Visiting the Science Leadership Academy: Seeing Inquiry Driven, Project Based Learning Come to Life

A few weeks ago, I marveled about the end of the year projects in the 9th and 10th grade engineering classes at The Frisch School. In reflecting on the success of this model, I came up with three factors that fostered this model. 1) The class was a self selected group interested in project based engineering learning. 2) It included a great deal of mentoring and role modeling. And 3) Student experienced genuine project based learning. I wondered if this model could be adapted to other high school subjects. Today I got my answer in a visit to the Science Leadership Academy (SLA) founded by Twitter rock star Chris Lehmann. It is a resounding yes.

The trip itself was a model of student directed learning as it was organized by Penina Warburg, a RealSchool student and active JedLab contributor and Mrs. Tikvah Wiener, English Department Chair and Frisch RealSchool Founder. It featured in total two students, two teachers, myself and Tikvah, Rabbi Eli Ciner, Associate Principal at Frisch, Mrs. Holly Cohen of the Kohelet Foundation, and Jeff Kiderman of the Affordable Jewish Education Project.

My Frisch colleagues and students on our trip to SLA. (I'm taking the picture.)

When we arrived at SLA, we were led on a tour by Jeremy Spry, I not sure exactly what his official title is but his Twitter bio appropriately says he "makes things happen at Science Leadership Academy". Jeremy first discussed the model of SLA. It is a public high school in Philadelphia but one that takes students from the entire city and is higher selective with 1000 applicants yearly for its 125 seats in each grade. Students are not chosen solely based on academic achievement but on their perceived ability to buy into the system of inquiry driven, project based learning. The school has 5 Core Values: Inquiry, Research, Collaboration, Presentation, and Reflection. These values are not just contained on a web page or in a file. They are posted as signs in every single classroom. Every student and teacher we spoke to shared a common language which included these values. Every unit plan explicitly contains connections to SLA's core values as illustrated by this lesson plan on colonialism a unit which I will discuss later.

The school day is designed to support these values. Every student in SLA is given a laptop to support their studies. Students learn in 65 minute blocks in groups of 31 students who share the same science, english, and history teachers, math is tracked separately by skill level NOT by grade. These consistent groupings allow for easy collaboration between the three disciplines. The school day is a relatively long one for a public school with students getting out at 3 or 4PM on most days. Except on Wednesday when students get out at 12:50PM so they can either take classes at the Franklin Institute which is down the street or at local universities, or in 10th and 11th grade they can intern in a discipline of their choosing. Jeremy mentioned how this internship is so important. He said it is just as valuable for the students who have a negative experience as those who have a positive one. For example, if a student is interested in engineering and interns for a year and HATES it, the student has learned a valuable lesson that they probably should not pursue a career in engineering. This time is used by teachers for weekly professional development, over 2 hours of weekly PD built into every teacher's schedule.

SLA's Core Values on the wall of every classroom.

We first classroom we went was a 9th grade science class. The year is a combined BioChem study. Students learn in a large room containing both a lab and an area for desks. Students are graded mostly based on their projects which all have detailed rubrics. They also receive occasional quizzes called Standards on core skills they need to master. However, what differentiates this from a regular class is that a student can retake a Standard as many times as they want until they master it. The assessment is not designed to label the student but to help the student achieve mastery.

What interested me the most in this class was watching students who were conducting lab experiments. These weren't highly scripted labs like ones you would find in a typical biology class. These were open-ended explorations some students were conducting, while others were collaborating on laptops, in preparation for an upcoming science fair. I was also impressed with how the students carefully cleaned their lab equipment when the activity was done. Students clearly felt ownership of their learning and treated their learning environment with respect.

One other item which I loved is that every freshman in addition to their regular science class takes a semester of engineering. The reason they gave for this is that engineering is the classic inquiry based learning model. It is about solving problems in the real world. This engineering class then becomes the model that students follow in all of their other classes throughout their four years at SLA.

One other interesting comment came out of our discussions with the students. They were talking about school budget cuts (which I will talk about later in my discussion of the math class) and how the school was forced to fire a foreign language teacher and replace her with an online learning Rosetta Stone program. Most of the students HATED the online platform and preferred learning from the teacher.

Next we went to a math class. This class was in geometry and was a mixed grouping of 9th and 10th graders. The students were all engrossed in math projects in which students were creating 3D models of different shapes to express their knowledge of surface area and volume. The class was hopping. Some students were making paper cut-outs. Others were modeling with Google Sketch-Up and Adobe Illustrator. Every student appeared to be on task and hard at work. Honestly, I have never seen a project based learning approach in a high school math class before. It was illuminating.

On the board were problems from other areas of mathematics based on a recent current events discussion of city school budget cuts. Questions on the board included, "Do teachers get laid off by seniority?",  "How much income does the city make through income tax?", and "How do we calculate the amount it takes to house a prisoner than take in a student?". All of these problems were student generated inquiries that required students to do research based on articles and then read and interpret detailed data about the city budget and present their findings. Wow!

Math class at SLA. Look at what the students are doing. Look at the board.

Student math projects.

Next we heard from a student who talked about her capstone project. Every senior has a capstone which involves a student taking something they are passionate about and working closely with a teacher-mentor to create something of lasting importance. These projects allow students to integrate their four years of learning at SLA and the five core values of Inquiry, Research, Collaboration  Presentation, and Reflection. A student described how she was creating an engineering project to help people in Africa provide water and electricity. Below is another example of capstone project tweeted by RealSchool.

Snr capstone project- a mural about her experiences at SLA- with whiteboard area 4 stnds to add own art! #RS@SLA twitter.com/RealSchool1/st…
— RealSchool (@RealSchool1) May 23, 2013

Finally, we went to an English and History class. The teacher, Mr. Joshua Block, described various projects in English. For example, the students read the book Their Eyes Were Watching God which is written entirely in the dialect of a southern African American woman. Students then researched the role of different dialects and recorded interviews with people about their experiences with dialects. These presentations were edited into 8-10 minute podcasts that were then combined in groups of four into radio shows modeled after NPR's This American Life.

In history, Mr. Block described how history was studied not chronologically but in thematic units. For example, a unit on sweatshops might talk about the first sweatshops in 18th century England, the sweatshops where Jewish immigrants worked in late 19th and early 20th century New York, and the sweatshops today in Bangladesh.

