Why I love Teaching, Technology, and Social Media: A Tu B'shvat Story

There is a famous story about Choni Hamagel which I have taught many times in honor of Tu Bishvat from the Talmud in Taanit 23a. Here is a very short summary of the story. Choni draws a circle and demands that G-d bring rain which G-d finally does. Then Choni sees a person planting a carob tree which will only bear fruit after 70 years. Choni questions the wisdom of such a long term proposition and the person responds that since his grandparents planted a carob tree for him, he will plant one for his grandchildren. Choni then falls asleep for 70 years, perhaps the source for the story of Rip Van Winkle, and then wakes up to find the carob tree fully grown. The story ends on a depressing note with Choni so distressed that he is living in a world without any of his former friends and family that he exclaims או חברותא או מיתותא, loosely translated as "Give me a chavruta, a partner, or give me death". For a very clever video rendition of this story minus the "sad" ending, you can watch a wonderful cartoon version created by G-dcast here.

Last night, in honor of Tu Bishvat, I decided to tweet a student project on this story that was created way back in 2001 as a part of a class How to learn Gemara website. One of the wonders of digital learning, a term which I believe had not even been coined when I created this project with my class, is that one creates an online portfolio that can be accessed for many years to come. Even after Yahoo's Geocities which hosted our website went defunct, a new free service Geocities.ws generously took over free hosting of our site. You can read more about this project in a previous blog post here.

So I tweeted about this wonderful project created by my students from way back in the day and within a few moments I get a reply on Twitter, "I was one those students!" from @alicht, a student who I have seen in person on only a few occasions in the last 5 years. Obviously, I was beaming, smiling ear to ear, as I interacted with my former student from so many years ago on Twitter.You can view the Twitter exchange below.

This vignette illustrates why I love teaching, technology, and social media. As teachers, we are all planting trees like in the Choni story. Sometimes, these trees can bear almost instant fruit. Other times it is a much longer and more arduous process in which we wonder if any our seeds will ever sprout. But after a few years, you never know what wonderful fruits our trees will grow. However, at times, we don't know about these momentous occasions. How many of us have the chance to meet our students years later and reflect about what effect we might have had on their lives? This is where technology and social media can be so awesome. Through technology, we can create a snapshot of our student's performance, an online portfolio for us teachers and our students to look back on for years to come. And through social media, we can continue to interact with our students as they grow into adults who themselves are influential members of our Jewish community. We don't need a 70 year slumber to wake up to our fruit trees. Through the power of social media we can continue to interact, influence, and "shep good old fashioned naches" at the fruits of our labor.

Happy Tu Bishvat to all!

What do our students think of Digital Learning?

The following posting is cross-posted from The Frisch School Blog. Enjoy!

Today is Digital Learning Day, a day devoted to reflection on innovative ways to reach our students using various technologies. As a part of this day, I went around the school taking pictures of various examples of digital learning that occur on a typical day at The Frisch School and I was blown away by the depth of the the technology-assisted learning that took place throughout the school, in the library, computer room, hallways, cafeteria, and classroom.

On the Frisch Wiki, Mrs. Tikvah Wiener, our English Department Chair and Coordinator of Interdisciplinary Studies, asked our students to reflect about how technology enhances or detracts from learning. Here are some responses.

One of the best responses:
"Technology offers significant advantages on two opposite ends of the learning process: learning the facts and seeing the bigger picture. The speed of computer processing and efficiency of the internet expedite the process of learning the basic information. The widespread use of Google, Wikipedia, and other search engines for educational purposes exemplifies this point. One area that I find is particularly aided by the brilliance of the search engine is in-depth research. When I began my research for the upcoming Model United Nations conference, the first thing I did was Google my country and my two topics. Instantly, I had access to previous United Nations resolutions, international law journals, statistics, and other useful resources that would take hours and hours to sift through without the help of Google.

Technology also enhances the culmination of the learning process: taking a step back from the information and placing it in a broader context. Forums and discussion pages (such as the wiki page we are now posting on) offer a unique opportunity for students to the see multiple perspectives on a single issue, a process and educational methodology known as divergent thinking. From personal observations on the Frisch wiki, I have gleaned that discussion through technology is often more effective than classroom discussion because communication through technology requires students to think more carefully before presenting their points of view. Thus, the responses of students tend to be more cohesive and eloquent. Additionally, the enticing nature of technology often provides respite from the normal classroom environment, pushing many students to become more involved in the discussion than they would be in a classroom.

Despite some irreplaceable aspects of the classroom setting, technology has the potential to enhance and expedite the learning process. The internet gives us the world at our fingertips, and the lightning-fast computer processors make obtaining information significantly easier to do than it was even ten years ago. To all those who point out the flaws in educational technology, I answer that this is only the beginning. The technology industry is all about innovation and development, so it is constantly evolving to take on new challenges. As more and more students pass through school systems enhanced by technology, analysts are gathering data to determine which methods do and do not work. The next step is taking the data and putting it to use to improve on existing technologies and create new ones."

Excerpts:
"Responsibility extends beyond marking a line between educational purpose and “distractive” purpose. Kohelet teaches that knowledge in excess hurts more than it helps. One must consider the words of Kohelet 1:18 to perceive the truth of the assertion that excessive knowledge has a marked downside: “for in much wisdom is much vexation; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” One must draw a line between areas in which technology can truly aid in the learning process and areas in which technology can only detract from the learning process. Technology grants vast resources of knowledge, but certain areas of study—certain pursuits—must be marked as “vexing,” or in certain cases, outright unacceptable."

"Technology has become a resourceful tool that adds to student learning. With the help of technology one can instantly look up information to add to class discussions and watch videos to enhance the classroom experience. In addition, learning does not stop after class anymore; students are able to utilize websites (like our wiki pages) to have online discussions about topics learned during their school day. Students do not have to worry about having bad hand-writing because now with technology they are able to type up their notes and assignments. I can only imagine how technology will enhance our learning in years to come."

"Technology enhances learning. One example of technology's usefulness is for vocabulary. Instead of having a vocabulary quiz, in my English class, we sometimes have a picture slideshow project. We make slideshows with pictures that explain a word's meaning. After the project is done, we put it online and have an enjoyable and useful study aid. Another example of how technology enhances learning is the SmartBoard. For example, in Biology, Dr. Furman often puts a slideshow on the SmartBoard which depicts an experiment that a given scientist has done. . . Although cell phones are not allowed in my classes, some schools use a new program in which students can answer a question by texting to certain number. Overall, if technology is used in the correct way, it can create a better and more fun learning environment for students."

"The advanced technology today is great for doing research. With just one click on Google, a student has access to just about any information he/she could possibly need. I have used Google every day for research for projects and help with homework, and I use Gmail to email teachers or talk to peers. Other websites such as Facebook and Youtube have their advantages as well. Facebook can be used to talk to students about homework or other school-related topics. A perfect example of Facebook's helping with school-related activities happened during Shiriyah. Rabbi Pittinsky made Twitter and Facebook groups for each grade, so all the students in each grade knew what was going on with their teams."

