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!

New Reel/Movie Trailer Assignment Idea

One of my ideas for an assignment for my class this coming year is to have the students make news broadcasts or movie trailers on the iPads about significant topics in the history portion of our sixth grade curriculum. I plan to divide them into groups and allow them to choose their topics. Once they have chosen a topic I will allow them class time and homework time to do research into the event, movement, etc.
Hoping most of the reading and research will be done at home (utilizing a flipped classroom set up) and the students can use class time to interact and create their videos I would allot a fair amount of time for them to get to know the apps in the iPads and allow them time to edit their footage together. I would encourage them to utilize videos found online to splice into the footage they are shooting of their group members for added interest.  I would have the students use iMovie or Green Screen to create the news reels or movie trailers.

Once the videos were completed I would have the students share each group's work with the class and present a lesson on their topic to teach the other class members about their topic. After this work is shared with the class I would post the students work on our class' website Popplet.
The Popplet will be utilized to share the ever evolving and expanding curriculum with the students and parents. By posting the work on the website the students will be able to share their hard work with family members at home to instill a sense of pride. By consistently showcasing the work the students have done in this manner it will encourage them to put more effort into their classwork and constantly encourage them to strive to do better.

Bringing Technology Into The Classroom

During my time in the CJP TTF Cohort, I have gain so much knowledge of not only the applications on the iPads to bring into my classroom, but knowledge on ways to entirely change my classroom set up for better learning. Discussing the concept of the Flipped Classroom in our Cohort gave me wonderful ideas on ways I could entirely change my approach to the curriculum in the upcoming school year.
As an educator who has always learned best through kinetic education, finding new ways to engage my students not just through aural, oral, and visual lesson plans is always inspiring. My students are in the sixth grade and by the time they arrive at religious school have spent long days sitting at desks. Being able to offer them time to learn while still getting to expel energy is like a gold mine to me as their teacher!
I would like to design my program next year utilizing a website that will be host to a number of links and projects, but will begin with a Popplet highlighting our curriculum. On the Popplet I would like to showcase the main ideas we are discussing in class and springboard from there. On the website parents should be able to access articles to discuss with their children, students should be able to access review materials and watch videos with their families.
I would also include homework assignments and future in class assignments to help get the children excited about what is to come and allow them to collect materials beforehand while helping them develop time management skills. I would also like to include on this Popplet photos of the students in class and the work they complete. Link to the videos they make would be a very enticing way to get parents to continue to check in on the website and remain engaged with their childrens' education.