The current unit that the students were just finishing was a unit on colonialism where students were each asked to create a museum exhibit about colonialism in one place and time featuring eight artifacts and a presentation. One student gave me a fascinating presentation that she had just finished on the experience of French colonialism in Vietnam in the 19th and 20th centuries. Her mode of presentation was also fascinating. She filmed herself drawing on a white board to make her "slides" and then sped up the film so the presentation flowed at a brisk pace. I honestly did not know anything about French colonialism and now thanks to this student's passion and expertise, I feel like a really understand this time period. When I asked this young lady why she chose this topic she explained that her parents were refugees who came over from Vietnam in the 1970s so the history of earlier time periods in Vietnam was a part of her heritage. She was able to present a nuanced approach discussing both the many negative outcomes of French colonialism in Vietnam in terms of oppressing the people in poor working conditions and almost completely botting out the unique Vietnamese calligraphy form or writing in favor of a Latin alphabet and the positive aspects as well in areas like architecture and the culinary arts. I was quite impressed by the depth of this student's knowledge, how articulate she was, and her passion.

One thing that I realized in meeting with students in Mr. Block's history class was how the regular stream of visitors to SLA which we were a part of, Jeremy says some 100 groups a year, plays into SLA's core values. I discussed in my reflections about engineering at Frisch the importance of role models and mentors in project based learning. The fact that students see this constant stream of visitors who they are asked to articulately speak to about their educational philosophy and present their projects to, only enhances the values of Presentation and Reflection that SLA seeks to foster.

Mr. Block posted his own reflections on the colonialism project on his blog here. I find the following paragraphs from his posting encompass the ethos of SLA and what I believe should be the ethos of every great teacher who seeks to bring out the best in his or her students.

Students shared thoughts and another student took notes on the board as I struggled against the tiny voice screaming inside of me. This voice wanted to contest points, give examples, and challenge ideas. Instead I nodded, I helped students summarize, and I asked for clarifications. 

Too often the image of teaching involves knowledge being transferred from a wise one to a younger person who lacks wisdom and experience. The past several days have been a poignant reminder for me that education is a process. 

Learning and transformation happen when people are free to try out ideas, take in information, and then reevaluate assumptions and experiences. When learning is organic in these ways, the final outcomes far exceed what anyone can script or inculcate.

Finally, we came back to meet Jeremy Spry in the front office to reflect on our visit. Some poignant questions were asked during these reflections that do not have an easy answer. Jeremy was asked what was the biggest challenge at SLA. He responded that the biggest challenge with empowering students in this way was making sure that they didn't translate this empowerment into a sense of entitlement. They should never think that they are better than their teachers or other students who do not go to SLA. A strong sense of humility is always difficult to foster especially in teenagers who realize that they are a part of something very special.

Another notable question that we asked was whether this inquiry driven, project based model could work for most students or only a self selected group. Remember, SLA turns down 90% of all students who apply. Jeremy reflected that while probably many more students could benefit from the SLA approach if there was more space to take them in- SLA is in the process of opening a satellite school elsewhere in Philadelphia to do exactly that- others would probably do better in a more traditionally structured test driven environment.

Learn 2.0 Wall in the conference room where we met to reflect.

This opens the question about how far we could go with this approach in the typical Jewish Day School which takes a more community approach, accepting a much larger range of students in our belief that everyone deserves a Jewish education. Perhaps this approach could be put forward as a school-within-a-school like the RealSchool model, or maybe there should be a special SLA class in every discipline modeled after the Frisch engineering class. A class where students students have to apply to get in, which has real mentoring, and genuine project based learning. It is my dream that every student in a Jewish High School is exposed to an inquiry driven, project based learning approach, if not in all of their classes at least in some of them. This is real learning Lishma, for the sake of learning, and our greatest hope to light the spark in our students to that they become life-long learners.

EdTech Chronicles: 3 Vignettes Concerning iPads

Sometimes I just like to share on this blog what I do for as a Director of EdTech. Here are 3 vignettes all concerning iPads that took place a few days ago. Hopefully this will be of benefit to others using iPads in their schools.

1. This past Friday, one of my teachers desperately emailed me that she had lost her iPad, readers of this blog would know that we are now in the midst of 1:1 iPad program for all of our 9th grade students and faculty. I assured her that it was probably taken unwittingly by a student, since all our iPads have the same red cases, and would reappear after the weekend. She persisted, rightly so, that she had personal information on the device, email and the like, and was very worried about all of this being available for anyone to see. (She had not yet made a lock for her iPad. We solved that when we got her iPad back on Monday but I jump ahead of myself.)

I thought for a moments and realized that we were in luck. Even though WiFi iPads do not have GPS capabilities (which is quite annoying), we invested in mobile device management software for our iPads. This software, we chose Airwatch, has many nifty features including the ability to make policies to lock down iPads that install forbidden apps, an app catalog to push apps to iPads, and asset tracking capability. I could quickly look at my dashboard and see when the teacher iPad had last called into the Airwatch server. I also was able to push a new policy to the teacher's iPad that would force the user to put in an impossibly long 16 digit password, would erase all apps from the iPad, and send a message to return the iPad to the office. This policy would take effect the next time the iPad connected to the Wifi. We then waited to see what would happen...

Over the weekend, I checked periodically and saw that the iPad had not called into the server since Friday during the schoolday which confirmed to me my suspicion that the iPad had merely been misplaced since if it was stolen, the thief would have tried to use the device. Then on Monday at 7:21am the iPad called into the server. This matched when the first busses arrived that morning at school. I was able to contact security to find out which buses had arrived that early and therefore limit the number of possible students who could have mistaken taken it. Later in the morning, I talked further with the teacher and she realized that two 9th grade students had met privately with her Friday right around the time that the iPad last called into the server and both these students were on the early Monday morning bus. We called one student to her office and asked the student to check her bag. The student discovered 2 iPads in 2 different compartments in her book bag! Mystery solved! Besides giving me the nickname Columbo amongst my faculty, this story confirmed to me how indispensable mobile device management software can be. Thank you Airwatch!

2. However, even the best mobile device management software has its limitations. On the same day that we found the iPad, a student came to me with a different problem. It seems some of her friends playfully decided to set up her iPad on assistive mode which means that all commands needed to be spoken not typed. This student had set up a passcode lock on her iPad that included special characters that could not be entered in assistive mode. Her iPad was locked and she could not use it.

Now theoretically this is where Airwatch could once again be very helpful. Airwatch has a feature to clear a passcode lock. However, Airwatch, like any web based solution, requires Wifi to work. And if your iPad is locked and then you turn your device off and turn it on again, which is usually the first thing you will do when trying to fix a locked iPad, the iPad Wifi will stay off until you enter your passcode. So we have an Apple Catch 22- thank you Steve Jobs. You cannot get Wifi until you unlock your iPad and you cannot unlock your iPad using Airwatch until you get Wifi. The only solution in this case was to connect the iPad to iTunes and factory reset the device. Luckily, all of the student's apps were backed up in her Apple ID and much of her data was backed up with iCloud so she was able to get back almost everything from the device.

3. A teacher emailed me with the following request. She wanted to take a diagram from her math textbook which is saved in her DropBox on her iPad and use this diagram on a worksheet she was creating. How could she do this? I recommended Skitch which I have blogged about in the past as an amazing iPad app for annotating photos. I created step-by-step video instructions for her to do this which I am sharing below with her permission.