"I dislike the accessibility of information. I believe it is making students lazy. For example, I can easily find the definition of any word without looking it up manually in the dictionary. This ease is a cause for laziness. Another example of technology's drawbacks is in the writing of research papers. One can easily find an outline of his topic online and copy it. In the past, it was much harder to find pre-made outlines and research papers. When I have a large research paper to do, I often find myself putting off beginning because I know I can easily Google my topic and find what I need, instantaneously. If I had to go to a library to do my work, I would realize how long that would take and get started immediately.... However, I am sure technology will only become more established in education and will be greatly beneficial in certain areas."

Below are slideshows of only a few of the various digital learning activities at Frisch today. Enjoy!

What are you planning for Digital Learning Day tomorrow?

Tomorrow is Digital Learning Day, a day devoted to reflection on best practices for utilizing educational technology to enhance teaching and learning. You might be wondering what is the big deal about this day since for many of you already every day is a digital learning day with the use of the Smart Boards for interactive lessons, Wikis and Blogs for communication and collaboration, and integration of many other computer applications and web-based tools for helping our students attain mastery in various subjects. However, it is always important to continue to add to your teaching repertoire and technology can be a great tool to do this so I highly recommend that you take tomorrow as an opportunity for continued growth.

Here are a few suggestions:
1. Attend a webinar:

• Webinars are free and easy opportunities for professional development embedded directly into your school day. 
• The following webinar by the YU School Partnership is being given by Dr. Eliezer Jones, YU School Partnership's Educational Technology Specialist along with Esther Feldman, The Lookstein Center for Jewish education's Director of Information Technology and Financial Services and Smadar Goldstein, Founder and Director of JETS - Jerusalem EdTech Solutions which we used to conduct a webinar about Ethiopian Jewry with our entire 10th grade as a part of their Frisch Africa Connection. It is taking place tomorrow from 12-1PM. Here is the link: http://www.yuschoolpartnership.org/webinars/upcoming-webinars?task=3&cid=28&sem_midx=1&sem_jidx=0

2. Read an article:

• I wrote an article last year on utilizing technology in Judaic Studies for Jewish Action. It might offer a good introduction to this topic. You can read the article here: Technology in the Classroom

3.Conduct a classroom poll.

• Polleverywhere is a great tool to get instant feedback from all of your students using texting on their cell phones what is called BYOD, Bring Your Own Device. 
• I have blogged in the past about using PollEverywhere as a classroom exit ticket here.

4. Utilize your Smart Board as a truly interactive tool:

• Smart Boards have become ubiquitous and virtually all of us use them on a regular basis but do we really utilize it's capabilities to promote student interaction or is it just a glorified white board. One easy way to make our lessons more interactive is by using the Smart Notebook Lesson Activity tool kit which is installed on EVERY computer at Frisch. 
• Here are simple step-by-step instructions: http://downloads01.smarttech.com/media/services/quickreferences/pdf/english/lat_qrg.pdf

5. "Flip" your classroom:

• Many teachers have already started to "flip" their lessons by assigning videos from Khan Academy or videos they created themselves for students to watch for homework. I have blogged in the past about the pros and cons of this approach here, here, and here.
• Here is a link to http://www.khanacademy.org/ and Screen-Cast-O-Matic an easy tool to record your own "flipped classroom" videos. 

6. Assign your students a Voicethread:

• Many Judaic Studies teachers have also used Voicethread as an easy tool for assigning audio assignments in which every student reads or discusses a text for you to watch later. 
• I have blogged about this in the past here. 
• I also recommend this article by Rabbi Aaron Ross entitled The Wonder of Voicethread. 
• You can access Voicethread here: http://voicethread.com/

7. Use Glogster or Prezi for your next student project:

• Glogster is an online multi-media replacement for the traditional poster board. You can find it here: http://www.glogster.com/
• Prezi is a free online presentation tool that allows you to focus on both the "big pictures" and the "nitty gritty details" of a topic in ways not easily replicated using the traditional PowerPoint presentation. Here is a link: http://prezi.com/

8. Try something completely new!

• If you want more ideas, here are 2 Google Docs full of dozens of free web-based technology tools to use with your students.
• Useful tools for Jewish Educators and Teacher Trainers
• 24+ Jewish EdTech Ideas

Please share your ideas for Digital Learning Day in the comments to this blog. I would love to continue this digital conversation!

My response to Thought Questions vs. "Spit Back"

Rabbi Yaki Blau, a colleague of mine at The Frisch School has raised an interesting discussion on Lookjed about Thought questions vs. "spit back". You can read his query/comments and the ensuing discussion here. Rabbi Blau recommends exclusively using "spit back" questions on formal tests for various reasons. I just wrote a response that I am including in this blog for the benefit of my readers since it touches on an important educational topic that has some applications to technology that I discuss below. I would also recommend my posting on IBM's computer Watson, What Watson Can Teach Us, which touches on the broader issue of the place of knowledge vs. skills in this new age of computer databases, Watson, and Google.

Dear Shalom and List:
Regarding the query by my colleague at The Frisch School, Rabbi Yaakov Blau on Thought questions vs "spit back", I believe that the best answer, as is often the case, is there is a place for both of these types of questions on well written assessments.

My philosophy towards testing is greatly influenced by a seminal class that I took a number of years ago with Dr. Scott Goldberg in the Azrieli Graduate School for Jewish Education and Administration. We used the textbook, Classroom Assessment: Principles and Practice for Effective Standards-Based Instruction by JH McMillan which I would highly recommend. In the course, Dr. Goldberg advised that the teacher first identify Learning Targets for their course and then make sure that all assessments address at least some of these goals. This is similar to the Understanding By Design approach where you "Begin With the End in Mind", as Stephen Covey would say, or put another way, סוף מעשה במחשבה תחילה, as we describe the Shabbat in לכה דודי. The learning targets should include the areas of Knowledge and Simple Understanding, Deep Understanding and Reasoning, Skills, Products, and Affective Targets.

Obviously some of these targets would require "spit back" types of questions while others would call for more "thought" based questions. Even in reference to "spit back" questions, it is important to recognize that there are different types of "spit back". One can ask questions for simple knowledge like basic translation and information and one can ask more sophisticated deeper understanding "spit back" that requires the learner to follow the various stages in a logical progression like the back and forth arguments in a long Tosfot. This is the type of high-level "spit back" that I believe Rabbi Blau recommends for formal exams. However, if one's targets include skills like using keywords to read a Talmudic sugya or applying knowledge to new situations then "thought" type questions are also warranted whether in a formal test or using alternative forms of assessments as Rabbi Aaron Ross advocated.

Technology can greatly assist in constructing these alternative skills-based assessments for Talmud. For example, students can indicate their mastery of the Shakla Vetarya of a sugya by breaking down the stages of the Gemara and classifying them using a computer program like Gemara Berura. They can also read the sugya for the teacher to listen to later using Voicethread, a web-based app that allows students to record their voices using a computer's microphone . This is much more practical than the oral testing that Rabbi Blau advances but points out cannot easily be done in a Yeshiva Day School schedule. Since the teacher can listen to the Voicethreads at his/her leisure, these types of assignments can be assigned regularly. They can also include any Hebrew text including Talmud, Tanach, Rishonim, or Acharonim so they can be easly adapted for many levels of learners.

