life cycles with brainstorming session to assess students' understanding
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.
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.
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