One note. People have asked me how I was able to screencast my iPad since there is no iPad app to easily do this. The answer is that I am using an amazing Mac and PC app called Reflector which allows a person to use Apple Airplay to stream their iPad screen to your computer without any need to purchase an Apple TV or other piece of hardware. Once the iPad appears on the computer screen, one can use any number of screencasting apps to record every movement on the iPad. My preference is an inexpensive app called iShowU. You can also use Camtasia or any number of free web based apps like Screencast-o-matic or Screenr. Enjoy the tutorial!

From the pages of Lookjed: Creative responses to educational challenges - #Jedcamp

The following is cross-posted from the Lookjed Listerv.

Imagine a conference with no keynote presentation, no scheduled presentations, no fee to attend, no need to take off time from school. A conference that is located locally so there are few travel expenses and no need to find overnight accommodations. This is the model of Jedcamp, also known as an unconference. The goal is to put as few impediments as possible for teachers to attend and to maximize free flowing conversation, collaboration, networking, and sharing. 

The idea for this type of get together was first developed by computer coders who created BarCamp as a way to meet and share. When a group of educators came to a BarCamp, they spontaneously decided to lead a session on the intersection of technology and education, "planned" spontaneity is one of the hallmarks of these camps. These teachers realized that they could franchise this model for education as well so the first EdCamp was formed three years ago in Philadelphia. Some half a dozen of these camps now take place every week in locations throughout the world with their own wiki, [edcamp.wikispaces.com], where you can see a schedule of all events. A number of months ago, Jewish educators started to see the need to start their version of Ed Camp since most Ed Camps took place on Saturdays and educators wanted a chance to network on issues unique to Jewish day schools. So JedCamp was formed, first in South Florida on December 30, 2012 and then this past weekend, April 21, in Paramus NJ where JedCampNJNY took place. 

JedcampNJNY was organized by Rabbi Aaron Ross, Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky and a committee of like minded educators from NJ and NY. Publicity was done through Twitter, Facebook, a JedcampNJNY page on the Edcamp wiki, Lookjed announcements, and word of mouth. We did not pay for any publicity and with the exception of food which was provided from personal donors and the space which was provided by Yavneh Academy, there were no other costs for the event. We did not really know what to expect since none of us had ever actually been to an EdCamp or Jedcamp, although Seth Dimbert who organized JedCampSouthFlorida flew in for the event. 

The event exceeded everybody's expectations. Over 80 teachers gathered from dozens of schools including every Yeshiva day school in Bergen County and others throughout the NY, NY area. Teachers came energized ready to share and present. The way sessions were "planned" was on a board posted with 4 time slots and 5 sessions rooms per slot. Sessions were posted organically as teachers arrived and wrote their own ideas for various slots. The board became the central focus of the first part of the day. Within 20 minutes of the beginning of the morning, all but three of these slots were filled with various presenters and topics. The final three spaces were occupied by participants who, upon seeing the board fill up, chose a topic to present about after arriving for the event. Topics were not limited to technology (something we were concerned about), although sessions on iPads, 21st century learning, and educational apps were represented. Other session topics focused on educational reform such as a session on building a high school from scratch and one questioning the need for reform. Others focused on more unique topics like one on using improv in the classroom. What made all of these sessions so rich was the lively conversation and healthy give and take in the rooms. 

Here is a picture of the session board: 

Click on the picture above for a spreadsheet listing all of the Jedcamp sessions.

The most rewarding aspect of this "unconference" was the face to face conversations in the rooms, the hallways, and at lunch. Participants were encouraged to "vote with their feet" going to any session of their choosing and if they did not think they were gaining from a session leaving for a different one without the presenter taking offense. There were no "gurus" in the rooms, allowing everyone to feel that there was a level playing field and the event was a neutral space where teachers from various schools could freely talk with one another. The event was also run by teachers for teachers so all sessions were both relevant and timely. Although the focus was on face to face interaction, technology tools and social media were used as a framework to extend the conversation with a lively Twitter feed using the hashtag #JedcampNJNY, live Google docs being created in real time throughout the sessions, and many blog posts reflecting on the event written both during and shortly after the day. 

You can view pictures here that give you a taste of the event: [www.facebook.com] 

In true JedCamp fashion, rather than posting a long list of our reflections here is list of personalized observations from those in attendance. 

Mr. Jeffrey Kiderman's Google Doc on creating a school from scratch: [docs.google.com] 

Rabbi David Mark's Google Doc on using positive psychology in the classroom: [docs.google.com] 

Notes and Reflections by Mrs. Lauren Adler: 
[docs.google.com] 
[docs.google.com] 

2 blog postings by "NY's Funniest Rabbi", Rabbi Neil Fleischmann: 
[rabbifleischmann.blogspot.com] 
[rabbifleischmann.blogspot.com] 

2 blog postings by Rabbi Daniel Rosen: 
[rosends.blogspot.com] 
[rosends.blogspot.com] 

Blog posting by Rabbi Michael Bitton: [rabbimichaelbitton.blogspot.com] 

2 blog postings by Rabbi Aaron Ross: 
[jewishedd.blogspot.com] 
[jewishedd.blogspot.com] 

My 2 previous blog postings: 
[techrav.blogspot.com] 
[techrav.blogspot.com] 

Blog posting by Mrs. Debby Jacoby
[http://edjewcation.wordpress.com/] 

Article about JedcampNJNY by the Jewish Standard, a local Jewish newspaper: 
[www.jstandard.com] 

Moving forward this event is so easily franchisable that we hope that more Jedcamps develop throughout North America and the world. Jedcamp is the “affordable” conference model as it requires very little funds to organize and costs nothing for teachers to attend. There are already plans for Jedcamps in Baltimore, California, and Brooklyn, NY. Please feel free to contact us if you would like ideas for organizing your own Jedcamp. 

Kol Tuv, 

Rabbi Aaron Ross, aaronshalom@gmail.com 
Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky, Tzvi.Pittinsky@gmail.com 
And the JedcampNJNY Committee

Technology: The Great Facilitator for School Twinning

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege to give a session at the International School Twinning Network Conference together with my friends Amihai Bannett, Shira Leibowitz, and Aaron Ross. Of my three colleagues, only Aaron Ross and I met and became friends in the real world before conversing in the digital world; although we have definitely become closer through our many collaborations facilitated by the online space. I met both Shira and Amichai on Twitter as they gradually became valuable members of my personal learning network. I actually did not meet Amichai in person until the day of our school twinning presentation. I felt like I already knew Amichai well, as we went from Twitter messaging to email to Google Hangouts and almost met in person in Israel last summer. But our first meeting face to face, or F2F as we would say on Twitter, came only minutes before our presentation.