At the same time, when I have taught Gemara in the past, I also included skills-based "thought" questions on my formal tests as well by giving my students "unseen" Gemara texts containing the same keyword structures studied in class. My students were naturally worried about these "unseen" texts but soon realized that they were eminently doable since I only asked them to replicate exactly the skill learned in class; to use the keywords to explain what a new Gemara is doing in terms of unlocking the Shakla Vetarya, the back and forth of the debate, rather than decipher what an unfamiliar Gemara is saying in terms of the content of the "unseen" Gemara. This is an important skill for students to master so they can learn to "make a laining" on a new Gemara as we would say in Yeshiva, to gain the ability to independently read an unfamiliar Gemara. Since this is an important learning target, naturally I included this on my exams. I also included application questions on my tests as well, although I usually limited them to one or two questions at the end for many of the same reasons Rabbi Blau mentioned.

The bottom line is that one should test to the learning targets that one teaches. Therefore, I believe that a good assessment should include simple knowledge and deeper understanding "spit back" questions, skills based questions, and some application type questions as well. If a test is balanced and closely aligned to the clearly communicated learning targets then students will adapt to them and use these assessments to show their knowledge and grow in their understanding.

I welcome continued feedback on this most fruitful discussion.
Kol Tuv,
Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky
Director of Educational Technology
The Frisch School

Digital Textbooks in Jewish Day Schools: Is the future now?

I just posted the following question to Lookjed, the Jewish Educators listserv sponsored by the Lookstein Center. You can follow the Lookjed discussion online here. I will share feedback from the List as I receive it. I welcome feedback from my blog readers as well. Please share your experiences in the comments to this posting.

Dear Shalom and List:
With the recent announcement by Apple about their K-12 textbook publishing partnerships and new software for creating and customizing textbooks for the iPad (http://www.apple.com/education/ibooks-textbooks), I was wondering whether anyone could share their experiences using digital textbooks in Jewish Day Schools. I know that there have been similar discussions on the list in the past here and here but it might be worth revisiting since technology keeps advancing at such a steady pace.

The way I see it there are 3 advantages to using digital textbooks on iPads or other e-readers.

1. Convenience: Having one small tablet to carry back and forth from school is much easier and healthier for our students than lugging large backpacks full of books. The present situation forces many students to leave their textbooks in school or at home rather than transport them back and forth or to own 2 copies of their books which is obviously not the ideal.

2. Multi-media content: Digital textbooks can offer much more than the traditional text and pictures. They can include audio, video, animations, and interactive content that can greatly enhance the educational experience.

3. Cost savings (maybe): Digital textbooks might be cheaper than purchasing all those traditional books although, since paper books can be reused for many years, the veracity of any promised cost savings has to be carefully examined.

The drawbacks of digital textbooks are also many. Ipads or similar e-readers can be lost, broken, or stolen; content needs to be created for Judaic subjects as well as General Studies; they cannot be used on Shabbat or Yom Tov; and there is a large cost for purchasing iPads or similar e-readers for every student and creating/replacing current textbooks.

My question to the List is does anyone have experience implementing digital textbooks in Jewish Day Schools for General or Judaic Studies and/or does anyone have any plans to pilot such an implementation in the near future?

I welcome the feedback from the collected wisdom of the various educators on this list.
Kol Tuv,
Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky
Director of Educational Technology
The Frisch School

#FrischShiriyah takes over Facebook (and Twitter too)!!!

The following is cross-posted on The Frisch School Blog.

It is always so exciting to watch our students using all of their talents for Shiriyah. This year we have added additional aspects to the Shiriyah experience utilizing the world of social media with which our kids are so familiar. We do this with the philosophy that Shiriyah can be an opportunity to model for our students the great power of social media as a tool for constructive sharing, what noted technology thinker Clay Shirky calls Cognitive Surplus.

With that in mind, you might have noticed our ubiquitous presence on our Frisch School Twitter feed sending updates about the various events of this exciting week with the "hashtag" #FrischShiriyah. We have also launched for the first time our Frisch School Facebook Page so we can post even more rich and interactive content about Shiriyah including videos and photos. You can access this page by going to the following direct link: https://www.facebook.com/FrischSchool. While you're on our page, make sure to "Like Us" so you can see our updates during Shiriyah and throughout the school year on your Facebook News Feed (screenshot below).



However, this is only a part of our use of Facebook and Twitter for Shiriyah. We have provided our students the opportunity to use it as well. We have done this by creating Facebook Groups for each grade. These groups are closed to the world at large but open to our students and faculty. This was an experiment, we really did not know what to expect, while we closely monitored this undertaking. I am happy to report that so far our experiment has been a resounding success. The grades have really come together harnessing the power of this new medium to brainstorm, organize, and create.

Each grade has used their groups to post a laundry list of everything needed for the Hallways, Stomp, Project Runway, Cake Boss, and the list goes on and on. They have also found more creative ways to use this online medium. Here are a few specific examples.

• The Freshmen posted YouTube videos of each of their songs for Shiriyah night for everyone to watch and practice at home. 
• The Sophomores have posted photo albums of "The Midbar Experience". 
• The Juniors have posted pictures of various odds and ends that they had around the house (including wood and old dressers) to use for the hallways. 
• The Seniors have been posting to their "Chevra" constant words of encouragement about the stomp, choir/medley, banner, video, and mural.

I wish I could show you the tremendous work and creativity that I am seeing online till late at night, the virtual Shiriyah after the physical building has already been closed for the evening, but these groups are only open to our students (with close monitoring by the faculty) so they can feel comfortable interacting informally with their classmates to help make such a massive undertaking into a reality.

The grades have also utilized public twitter feeds to broadcast to the world their enthusiasm and excitement about Shiriyah. You can view them using the following links: twitter.com/shiriyah9, twitter.com/shiriyah10, twitter.com/shiriyah11, twitter.com/shiriyah12.

Finally, we are excited to announce that this year for the first time we will be live streaming Shiriyah night for friends relatives, and alumni who cannot make it to the Frisch gym but would like to share in the Shiriyah experience. All you will need to do is go to our homepage, http://frisch.org/ and the video should be streaming directly from the website starting at 7:30PM. We are looking forward to seeing all of you Shiriyah night either physically in our gym to cheer on our talented and hardworking students or virtually through Frisch.org.

Kol Tuv,

Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky
Director of Educational Technology
The Frisch School

Using Poll Everywhere as your Exit Ticket

As I have mentioned in the past, Poll Everywhere has always been a great classroom motivator since it allows teachers to elicit 100% student response using something students love, their cell phones. But is it just shtick or a genuine educational tool? I have had this debate with a respected colleague of mine who has argued that Poll Everywhere, while a nice tool, is really just "smoke and mirrors" and not real education, since one could get the same type of student response by requiring every kid to write down an answer to your question on a piece of paper and collecting them like Nechama Leibowitz used to do in her classes.

Recently, I have been experimenting with a new application of this tool which I believe is genuine since it cannot easily be replicated ANY OTHER WAY. I have been using Poll Everywhere for Exit Tickets. An exit ticket is a brief assessment that every student has to fill out before leaving class to indicate their understanding of the lesson. You can read a nice description of Exit Tickets here.

I started to utilize Exit Tickets in my lessons after discovering on a recent exam that students did much better on the translations and multiple choice which required simple understanding than they did on the essays in which a deeper understanding of the lesson was necessary. As a response to this, I needed a method of assuring that every student understood the "big idea" of each lesson on a daily basis. Enter the Exit Ticket.

However, the problem with Exit Tickets is that to be most effective, the teacher must give immediate feedback so students know they properly understood the material. When using the pen and paper approach, this would require a lot of grading on a daily basis and students still might not see a model of the correct answer. This is where Poll Everywhere can be such an effective tool. When students fill out their Exit Tickets using texting on their cell phone via Poll Everywhere, there are no papers to grade and students immediately see the answers projected on the board. The teacher can then point out which answers are correct and even bring up the poll again at the beginning of the following lesson as a review of the previous day's material.

So far, I am using Poll Everywhere to create very simple Exit Tickets. At the end of each classroom period, I ask the students the same question, "What was the big idea of today's lesson?". You can see one example of such a poll below. I welcome other more creative questions for Exit Tickets using Poll Everywhere. Please add your own through the comments section below.

Technology in the Classroom: How is it going?

Below is my recent posting for Lookjed, the Jewish Educational Listserv published by the Lookstein Center on the thread, Technology in the Classroom: How Is It Going?. Specifically, it is a response to this posting to this thread by my esteemed colleague, Rabbi Yaki Blau which expressed skepticism to the integration of technology into Jewish education. I welcome your feedback in the comments section.

Dear Shalom and List:

In reference to the recent posting by Rabbi Yaki Blau expressing skepticism about the benefits of technology in education, I find it ironic that once again I am debating with my respected colleague at The Frisch School on an online forum hosted in Israel some 6000 miles away from Paramus, NJ, when I could be discussing this with him directly in the teacher's room (as I often do). But that's the point. The Lookjed Listserv has provided us with a forum to debate ideas in a much more nuanced and thoughtful way (and with a MUCH larger audience) then we could ever experience in face-to-face conversation. This is one of the greatest advantages of technology and one that it behooves us to utilize in our classrooms. Technology has become the ideal platform for communication and collaboration.

Here are just a few examples of this from my own school (which Yaki is intimately familiar with).

1) We now have school-wide and grade-wide wikis for teachers and students to collaboratively integrate ideas from various subject areas focused around a common theme. In addition to their use for student-led asynchronous online discussion forums very similar to this Listserv, they have become the platform for many other creative activities. For example, we now run Integrated Educational Days where all of the lessons in a particular grade are focused around a common theme. We have a day for our Freshmen devoted to the subject of Fate and Free Will, for Sophomores devoted to the Power of the Book, and for Juniors devoted to the Holocaust. At the end of the day as a summative assessment, students are asked to work with a partner making a presentation using PowerPoint, Prezi, or Google Docs about the various classes they studied. The wiki is the common learning space where information from these lessons and additional resources are shared by the teachers and where the students final projects are posted as well. Without this online component, such a high level of collaboration between our teachers and students would not be possible. In addition, since this common learning space exists completely on the web, physical distance is no longer an impediment to such intense collaboration which leads to my second example.

2) We have created partnerships with a number of different schools in Israel for our online projects. Through the help of our local Jewish Federation, we have a 9th grade and 11th grade partnership with schools in Nahariya. This past year, we even planned and ran our 11th Grade Holocaust Integration together with one of these schools. We "met" with the teachers using Skype, our teachers both in Israel and New Jersey posted curricular materials on the wiki, and we had a follow-up Skype "face-to-face" conversation between one of our classes in Frisch and one in Nahariya reflecting on what was learned during this educational day. We also have a 10th grade partnership in our English classes with Neveh Channah in Kfar Etzion with the help of my esteemed colleague and fellow educational technologist Reuven Werber. These partnerships go beyond the "pen pals" of yesteryear to full fledged learning projects which are only possible through platforms like wikis and video conferencing.

3) We have also been experimenting with the flipped classroom model where teachers post short lectures online that students can access at home prior to getting into a deeper discussion in class. I have utilized this in my Nach classes to post basic word by word translation of the verses online so that in class we can almost immediately jump to the next level of higher analysis. One might argue that our students would do better reading the chapter in advance of class the old fashioned way but in most cases our students would merely do a superficial reading of an English translation when given such an assignment. When they watch the class on YouTube, they can see and hear a model of an accurate reading of the verses with key words circled or underlined and the ability to rewind if they miss a point. You can view my Youtube Flipped Classroom channel here: http://www.youtube.com/pittinsky. Similarly, a number of teachers now give students assignments to read the pesukim or Talmudic text to the teacher at home on their computer using a website called Voicethread. In each of these examples, technology is being utilized as a communication platform for students to work on reading skills an area that is sorely needed based on observations made in many of Lookjed discussions.

These are just a few examples of educational technology utilized as the ideal platform for communication and collaboration. Two other examples which I don't feel that I have the time to flesh out now are Google Docs as a platform for class-wide collaboration and real time student response systems like www.polleverywhere.com to simultaneously engage all students in a class discussion. To be continued...

In conclusion, I do not deny Yaki's premise that certain uses of technology can and in many times have made us into more superficial readers and thinkers. I recommend that he (and the list) read the book The Shallows by Nicholas Carr which strongly asserts this very point. (You can read my review here.) One should certainly address these points directly with teachers and students and design research and classroom activities forcing students to go beyond the superficial level of thought that has become so easy with the rise of Google. My point is that one not throw out all the tremendous progress that technology is already achieving to enrich our educational lives because of one's fear of it's abuses.

Remember, every new technology in the past has had it's drawbacks as well as benefits. Just think back to the dramatic changes in the nature of Torah learning that took place as a result of the transition from a truly oral law to the written Mishna and Talmud or due to the advent of the printing press. However, I think we would all agree that the benefits of a written "Oral Law" that is accessible to all and cannot easily be forgotten, greatly outweigh the past benefits of an Oral Law that was truly oral. Our rabbis certainly did. And even though the collaborative process of copying manuscripts by hand must have been great for the copyists and led to many beautiful folios, we would all prefer the permanency and universal availability of the printed book. The current state technology is going through is a similarly epoch changing process. It is a brave new world with much to fear but at the same time even more to gain if harnessed thoughtfully and carefully by teachers interested in using it to find new, powerful tools to reach our students.

Kol tuv,
Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky
Director of Educational Technology
The Frisch School
Paramus, NJ

911 Lesson on Teshuva

Below are two versions, a short one and an expanded version, of a 9/11 Lesson that I compiled a number of years ago. It connects the message of Rabbi Eliezer in Mishnah Avot and Gemara Shabbat to "Do Teshuva One Day Before You Die" with a famous poem that circulated the Internet for years after 9/11. When I teach this, I emphasize that Judaism is a religion that celebrates life and the message really is that one should live every day with no regrets. As the poem ends, "Take time to say "I'm sorry,""Please forgive me," "Thank you," or "It's okay."And if tomorrow never comes,you'll have no regrets about today."