This vignette illustrates the power of technology to facilitate school twinning. As Shira Leibowitz aptly says in her blog post on this event, "It's not about the technology, it's about the learning and the relationships". But when trying to create meaningful relationships with teachers and students spanning the globe, technology can be the great facilitator to make these connections possible. Yes, we were pen palling before the Internet and social media came along but actually speaking to each other face to face using Skype or collaborating on a lesson together, that was only the stuff of the Jetsons.

At our presentation, Shira, Aaron, and I described three areas where technology can be a tool for school twinning, synchronous communications, asynchronous communications, and what I call, common collaborative workspaces. As with any toolkit, the key is to decide what you wish to accomplish and then choose the appropriate tool.

For example, if your goal is to achieve synchronous communications, to get your classes together to talk to each other, than web conferencing platforms like Skype or Google Chat would be the best option. One thing to be aware of is to stick to cross-platform tools that work best with many different technologies as you do not know what type of technologies the other school in a different part of the world might have. For this reason, I would stay away from any proprietary platform like Facetime which only would work on Apple products. Also, one should always plan ahead and test all connections in advance, and make sure to have at least one "techie" on each side of the conversation to be able to troubleshoot if things go wrong. I have fulfilled this role when Skyping between my school, The Frisch School, and our sister school, Ulpanat Harel in Nahariya, Israel on both sides of the ocean, once from Paramus, NJ, and the following year from Nahariya. You can read more about these two twinning activities between The Frisch School and Ulpanat Harel here and here. Below are two pictures taken at these sessions.

Picture of Skype conference with Ulpanat Harel taken at The Frisch School in 2011. I am on the far right of the picture.

Picture of Skype conference with Ulpanat Harel taken at Ulpanat Harel in 2012. I am on the far left of the picture.

One problem that technology cannot solve when planning synchronous sessions is the time difference. For this reason, these classes can only be planned for special events, maybe to celebrate a holiday or to cap off a unit studied together. For more regular communications, asynchronous platforms are best. In this area, technology has advanced tremendously in recent years with the spread of Google Docs and its constantly improving suite of collaborative tools. Students can literally be "on the same page" as they create a document together or design presentation slides. Every revision is saved and this is an activity that can easily be done asynchronously with a school in the United States picking off where their Israeli counterpart left off hours earlier.

Google Hangouts can be used to combine both of these elements as one can set up a synchronous video session to discuss a Google Doc which was created asynchronously and the Google Doc will actually appear right in the middle of the video hangout. This is a powerful tool that I have used when planning conferences with friends across the globe. I eagerly await testing this out with my students in a classroom setting.

While these synchronous and asynchronous tools can be powerful on their own, what they need is a common online space to host them. As my dear mentor Dr. Shmuli Spero OBM used to say, "What do you give to the person who has everything? You give him a box to put it in." I have found wikis to the best box, the best common collaborative workspace, to host our various school twinning activities. Others have wondered if the wiki is going the way of the dodo as it is being eclipsed by newer platforms. However, I still find that nothing beats wikis in terms of being able to easily design a webpage that anyone can edit with every revision saved, embed various other content on the page like videos or documents, and host discussion forums connected to every page. From the beginning of our Frisch School Wiki, we have found it to be the ideal platform to host our partnerships. You can read various news articles about how the Frisch wiki has facilitated our partnerships here.

If you would like to create a wiki of your own below are two resources to help you get started, a presentation on using wikis in schools, and a Wikispaces how to guide. Please feel free to share the ways you use technology as a great facilitator of school twinning in the comments to this posting.

 

Creating collaborative classroom learning environments using wikispaces from The Frisch School

Wikispaces How To

Tech Tips for Teachers: How to Play a Series of YouTube Videos in an Infinite Loop

A teacher came to me this past Monday with an interesting request. For an upcoming program, she wanted to run three YouTube videos on a loop over and over again as people were looking through the exhibition.

There are a number of relatively simple ways to loop YouTube videos. My favorite is http://www.infinitelooper.com/ which works just as well on an iPad as on a computer. This website even lets you loop only a part of a YouTube video which is a pretty nifty trick. Here is an example of a Flipped Classroom video that I created for Yonah Chapter 2 which I looped with Infinite Looper: http://www.infinitelooper.com/?v=KAMMxIHNp08&p=n

This method works for looping one video at a time. In order to loop multiple videos, one must first create a playlist.

Here is how to do this.

1. Logged in YouTube select the first video for your playlist, click "Add to", give a name for your playlist, and click Create playlist.

2. Next go to another video, click "Add to" and select the existing playlist to add to.

3. Repeat this for all of your videos in your playlist.

4. When you are done with your playlist, you will need to navigate to the playlist. Do this by clicking on the 3 bars on the top left hand side of the YouTube screen and select Playlists.

5. You should now be able to navigate to the playlist you want and select it. Here is my playlist for my three Yonah Flipped Classroom videos: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF-arHe1tBLzqq7Am0gsGYoMN0VaB2tzw 

6. After selecting your playlist, click Play All.

7. You will then be able to loop the playlist on the player screen simply by clicking on the Autoplay button on the top of your playlist.

Wikipedia's Live Map as a Metaphor for G-d's "View" of Torah Learning

This morning I tweeted a visual map of Wikipedia changes in real time that was shared by a friend of mine, Dov Emerson. I pondered how it was it was really cool to see the evergrowing knowledge base of Wikipedia in action. Through the viral nature of Twitter, another friend Dani Cooper piggybacked on my tweet and transformed it into a metaphor for how G-d must view Torah learning throughout the world. You can see the Twitter conversation below.

@techrav: Seeing this live map of Wikipedia in action rcmap.hatnote.com/#en helps me appreciate G-d's "view" of לימוד תורה!
— Rabbi Dani Cooper (@RAVDCOOPER) May 14, 2013

This got me thinking, as I often do when counting down to Shavuot and Matan Torah, about the primacy of Torah learning. The Talmud in Shabbat 88a describes how the Torah is so central to the divine weltanschauung that when the Children of Israel were offered to receive the Torah, they were given an offer that they could not refuse. G-d so to speak, held the mountain over their heads like a barrel and proclaimed that the Children of Israel could either accept the Torah or be buried under the mountain. This is obviously difficult to reconcile with the idea of נעשה ונשמע, that the Children of Israel enthusiastically and willfully accepted the Torah and the Talmud attempts to reconcile this by saying that later at the time of the Purim story the Jewish people willfully accepted the Torah. You can view the Gemara together with some major commentators on it in the source sheet below.

However, the Talmud later explains that in reality the reason for "forcing" the Children of Israel to receive the Torah was because it was a law of nature. G-d made the entire creation of the world conditional on the Children of Israel's accepting the Torah. If they did not accept the Torah, then the creation of the world would be reversed and the universe would return to emptiness. So it was not that G-d was threatening the people, rather it was natural law. The world could only exist if the Children of Israel accepted the Torah.