Here are the lessons:

Short version:
911 Lesson- Teshuva

Longer Source Sheet:
911- Do Teshuva One Day Before You Die

Presentation on Flipping the Classroom

Below please find a new Prezi that I just created on Flipping the Classroom. It is based on the ideas and discussions that I have been having these last six months on this blog thanks to the participation of many of you. As always, I welcome your constructive feedback.

• One note. This is the first time that I have used Prezi in a number of months. As I have blogged previously, this program was always so innovative and powerful but had a steep learning curve. Not anymore! Prezi is now so easy to use. It comes with pre-made templates, paths that can be easily modified, and the ability to embed YouTube videos. What a difference between the older Beta Prezi version and this fully formed product! I highly recommend you give it a try to add spice to your presentations and avoid "Death by PowerPoint".

Flipping Out on Prezi

I'm Flipping Out

This is cross-posted on my TanachRav blog.

I am planning to try the Flipped Classroom model this year in my Nach class. We are learning about Shivat Zion through Sefer Ezra/ Nechemiah, Chagai, Zechariah, and (maybe) Malachi.

Here are my first 5 videos on Ezra Chapters 1-3 with HW assignments as a Google Form for each of them. I welcome your constructive feedback.

1. Ezra Chapter 1, Verses 1-6

• HW for "The Cyrus Proclamation

2. Ezra Chapter 1, Verses 7-11

• HW for "The Return of the Vessels"

3. Ezra Chapter 2

• HW for "Those Who Returned"

4. Ezra Chapter 3, Verses 1-7

• HW for "The Building of the Altar"

5. Ezra Chapter 3 Verses, 8-13

• HW for "Singing at the Rebuilding of the Temple"

Can Stanford University's Intro to Artificial Intelligence model be adapted for Torah courses?

I just read about the fascinating Open Course being offered this fall by Stanford University, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. Here is a blog post about it from Darcy Moore: Online Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and an article from the Atlantic: Take Stanford's 'Introduction to Artificial Intelligence' Course. You can watch a video introduction of the course below.



What makes this course so unique and different from other Open Courseware like MIT's Open Courseware or YUTorah.org is you can not only watch the lectures and read the syllabus but you can submit homework, take exams, and be graded, all for free. Learning Lishma! It's kind of like the Nechama Liebowitz model with her Gilyonot that she mailed and graded worldwide but utilizing the Internet to make the process easier.

Is this model being used anywhere for Torah content? I know about YUTorah, Daf Yomi, Nach Yomi etc. I am asking about the aspect of the course where anyone can submit homework, exams, and grades so you are truly taking the course along with the participants in the brick and mortar school. This is what made Nechama Leibowitz's Gilyonot truly unique. (Actually her model was even more unique because there was no course in a brick and mortar school. It was all through her correspondence to her small apartment behind the old Central Bus Station in Jerusalem.) Does anyone have the time and resources to update this model for the 21st century להגדיל תורה ולהדירה?

Interesting Ways to use Technology for Mishna and Gemara in the Classroom

I am preparing two courses in the fall on using technology to enhance Jewish Studies. The first is a senior elective in my school called Torah Tech which I have blogged about here. The second, is a new online class for teachers on using technology to teach Mishna and Gemara which I am developing for The MOFET Institute Online Academy for Jewish Studies. I need your help.

I plan to include many real-world examples of the use of technology in Mishna and Gemara instruction on the middle and high school levels. To accomplish this, I am taking a tip from Tom Barrett's famous Interesting Ways series to crowdsource good quality classroom ideas on the use of technology for Mishna and Gemara in the classroom. Below is a Google Docs Presentation that I started on Interesting Ways* to use Technology for Mishna and Gemara in the Classroom. I added the first idea but I invite you to add your own so this becomes a truly collaborative experience which should greatly benefit the knowledge base of Jewish education.

You can contribute to this presentation by using the following link which allows editing: Interesting Ways* to use Technology for Mishna and Gemara in the Classroom and adding a new slide for each of your ideas. The only thing that I ask is that you include your name and/or Twitter handle to your slide and that you publicize this project on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and other social media. Yeshar Kochachem!

Google University: Lecture 1: Searching Smarter

The following posting is cross-posted on http://edtechexp.blogspot.com/.

A number of years ago, I had the privilege to work closely with a soft-spoken network administrator, Ken Dwyer, who seemed to have the answer to all of my technology questions at his fingertips. When I asked him how he knew so much, he answered "Google University". He was not referring to an educational institution sponsored by Google. Rather, he was referencing the power of Google as the repository of information, if you know how to find it. Since that conversation some seven years ago, Google University has greatly expanded it's "course offerings" to include a whole suite of knowledge tools all free of charge. The following, is my first in a series of postings I am planning based on information learned at the recent ISTE 2011 Conference on the power of Google University to transform our teaching and learning.

Lecture 1: Searching Smarter
Fundamentally, Google is a search engine, and every experienced user has developed their own strategies on how to find what they need using Google University. I will focus on some of the tools to refine one's search and filter the results that are less well-known.

Below is a sample Google search screen:

You will notice while typing that Google is already doing two things. 
1) It starts showing results both from the Internet and results that Google has "starred" because they appear from your online Google bookmarks.
2) Google starts suggesting other longer searches that you might be interested in. If you watch what Google suggests and click on your desired search rather than continuing typing, it will save you time.

You will also notice tools to your lower left to further refine your results.
1. Sites with images: Results can be limited to sites with images, a handy tool for finding images. (I will focus on Google image search in my next posting.)

2. Related searches: This will give you a list of searches related to your search terms. This tool will help you to perfect your searching skills. If you are not sure exactly what to search for, just type anything into Google, even a question. If you do not find exactly what you are looking for, then click related searches to see other search terms you can use. (Another great tool for refining your search terms is the Google Wonder Wheel which I will talk about later in this posting.)

3. Timeline: With this tool, you can search for items relevant to a range of years and then view your answers sorted along a time line.

• For example, let's say you do a search for Abraham. You could be searching for Abraham Lincoln or Abraham, the first of the Avot (Patriarches) in the Tanach. Through the timeline, you can easily limit your search to Abraham from the Bible by only looking for results from the range of 2000-1500BCE. 

4. Time: You can also filter your searches by time. This is different from the Timeline because you are not searching for results about a specific time period. Rather, you are searching for websites created after a certain time. This is great for researching something that has changed in the recent past.

• For example, let's say I want to know why the Google Wonder Wheel no longer is listed in the Google search tools. (I will describe the Wonder Wheel's great utility later in the posting based on my experiences using it just last week but for now it has mysteriously disappeared.) You can search for "Google Wonder Wheel" and limit your search to the past week.

5. Wonder Wheel: I will end this lecture by discussing the Wonder Wheel, a great tool for seeing related searches.

• For example, let's say you start by searching for Twitter. You can refine your search further using the wonder wheel to search for Twitter Teaching tools. This will bring up, further categories to search for like flickr teaching tools, facebook teaching tools, or youtube teaching tools. Every time, you click on a category, it opens a new search and if you select to view all results, instead of the Wonder Wheel, you will then see all results for that search term. I would tell you to give the Wonder Wheel a try but for some reason it has disappeared. Hopefully it will come back soon.

This ends my first Google University lecture on Searching Smarter. Stay tuned for future lectures on Google Image Search, Google News, Scholar, and other search tools, Google Docs, and much more.

Top Ten Free Educational Technology Applications I Learned (More) About at #ISTE11

The following posting is cross-posted on http://edtechexp.blogspot.com/.

Top Ten lists are always a fun but challenging exercise. It is fun to collect and share new ideas, Web 2.0 applications, resources etc. That is what I use Twitter for all the time. (As an aside, I have started using Twitter for all my social bookmarking instead of sites like Delicious. With a web app called Trunk.ly all my tweets with links are fully archived and searchable.) The challenge of Top Ten lists is limiting yourself to ten resources. For this posting, I will limit my list to new resources I learned about at the ISTE 2011 Conference or innovative applications of resources that I already use. Here it goes in descending order.

10. Avatar Creator: http://myavatareditor.com/ This is a cute web app for creating avatars that looks exactly like the Miis from the Nintendo Wii. I learned about this from Tammy Worcester in her excellent presentation on Tammy's Top Twenty Favorite Web Tools. I have already used this to change my Twitter profile pic. I showed it to my kids and they loved it too.

• Applications for education: You might want to have students create avatars for various characters in the book their reading or in a story from Tanach. My daughter pointed out that you can't change the avatar's clothes or background so you might want to have the students save their avatar as a JPG with a transparent background and then put it into a PowerPoint or Google Presentation slide complete with a setting from the story.

9. U.R.L. Shorteners: http://fur.ly/ and http://bitly.com/bundles/ Anyone who uses Twitter knows about U.R.L. or website shorteners designed to shorten longer website so you can fit them into the 140 character limit of twitter. However, these two are different. They allow you to shorten a number of websites into one website address.

• http://fur.ly/, which I also learned about from Tammy Worcester, lets you navigate with an arrow on the top of the page between each site. 
• http://bitly.com/bundles/,  which I learned about from fellow Avi Chai ISTE participant and technogenius Adam Simon, gives you all the URLs in a list. Please note that Bitly requires you to login to create a bundle of shortened links. 
• For this posting, I have shortened all of the links on this Top Ten in fur.ly: http://fur.ly/5tt6 and in Bitly Bundles: http://bitly.com/myiWPH. After using both apps, I would say that Fur.ly is more user friendly for the student accessing the links due to the top navigation bar while Bitly Bundles is more reliable in creating links. My Bitly bundle worked the first time while I had to play with Fur.ly a number of times to get all of the links to work.
• Applications for education: Both these tools are perfect for online research assignments or WebQuests. All you need to give the students is one easy link and they can access all your sites. This is also a necessity when creating QR codes which I discuss below. QR codes require a short website address in order to simplify the code and scan more reliably. Either of these sites would be great to shorten links before converting them into the QR code for scanning.

8. QR Code Generator: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ This is a simple QR code generator. You paste the website address (which you have already shortened using the tools above) or a phone number, text, or SMS message. This site then coverts it into a QR code graphic that can be scanned with a number of free apps available for various smartphones. For a basic tutorial of QR codes, you can look at this QR Code Implementation Guide from Vicki Davis.

• Applications for Education: Adam Simon told me about a wonderful project that he made using QR Codes with his Jewish History students. Students in grades 9-12 populating a giant timeline from the Jewish Year 0 through 5771 based on the time period they were learning. Instead of posting physical artifacts on the timeline which would have been way too cluttered and impossible to manage, they posted QR Codes. These codes could link to rich muli-media content the students created online. Whenever students scanned each QR code with their smartphone, they learned more about each time period. This is an awesome idea and proved to me that QR codes in education are not just a new shtick but can truly be used to do innovative things that cannot be easily accomplished any other way. I am looking forward to thinking up and hearing about more examples of utilizing QR codes in Jewish education. 

7. Sketching: http://sketch.odopod.com/ This is an app to make sketches online. What sets this app apart, besides the fact that it's free and very easy to use, is that you can embed it on any wiki or blog and play back these sketch back to watch how it was drawn. Here is an example created by my 10 year old daughter right after I showed her the app upon returning from the conference.

• Applications for Education: For an art class, this tool is invaluable. The teacher or her students can draw with a mouse or with their fingers on a Smart Board or on individual iPads. They can then demonstrate to others how they created the sketch so everyone can study the technique used. This would also be great for projects in Tanach where students are asked to create a sketch illustrating a specific story, event, or verse.

6. Real-time Student Response: http://wiffiti.com/ This real-time student response system is very similar to Poll Everywhere which I was already familiar with and have utilized to great effect with my classes. (For more information, see my blog posting on Poll Everywhere in Techrav.) What sets Wiffiti apart is that the student responses, which are generated using text messaging on their cell phone, are displayed as notes on a wall with a background of your choosing. You can see an example here from the workshop that I went on
7 Free Mobile Participation Tools for Classrooms given by Michael Dreyfus.

• Applications for Education: This would be great as a student response tool especially when you do not want student responses threaded based on time of response as they are in Poll Everywhere. Every response is always on the page and you merely need to navigate to it to zoom in on it. This would be great for brainstorming ideas or answering open ended questions in real-time.

5. Online Graphing Calculator: http://desmos.com/calculator/ What sets this apart besides the fact that it's web based so students don't have to worry about forgetting their TI calculators is the beauty of the graphs that are created. Links to these graphs can also be easily shared and embedded. Here is an example of the graph of a circle with a radius of 4.

• Applications for Education: This can be used for teacher or student created graphs to share in an online course management system, wiki, or Google site.

4. Google Trips: http://www.personal.psu.edu/uxg3/blogs/googleearthquest/ and http://googletreks.org/ I am sure that many of you have already used Google Maps and Google Earth both for personal and educational use. These two websites contain ideas for creating educational trips using these tools. One can use My Places in Google Maps to easily add placemarkers which can also be embedded with rich multi-media including text, pictures, Youtube videos, and links. Dr. Alice Christie who created the Google Treks recommends using Google Maps over Google Earth since it is much less taxing on network resources, totally browser based, and can be launched in Google Earth anyways.

• Applications for Education: This would be great for student projects in Tanach, history, science, or English, where students created maps with placemarkers describing the various significant places appearing in the unit studied. Both websites referenced above contain many examples of this.

3. Notetaking: http://www.evernote.com/ This site allows you to save notes anywhere complete with text, files, pictures, and even snapshots of websites. These notes can be accessed on your PC or Mac, smartphone, or on the web and whenever you change a note in one place it immediately syncs to all your other devices. As Tammy Worcester says, you can use Dropbox to organize your files and Evernote to organize your life.

• Applications for Education: To help our teachers and students get organized and never miss an idea again. Students can use this for notetaking in school with or without wireless connectivity, putting notes in folders based on subject, and notes will automatically sync everywhere the next time they are connected to the Internet.