Rav Chaim Volozhin in his classic Nefesh HaChaim expands on this idea based on various midrashim. He says that not only was the creation of the world conditional on the Torah but the very continued existence of the world is conditional on continued Torah learning. If for one moment, there would not be at least one Jew in the world learning Torah, then the world would cease to exist. It is not that the world would be destroyed, rather the world would disintegrate to a state as if it was never even created in the first place. The creation of the world remains conditional on Torah study.

It was for this reason that in Rav Chaim's yeshiva Volozhin, the first modern yeshiva, they set up shifts so that every moment of every day and night, there was at least one student learning Torah. The students of Volozhin felt that since they were the top yeshiva in the world, it was incumbent on them to personally uphold the world through their Torah study. It is even recorded that the famed Netziv, Rav Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, the last Rosh Yeshiva of Volozhin would not leave the Beit Midrash to break his fast after Yom Kippur until the first students returned from their break fast meal. He would rather sit and study so that not a moment would pass without someone in the Beit Midrash learning Torah. You can view these sources as well in the second page of the source sheet below.

Forced to Receive the Torah

This is why the visual map of Wikipedia and Dani Cooper's tweet so excited me. Obviously, Wikipedia does not hold up the world, although it can be a pretty useful tool. But Torah study does. If only we could have a visual map of every moment of Torah study somewhere in the world. Then we would truly be able to see G-d's "view" of Limud Torah. Until then the Wikipedia  visual map is our best approximation for what this might look like.

Why I blog on Motzi Shabbat: The Problem of Distraction in a Digital Age

I often get my best blogging done on Motzi Shabbat. 25 hours in the "Palace in Time" of the Sabbath gives me time to refresh and reflect on the past and future weeks. Time spent with family and friends away from all electronic devices frees my mind and leaves me invigorated for the start of the new week. I know many people who go out on Saturday night to a restaurant or the movies but I would much rather spend this time when my brain is clear thinking, writing, and planning. I guess I am just a homebody.

I write this not just because I am blogging on another Saturday night but because of an important article that I read this past week about Professor David Levy whose primary teaching and research focus is the issue of distractions in our modern digital world. Many of us, myself included, are so hooked to our electronic devices that we rarely have time to think or reflect. When I tweeted out this article this past week, I joked that it took me three days to read it because I kept getting distracted. I was only half joking. Due to the constant stimulation when online, with my many tabs open simultaneously to various resources and constant interruptions from social media, it is VERY hard for me to focus my attention for a few minutes to carefully read a relatively longer piece.

Thank G-d, as an observant Jew, I have the Shabbat as my palace in time to do just that. I also have three opportunities a day during prayer for shorter meditation. In addition to these religiously mandated times, I like to think of this blog as my "palace in cyberspace" for online contemplation.

My worry is what this constant stream of electronic stimulation is doing to us. Some claim that it is rewiring our brains. Even our palaces in time are being challenged as I have blogged about in the past in a discussion of Half Shabbos.

I notice during prayers a similar phenomenon. On most any weekday in any minyan in America, you will see that during the "down time" of prayer, when the chazzan is repeating the amida or during Torah reading, many are fiddling on their smartphones. Even on Shabbat, I have noticed a different manifestation of this. Many people are spending much of davening engrossed in seforim of various types. There is a time to learn Torah certainly, but there is also a time to pray and these are not people who are so involved in learning 24/7 that they cannot put down a sefer for the duration of prayer. Rather, I believe that it is just a low-tech version of the same problem. Our brains are so used to constant stimulation that something as simple as just listening and responding amen, maybe while looking in a siddur, is very hard for us. No wonder prayer is so difficult in Jewish day schools. Just look at the examples they get from their synagogues at home.

This is an important issue in the classroom as well. Teachers sometimes complain about the distraction that students having a computer in class can cause. I often fault the teacher. If they made their lessons more engaging or taught more project based lessons where the technology could be a friend rather than a foe they would not have this problem. But what about other times when the teacher just needs to explain? Should they always have to compete with this electronic stimulation?

In this respect, I think an iPad is much better than a laptop computer. Kids can't hide behind the iPad the way they hide behind their laptop screens. It is also much harder to multi-task on an iPad than on a laptop so most students cannot easily jump screens when the teacher walks by. Finally, on an iPad you can lock down apps like games and since most online games don't work on an iPad, you can effectively mitigate many distractions.

However, I do see how, as one of my administrators puts it, the iPad or any classroom computer can compete with the teacher's attention. I don't have an easy answer for this, and for many, many reasons which I have mentioned numerous times, I think that the power of these devices to facilitate learning outweighs these distractions. But at the same time, I advise all schools getting iPads for their students to invest in a case with a smart cover. Sometimes the most important sound in a classroom is the sound of all of the smart covers snapping shut as the teacher says, "Now close your iPads and focus your attention on me."

Today I witnessed the future of education- and it wasn't the dancing robot. #JedLab

It's that time of year again. No, I don't mean the time of year when our most upperclassmen lose focus as Aaron Ross just blogged about. Our seniors have already gotten over their senioritis and are now in nostalgic mode. But that is not what I am talking about...

It's the time of year when our engineering students are engrossed in their end-of-year engineering projects. It is a wonder to behold. Today, I was in the engineering lab because we had a presentation by Teq of their new dancing robot. It was pretty cool and could really help teach computer coding but what was going on in the lab amongst the students was much cooler. While I talked with the engineering teacher and the reps from Teq all of the students were engrossed in their various projects. They did have a little help from the CIJE coordinator of the engineering program who was visiting, but mostly it was all student-driven learning. One group was creating a coil gun which theoretically could be used to launch people in outer space. Another group was creating a robot to sense water temperature on a faucet and automatically modulate it to the right temperature. And the list goes on and on.

So many things about this class were unlike almost every other yeshiva high school class I have witnessed. One kid was absent because of a stomach virus so his team called him on their cell phones, a contraband item in most other high school classes, so he could participate and lead the group. Nobody left when the bell rang. Most kids finally sauntered out 5-10 minutes into the next class. Three students were so involved in their project that they stayed the entire next period, cutting chemistry class- these are honors students and they have an SAT II in Chem coming up. But how can you get kids in trouble for cutting chemistry so they could spend more time in the engineering lab! The lab has open hours during various periods throughout the day, 4 periods on Friday alone, so that any kid with a free (or otherwise) can come in when they want to work on their projects.

How has such an environment been fostered? I can think of a number of factors.

1. This is a very self selected group. Kids had to apply to the program to get in. They have special guests all the time, parent volunteers and alumni who come to present on different areas of engineering like robotic surgery, the mathematics behind film animation, biomedical engineering etc. They go on special field trips like a trip to Google in NYC which I blogged about in the past. The kids feel special and they behave that way.