2. Global Communications: http://www.skype.com/ I know that this is a tool that most of us, including myself, already know about and use extensively. What I saw in a presentation by Alan November was how to use this as a global learning tool. A school in Boston, Massachusetts partnered with a school in England for an eighth grade engineering class. They had four different Skype sessions going on simultaneously as different teams learned together in real-time how to solve problems like creating more efficient wind turbines. The students in England were more advanced in their scientific knowledge so they tutored the students from the United States. Students from Boston commented that they learned more from their peers across the ocean than they would have ever learned from their teachers since they were kids and spoke the same language.

• Applications for Education: This presentation was a real eye opener for me on the potential for global communications. We already have partnerships in my school with a number of Israeli high schools but I would like to expand and deepen these relationships into more real-time collaboration and create partnerships with other Jewish day schools throughout the Diaspora.

1. Screen and Videosharing: http://www.techsmith.com/jing/ If you do not already use Jing, you must give it a try. It is a free PC or Mac app to take a screenshot with visual explanations. An example appears below. What I did not know before Tammy Worcester's presentation is that you can also record videocasts of everything you are doing on your screen with audio explanations. I cannot wait to start using this with my teachers.

• Applications for Education: This is a great way to show your students "exactly what you are seeing" on the page to give step by step instructions or to create step-by-step video instructions as well. Students can also create instructions for their peers on how to certain tasks since the best way to truly learn something is to go through the steps in order to teach it to someone else.

This ends my Top Ten List from the ISTE Conference 2011. I welcome you to add some of your favorite free educational applications by commenting to this posting! 

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the Avi Chai foundation for sponsoring my trip to ISTE. It was an eye opening experience. The chance to share this experience with my peers in Jewish Educational Technology through the Avi Chai cohort greatly deepened and enriched my learning and thinking. Hopefully we can get together in the future for similar experiences.

The 20 Percent Difference: What Schools Can Learn From Google

The following posting is cross-posted on http://edtechexp.blogspot.com/.

Today was my first day at the ISTE Conference in Philadelphia, PA. I decided to come up early before the late afternoon Keynote by Dr. John Medina and signed up for a full day workshop on Google Apps for Administrators. I was blown away. So much to digest...

The Google Wonder Wheel for visual search; Google timeline to search for articles by year and month; Google News archives going back hundreds of years; Using Google Forms as a method of gaining instant audience feedback; Using Google Moderator to pose questions which the audience rates by importance; Creating Word Clouds in Google spreadsheets; Setting up Google sites; Becoming a Gmail Ninja... The list goes on and on. I highly recommend you search the following twitter hashtag from the workshop to further explore these and many more topics covered: #gwaiste11.

How is Google able to consistently create so many innovative tools? The answer lies in the Google credo of 20% time. Google gives its employees 20% of their time to work on their own pet projects independent of their regular responsibilities. This time for innovation, reflection, and creativity allows technicians to follow their passion wherever it may lead. It might become the next great Google product or it might lead to nowhere. Google doesn't mind. Google has embedded into the weekly schedule time for Limud Lishmo, learning for learning's sake.

This got me thinking... Schools are the ultimate knowledge industry. Our teachers are expert technicians trained to gain the most from our products, our students, in terms of skills and information gained. Do we give our teachers 20% time to work on projects of their choosing? Do our teachers give their students 20% time for their own learning? I am not saying that we should not focus on curriculum, benchmarks, and standards. These should be the main aspiration of the 80% of the time spent on structured pursuits. However, at the same time, do we give our teachers and students the opportunity to discover new things and the breathing room to develop and refine these ideas?

Dr. John Medina formulated this challenge at the end of his Keynote address this afternoon. He was responding to the question, "Where does teaching to the test fit into his theory of mind?" His response, "The human brain is not interested in learning but in survival. By teaching to the test, learning becomes about survival and not about fascination with knowledge." We must strive to bring back our student's fascination with knowledge.

I believe that we can accomplish this by taking the lesson from Google and giving them 20% time. This does not necessarily mean that teachers and students can do anything, but, within the loose framework of the curriculum, of the Navi studied or the Mesechta learned, we can allow our teachers and students the choice of how they will learn at least 20% of the time. We will all be pleasantly surprised by the great things they will accomplish with this.

Tweeting Shabbos (Reminders) and Sefirat Ha'Omer Too!!!

Twitter is a great tool for learning, sharing, and accessing real-time data about emerging events.  I use my Twitter account as my own Personal Learning Network by following like-minded Jewish educators and educational technologists so I can stay ahead of the learning curve in discovering emerging technologies and reading about their applications to the classroom. For example, when Osama Bin Laden, Twitter was my first source of information. It gave me insight into the mood of the nation and the world (or at least the part of the world using Twitter).  Reading about The 10 Most Tweeted Verses in Response to Bin Laden's Death and listening to shiurim tweeted by YUTorah.org helped me frame my religious feelings about the event, advancing my personal Limud Torah and leading to fruitful conversations and chavruta sessions with my students.

I have recently discovered a new use for Twitter, Shabbos and Sefirat Ha'Omer reminders. After blogging about the almost addictive attraction that some "frum" teens have to texting on Shabbos, I decided to use that same technology as a weapon against Shabbos desecration. I started tweeting weekly reminders to my students to turn off their cell phones before Shabbos together with the candle lighting time for my home town, West Orange, NJ. This was highly successful. I even had some of my students who told me that they started following me on Twitter just to get the Shabbos candle lighting times.

When my friend and programmer extraordinaire, David Goldstein, saw these tweets, he decided to test his coding skills by building a Twitter app for me to automatically send these tweets around 2 hours before Shabbos.  You can see an example of this reminder below:

During Chol Hamoed Pesach, I then asked David if he could design a similar reminder for Sefirat Ha'Omer. Due to the 140 character limitations of Twitter, it would not tweet the whole text of the day's counting but a reminder of what day it is together with shortened link to the text of the day's complete counting with the bracha. This tweet was set up to send the new counting daily at 7:30PM EST Monday through Friday and 10:00PM on Motzi Shabbat. (I would not want any of these tweets going out on Shabbos because it might be maris ayin.) Here is an example of this reminder:

After many retweets of these reminders, users started to contact me and David requesting ways that these reminders could be sent to their Twitter stream and could be personalized for their candle lighting times. For Sefirat Ha'Omer, this was relatively easy. David Goldstein set up a new Twitter account @countsefira. If you follow this account you get two daily reminders, one at night (around 7:30PM EST) to count with a bracha and the other the following morning, in case your forgot, to count without a bracha. Here's today's reminder:

The personalized Shabbos reminder was obviously a more complex programming feat but David pulled it off. This feature also has a Twitter account, @ShabbosStarts, but I recommend against following this account since you would then receive candle lighting reminders for any person and location that has signed up for this service. Rather you can choose from one of the following options:

1. For a one-time candle lighting reminder, tweet: @shabbosstarts Your Zipcode
This will return a reply message to you within 15 minutes with the candle lighting time. An example for West Orange, NJ appears below:

Example input: @shabbosstarts 07052
Example:

Please note a limitation on this Shabbos reminder. It automatically checks for new messages every 15 minutes and sends out a tweet to a maximum of 20 users. This means that, the way it is currently set up, if more than 20 users tweet to @shabbosstarts within a 15 minute minute span then it will only send reminders to the first 20. Therefore, if you do not receive a reminder within 15 minutes, I suggest that you first try tweeting again before contacting me or David Goldstein.