2. There is a great deal of mentoring and role modeling. Besides the CIJE coordinator who comes often and the special guest presenters who I have discussed, the class is visited regularly by Israeli delegations. The program was developed in Israel by Sci-Tech Schools and just yesterday a delegation of Israeli high school engineering students and Sci-Tech board members visited our school. Meeting with both engineering classes simultaneously they created a kind of "Science Beit Midrash" with the room buzzing with talk between our students and their guests. You can view pictures of this amazing visit here. This constant stream of visiting experts and students only adds to our students' creativity and passion.

3. Students experience genuine, project-based learning. The year is divided into two segments. During the first semester, students are involved in teacher-driven projects and activities so they can explore various topics like electronics, robotics, and coding. They then spend the second semester drafting a project of their own. They have to submit a proposal, create detailed schematics, and then each group is given a budget to order parts for their project. Students are now in the most advanced stage of this exercise as they struggle to put their projects together. These are all real-world projects. They are open-ended. They often involve a great deal of outside knowledge not studied in class which students have to research on their own. Full disclosure, my son is in this class- he is in one of the groups designing a coil gun- and he tells me he has spent countless hours watching YouTube video tutorials on various aspects of electrical engineering. He says that his big breakthrough came when he realized that he did not need to understand all of the math- much of which is advanced calculus which he has not yet studied- in order to figure out how to build his project. Wow!

So I am back to a question that I asked last year when I previously blogged about this engineering class. Can we utilize student-driven, project based learning in our other General Studies and Judaic Studies classes? We have been very successful doing this in informal education. Our Shiriyah is a week long school-wide celebration in which the majority of kids find something they are passionate about and work on it day and night- coming in on Sunday and staying past 10PM every single night of the week. And don't think it is just because they want to win since to most kids the seniors winning is a forgone conclusion (although occasionally they do not). It is because the students are given the opportunity to show their talents in a supportive environment where everyones' unique skills are applauded.

So can we do this in other subjects?

I think the answer is yes and no. We are a college preparatory yeshiva high school. This means that our students have to take standardized tests in a number of disciplines. This forces teachers to teach to the test and in some way limits the depth that can be covered in a chemistry class for example since students need to gain a wide predetermined breadth of knowledge. However, at the same time more can be done in these subjects. Dan Meyer for example has a fascinating TED talk in which he talks about how we need to give students more open ended, real world problems that cannot be answered just by plugging in the formulas so students can be trained in patient problem solving.

In Judaic studies I believe that the answer should certainly be yes. Since there are no standardized tests or preset curriculums to teach to why can't we be more open ended and creative in how we facilitate student learning? One of my most memorable teaching experiences came from a 9th grade Gemara class over a decade ago where as a culminating project the entire class designed a how to learn Gemara website. The premise was simple. We had spent the entire year on various activities to acquire the skills to learn Gemara independently. Now the students had to create a website for other 9th graders just like themselves to help them acquire these skills. This was both a comprehensive review of the entire year's worth of material and an activity of metacognition. The kids loved it and, most importantly, I am still in touch with many of them because of the deep relationships we developed doing this project together.

So this is my challenge. Let's try to make every student have at least one class that is like our engineering class. A class which they feel special to be a part of. A class where they experience a great deal of mentoring and role modeling. A class with genuine, project based learning.

If you are interested in learning more about this model, I suggest you read Ken Gordon's recent posting in eJewishPhilanthropy on Money Can’t Buy Love… and Neither Can, um, Compulsory Professional Development Seminars. You might also want to become a member of the JDS Media Lab on Facebook and follow the #JedLab hashtag on Twitter.

The Internet Just Is

Yesterday I read a very powerful piece by tech writer Paul Miller who decided to spend one year free of the internet. He describes the initial euphoria of being free from the need to be constantly on, his opportunity to ride bikes, read books, and even take a trip to the Asifa against the internet at Citi Field. He talks of his hopes to transform himself, reprogram his brain, improve his focus, discover the joys of writing and receiving letters again, what we have come to call "snail mail", and enter into more meaningful relationships. In short, he muses that his time offline will lead him to a deeper, less shallow lifestyle.

However, after the first months of perceived bliss wears off, Paul Miller discovers that he is still the same person with the same flaws without the internet as he was with it. His time away does not solve any of his problems. Rather it creates new ones as he gradually grows less and less connected to his friends and family who cannot communicate with him regularly via Facebook, instant messaging, email, or Skype. He grows more lazy, spending inordinate amounts of time in bed or playing video games, and gradually recedes into his own world.

Especially poignant is his description of his time with his young niece who lives in far away Colorado and who he no longer communicates with regularly since he cannot Skype.

The internet isn't an individual pursuit, it's something we do with each other. The internet is where people are. My last afternoon in Colorado I sat down with my 5-year-old niece, Keziah, and tried to explain to her what the internet is. She'd never heard of "the internet," but she's huge on Skype with the grandparent set. I asked her if she'd wondered why I never Skyped with her this year. She had. "I thought it was because you didn't want to," she said.

Paul Miller's social experiment has made me think a great deal of what it means to be connected. For us older "digital immigrants" technology mediated tools seem to be qualitatively different than "regular" communications. Skype still appears to be a futuristic novelty out of the Jetsons, shared Google Docs is really, really cool, Facebook friends and groups are a revolutionary way for us to connect with friends from yesteryear. We separate mentally our normal conversations from the conversations that we have using Twitter, Facebook, Skype and the like. We distinguish between our "real" world and our "virtual world".

For our kids, it is not this way. They were born into this digital world. It is just normal for them. It is the way that they communicate just as much as talking face to face or using the telephone (which nowadays they use more to text than to talk anyways). They cannot understand why anyone would choose to step away from this. Taking a break from technology would be like taking a Taanis Dibur (a fast from speech) something which I tried on Tisha B'Av for a few summers when I was a teenager in Morasha Kollel and found to be MUCH more difficult than fasting from food. This could be one explanation for the current malady amongst some of our teenagers that has come to be called "Half Shabbos". (Although the issue of Half Shabbos might also be more fundamentally due to our kids lacking meaningful Shabbos and Jewish experiences rather than to their addiction to texting.)

I first started thinking this way about how our teens view social media and the internet after reading a piece by one of the leading creative Jewish informal educators, Dovid Teitelbaum, who runs Camp Sdei Chemed and writes a blog that consistently impresses me with its insights into the psyche of teenagers living in the Orthodox Jewish world. In a symposium for Jewish Action entitled The Social Media Revolution: What Does It Mean for Our Children? he writes about proposals from some Haredi circles to ban Facebook for our teenagers:

In my mind, discouraging social media is counter-productive. As one camper told me, “They’re not banning cell phones and Facebook, they’re banning my friends.”

Why is this so important for us as Jewish educators? Firstly, we need to recognize that the internet in general and social media specifically is a tool for communication and collaboration that like the telephone is neither good nor bad. You can say lashon hara on the telephone; you can also use the telephone for Dial-A-Daf. The same is true regarding the internet.

But I think more importantly, teachers have to realize that while utilizing the internet and technology is essential for good pedagogy, to our students who are born into this world, it will never seem be that revolutionary. To use technology to further communication and collaboration for them is normal. Not to utilize it in school is what they consider to be strange. As Chris Lehman states, "Technology should be like oxygen, “ubiquitous, necessary, and invisible.”

I am always surprised when speaking to teachers and students about our current 1-to-1 iPad implementation. Teachers usually talk about the iPad in starkly dramatic terms. It is either revolutionary for their classroom or a grave danger to their teaching. There are almost no teachers who are neutral about the iPad. Either they love it because of how it can transform the class or they hate it because of how it can transform the class.

When speaking to students, I get a very different response. They don't think the iPad is that big a deal. This is not because they dislike the device or don't value what they can do with it in a classroom. Rather, this is because to them the iPad is as normal as a pen, paper, or  white board in the room. Do we speak about writing assignments as transformative? Do we kvell about the great innovation of a teacher's use of the class white board? Of course not. While these tools are important for education, they are just regular everyday tools. Our students view technology the same way.

In summation, the internet and technology in general is neither friend nor foe. It can be utilized to facilitate cheating, distracted thought, and illicit activities. It can also be used to organize, share ideas, and work together across continents. This is revolutionary to us as teachers but to our students the internet is not a revolution. It just is.

Harnessing the Power of Incremental Change

In a recent white paper on Blended Learning in Jewish Day Schools by the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education titled According to his Way: Blended Learning, Charles Cohen distinguishes between 2 different, Model 1 schools which are new schools who curricular mission is grounded in Blended Learning and Model 2 schools which are more traditional schools that are using Blended Learning in specific courses. Obviously, new schools formed with the express goal of utilizing blended learning can have an easier time achieving more widespread implementation and cost benefits at least in the short term than an established school. As Dr. Eliezer Jones is quoted in the report,“it is easier to start a new school and hire a smaller number of faculty than it is for an existing school to lay off a substantial percentage of its teachers.” But does this necessarily make the newer Model 1 schools the better model?

As I have blogged about in the past, I am still skeptical about the educational benefits of blended learning when coupled with larger class sizes. More research is needed to gauge the effectiveness of this model. At the same time, I think there is another benefit to the more gradual approach to introducing blended learning and other new technologies into an established school. This is what I call the power of incremental change.

Even an innovation as disruptive as Jedcamp is such a powerful model because it is incremental. Jedcamps and Edcamps upon which they are based are run one weekend at a time, in one location at a time. The sum total of these different un-conferences is what is so innovative a change.

As an educational technologist in a Jewish day school, I am a change agent. Teachers know that my role is to constantly assess new technologies and assist them in any way possible in utilizing them in their classroom. But teachers trust me because they know that although I have a broad vision, at the same time, I work with them one lesson at a time.

For most teachers, I believe the most effective way to integrate technology is incrementally. The first question I always ask when meeting with a teacher is what is their curricular goals. We then search together for ways that technology can help further these goals. Sometimes these lessons are drastic changes from what they are used to but most times they are more gradual. What makes this model powerful is that it is less threatening to teachers, it is easier to replicate in future lessons, and when added together these many small incremental changes can add up to lasting change. (Note, there are many examples of the power of incremental change in Tanach from the children of Israel transforming into a nation through their 40 years of wandering in the desert to the gradual rebuilding of a second Jewish commonwealth during the time of Chagai, Zechariah, Ezra, and Nechemiah. But this would probably be better treated in my TanachRav blog.)

So if you are a teacher trying to implement technology in your classroom, my best advice would be not to revamp all your lessons. Rather begin gradually, creating one or two technology enhanced units. Then create a few more. First try one technology tool. I often recommend to first assign something for the students to do like a Showme or Educreations lesson as a review or a project where students have many technology options like presentations using Haiku Deck or Prezi (and some non-technology options as well) to show their research. Many years ago, I first learned how to use PowerPoint by assigning a project and looking over the shoulders at my students while they worked. Then try a technology tool in class like Socrative or Skitch. Next, build a technology enhanced unit using an app like Nearpod. If you work gradually one tool at a time, one unit at a time, you will slowly build your repertoire and soon harness the power of incremental change.

Next year in Jedcamp Jerusalem! 3 Reflections on #JedcampNJNY

I am just beginning to process all that I have gained from JedcampNJNY this past Sunday. Wow! As I and many other participants already mentioned, it exceeded all of our expectations. I blogged about my presentation at Jedcamp a few days ago.

Below, I list three of my reflections on the event. Note, as JedcampNJNY was all about creating a personalized professional development experience, my reflections only express my own personal observations on the event. Others gleaned very different lessons from JedcampNJNY. You can read some other reflections on JedcampNJNY from the blogosphere here, here, here, here, and here.

1. Twitter and other social media platforms are key tools for facilitating sharing in Jewish education.

JedcampNJNY was not just about EdTech. Although many presentations discussed technology related topics, many others like those on using improv in the classroom or strengthening teacher/administrator relationships did not. However, social media, and more specifically Twitter, was the backbone that allowed the event to take place and structured the proceedings before, after, and during the conference. Without the global reach of Twitter, this event could never had taken place.

The whole idea of Edcamp only developed some three years ago in Philadelphia. Through social media and Web 2.0 tools, Twitter, Facebook, Wikis and the like, events quickly spread across the United States and the world. Jedcamp then piggybacked on these ideas first in South Florida, then this past Sunday in NJ, and later this summer a future Jedcamp is planned for Baltimore. Much the way Twitter has been a primary vehicle to organize against oppressive regimes throughout the world, this free mass medium has been a primary force for good in the world of education. As someone I was speaking to put it, 20 years ago an event like Jedcamp could only have taken place at great expense through the assistance of a major board of Jewish education or other major Jewish organization. The cost of the publicity alone would have been onerous. Now, a small grass roots group of volunteers can easily gather 80+ teachers to come together for such an event, כן ירבו.

However, the role of Twitter did not end with the planning stages. During the event, anyone, either across the world or just in a different session, could follow all of the Jedcamp proceedings using the Twitter hashtag #JedcampNJNY. Below is a live feed of this hashtag in real-time.

Tweets about "#JedcampNJNY"

At the event, we even used a new tool that I had never seen before, http://visibletweets.com/, to create a dynamic word cloud to present tweets. You can see an example below.