2. For a reminder closer to Shabbos, tweet: @shabbosstarts #remind Your Zipcode
This will return a reply within 15 minutes and another reminder two hours before Shabbos.

3. For a weekly reminder, tweet: @shabbosstarts #weekly Zipcode
This will return a weekly reply two hours before every Shabbos.
To cancel this weekly reminder, tweet: @shabbosstarts #cancel Zipcode

I would like to thank David Goldstein for all of his hard work, purely on a voluntarily basis, in creating these valuable Twitter services for the benefit of Kelal Yisrael. If you have any further ideas for similar Jewish Twitter apps you can comment to this posting or contact David directly @golddave.

Cognitive Surplus and the Fifth Son Project

One of my greatest pleasures as a teacher is meeting passionate students and, with just a little bit of guidance, watching them turn their dreams into a reality. As the Talmud says (Sanhedrin 105b), "A person can be jealous of anyone except for his son and his student." When my students surpass me, it gives me great pride.

A few weeks ago, in my posting on Children in a Digital Age (which you can read here or here), I described just such a group of students who formed the fledgling organization, StudentsUnite4Israel.org. I used them as an example of Clay Shirky's Cognitive Surplus. Clay Shirky describes how the increase in leisure time since World War II has led to a Cognitive Surplus where people for the first time have a great deal of free time to spend on worthwhile endeavors. Until recently, however, most of this time was devoted by the overwhelming majority of the population to passive forms of entertainment like watching television. With the advent of the Internet and social media, people are just beginning to use some of this free time for more active pursuits.

Shirky describes four levels of these pursuits. Personal sharing, is where people share parts of their personal lives in the form of text, pictures, or videos on blogs or sites like Facebook and YouTube. Communal sharing, involves a more coordinated shared effort on the part of a group. Public sharing, is where similar minded people actively create something for the public good like the open source software movement where people collaborate on their free time to improve software that all can benefit from. Finally, Civic sharing where a group actively seeks to transform society. StudentsUnite4Israel.org is a great example of Civic sharing with high school students devoting their free time to advocating on behalf of the State of Israel and its people.

I remember two years ago when a freshman, Eric Tepper, first came to me with his dream of creating this world-wide student-run organization. I loved the way he dreamed big and possessed the passion and work ethic to make them become a reality so I helped him create a Students4Israel Wiki. Then he was joined this year by a sophomore, Ezra Gontownik, who was also a big dreamer, a hard-worker, and was passionate about political advocacy on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people. Together they wished to create a full-fledged website. I showed them the nuts and bolts of basic web design and warned them that, if they were really interested in succeeding, they had to work quickly and constantly update their site in order to keep up with the fast changing world of the web. Less than two weeks later, I was sitting at my school dinner proof-reading their website on my BlackBerry, as my students were feverishly sending me emails back and forth. Even after the site went live, I did not really understand the power of these students efforts until their first big project, The Gilad Shalit -- Fifth Son Project.

The Gilad Shalit -- Fifth Son Project is designed to raise awareness amongst Jews world-wide about the continued imprisonment of Gilad Shalit at the hands of Hamas. The idea is to create postcards people could use at their Passover Seder to remember Gilad Shalit as the Fifth Son, the son who is absent from the Seder. You can see an example of the postcard below:

Courtesy of http://studentsunite4israel.org/.

Courtesy of http://studentsunite4israel.org/.

The statistics of what these students have already accomplished with this project are staggering. Tens of thousands of these postcards have been distributed world-wide. They have attracted over 30 participating schools in over 10 states nation-wide. They have just been featured in a front page cover story by the local Jewish paper, the Jewish Standard in The Fifth Son Project, and in the leading editorial by The Jewish Week, the top Jewish newspaper in the NY/NJ area, A Night Of Watching For Shalit. I am so tremendously impressed and honestly flabbergasted by what these teens have done. I can't wait to see what future projects are in store for these amazing kids.

I now have an answer to those who say that kids should be banned from using social media because it can only lead to trouble. I never thought that it was productive to create new bans for our children (see this video for an example of one principal's attempt to do exactly that: N.J. Principal Calls for Social Network Ban and this video response: Response to Principal Who Bans Social Media). Rather, parents and teachers should guide them and help them to harness the awesome power that this new media can provide when used in constructive directions. We should give our children positive examples to aspire to. To begin with, we can show them the great work of StudentsUnite4Israel.org.

Using the Web for Passover Prep

In case you are looking for some last minute Passover lesson ideas for the few days of school left before Passover, I am republishing my blog post from last year below. This post features a simple Passover WebQuest which might be worthwhile for your students.

I also recommend the following more recent links:

• Pesach Resources from the Lookstein Center: A list of original Pesach lesson plans, project ideas and articles created by Lookstein Center staff or contributed to site by Jewish educators.
• Yeshiva University's Pesach To-Go 5771: Pesach articles on Halakha and Machshava from various Roshei Yeshiva from YU.
• Giving a Haggadah a Makeover: Article from the New York Times about Maxwell House's attempt to redo their classic Haggadah with a gender-neutral translation. Personally, I object to to this; "the 4 different sorts of children" does not resonate the way "the 4 sons" does. However, it is worth reading and might be a subject for an interesting class discussion about the role of translations in interpreting our Jewish liturgy. 
• http://www.amit.org.il/hagim/pesach/hagada.htm: Link to many Haggadot and commentaries.
• Full Hebrew text of the Haggadah  

Here is my posting from last year. I invite people to add more Passover links in the Comments to this posting.
A number of years ago, I started creating Internet scavenger hunts where students were asked a series of questions like a standard worksheet which they could only use specific websites to answer.

My goal was two-fold: 1) to introduce students to various Jewish websites and illustrate their usefulness in answering real world problems and 2) to create hands-on activities for students to discover the answers to halachic questions themselves instead of the boring lecture style so common for classes in Jewish law. I felt that as a Torah teacher who wanted to foster life-long learning in my students, I could not guarantee that they would always have access to Jewish teachers or seforim especially when living on college campus. But I knew that they would always have access to the Internet. If they realized that they could use the Internet to help answer questions as advanced as "How to kasher your kitchen for Passover?" and as basic as "When is Shabbat candle lighting this week?" then this might just strengthen their Jewish identity and their ties to Talmud Torah and Shemirat Hamitzvot. I also wanted to point them to legitimate Jewish websites and resources since unfortunately so much online is still of questionable origin and dubious authority.

Two of my worksheets appear below. The first is a pretty high level worksheet on the laws of Passover based mostly on one of my favorite websites both for Jewish content and it's fun sense of style kosher4passover.com.

Here it is:
Internet Worksheet on Hilchot Pesach

The second is a more basic Internet Jewish Scavenger Hunt designed for students of all levels.
Here it is:
Internet Jewish World Scavenger Hunt

Please feel free to share these with your own classes and tell me how it goes. Happy Passover and Chag Sameach!