The many pictures that were tweeted helped provide those watching from far away places like Baltimore, California, and Israel with a window into the event. People also used Twitter to share personal notes, live Google docs that anyone can edit, and snippets from different presentations. One of my favorites from a presentation that I was not able to attend by NY's Funniest Rabbi, appears below.

"A story isn't true or false, rather dead or alive." Another wonderful quote from Rabbi Fleishman of @frischschool at #jedcampNJNY
— Rabbi Bernstein (@RabbiBernstein) April 21, 2013

As a postscript on JedcampNJNY, #Jedchat this Wednesday night, April 24, 2013 at 9PM EDT will be devoted to reflections in #JedcampNJNY. If you do not yet know what Jedchat is or how to participate, please read the following posting by Dov Emerson: So What is Jedchat anyway?

Note, that while Twitter was an excellent medium to share before, during, and after JedcampNJNY, it was not the primary form of communication during the event. We did not behave teenagers looking down at our devices and texting the person standing next to us. However, it provided the framework that made all of the face-to-face communications possible and helped to extend and enrich these conversations beyond the confines of the physical event. This leads to my next reflection.

2. The most effective learning comes from face to face interaction.

What made Jedcamp so energizing was the ability to meet, discuss, and present to like minded educators face to face. While platforms like Twitter and Google docs are great for sharing resources and collaborating, there is something uniquely human about looking someone in the face and talking to them. Many of the sessions just involved this group discussion rather than frontal teaching. These were very fruitful.

For example, Jeff Kiderman facilitated a fascinating discussion about what a high school would look like if we built it from scratch. While this session included wonderful crowd-sourced notes which were created in real time as a public Google Doc, what made the discussion fruitful was the ability of the presenter to take a step back and listen to the contributions of all of the educators in the room.

This is something to think seriously about when implementing computer assisted models of teaching like Blended Learning. While Blended Learning can be a very powerful educational tool when used to supplement instruction and empower the teacher to work individually and in groups with students, when it is used to replace the teacher, this can be a major detriment to student learning. Ultimately, education is about developing relationships between teachers and students and, in Judaic Studies, with the text as well. This is what The Rav Z"TL calls a "Dialogue of the Generations". (You can read an article that I wrote on this for Ten Da'at here.) Anything that can help strengthen and facilitate this dialogue can be a positive educational development. Anything that creates a barrier to this dialogue is detrimental.

3. Great learning can happen organically.

One of the biggest "nachas moments" for me at Sunday's event was watching the board with all of the sessions fill up. Prior to the event, we really did not know what to expect. Would teachers volunteer to give sessions or would we begging teachers to pitch in? Within 20 minutes of the start of JedcampNJNY, we realized that this was not an issue. Every spot but three was quickly filled by teachers presenting on various topics. The other three spots were occupied by teachers who were  not necessarily planning to present but later jumped in with their ideas. You can see a picture of the board and click on a link to a typed version of it below.

Click on the Jedcamp Board to view all sessions.

One piece of feedback that we have already received is that we probably could have even opened a sixth slot for each time period since there were so many people who wanted to present.

The fact that this event was purely teacher-directed is what made it such a fruitful professional development experience. Educators presented on what they were interested in and people decided where to go and what to share based on their passions. This is something schools must consider before planning the typical one size fits all "Stage on the Sage" professional development day. A more effective and less expensive model would be to constantly have "just on time" professional development based on the teachers in the building, allow teachers opportunities to share with each other in larger groups, and only bring in outside professionals based on the needs and wants of the teachers.

One big question that I have for the future is how I can bring some of this organic learning to my students. RealSchool seems like a really good idea right now. Only can this be pulled off by most high school or middle school students? To be continued...

Next year in JedcampJerusalem!

My presentation at #JedcampNJNY on iPads: Solution or Problem?

Today I had the privilege to attend JedcampNJNY in Yavneh Academy. It exceeded my expectations (which any reader of this blog knows were high to begin with). I will be writing a later posting with my reflections on the event but first I wanted to share the presentation that I gave today that I created using an awesome iPad app, Haiku Deck, which appears at the end of this posting.

The inspiration for my presentation came from a blog posting which I read this Friday entitled The iPad in Schools: Is it a Solution or a Problem? The author argues that if one just puts an iPad or any other one-to-one technology device into the classroom but in no way tries to adapt one's teaching to the new device then the iPad will be a problem. The introduction of the iPad has to be a part of a greater conversation on the changing role of the teacher and the student in the modern educational setting.

This matches many of my own experiences in a one-to-one iPad pilot program. The teachers who have been successful integrating the new technology into their classrooms have not necessarily have been the young, computer savvy teachers. Rather, they have been the teachers who have had the confidence in themselves and their students to take a step back and recognize the fact that they are no longer the sole source of information in the classroom. These teachers have even celebrated this fact and given every opportunity for their students to discover new resources to personalize their own learning experience.

This is why I find that technology can make good teachers into great teachers. And of course technology can be effective with great teachers as well since great teachers tend to utilize every tool at their disposal to reach their students. But technology often makes mediocre teachers even worse.

I have heard stories of teachers who when faced with the prospect of their student having an iPad or other one-to-one device in their classroom have proceeded to introduce the iPad with a long list of rules on what they are not allowed to do with the device. The kids quickly got the message that either they should not use the iPad at all in class (if they were the "good" students who always wanted to please their teacher) or they should use the iPad in a way that got under their teacher's skin (if they were the "clever" students who loved to find ways to make their teacher's life miserable). The failure of iPad integration then became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Since the teacher was afraid of the iPad and the vistas it might open for more student centered learning, the teacher had a miserable time integrating the iPad into his/her classroom.

In my presentation below, after presenting the problem, I try to list apps that can help in student centered explorations using the iPads, many of which I have blogged about in the past.

Two fascinating discussions occurred during this presentation. Firstly, regarding the issue of student distraction, one of the participants pointed out that this problem has nothing to do with the iPad and everything to do with the teacher. He shared his experience in high school where he had a Gemara Rebbe who came every day with a goal for how many lines of Gemara he wanted to teach and no matter how the student reacted, the Rebbe plowed through his planned reading. The student, bored to tears, had a desk full of books which he read during class to occupy himself. If called upon, he tried to muster his memory of the Gemara which he had read in Soncino translation the night before so he could go back to his reading.

The key facet leading to student distraction is not any specific device or else we should not only ban the iPad but books, doodling, even day dreaming. Rather, it is the approach of the teacher. Is his goal to teach a lesson or to teach students? The iPad can be a great ally in reaching students if that is what the teacher wants to do. If not, it can become another way for students to attempt to create their own student directed learning in the absence of engaging with the teacher.

One other discussion we had was concerning the issue of how all of these electronic devices are affecting Chilul Shabbat (see the half Shabbos debate). While I pointed out that the primary problem is not a school issued iPad but students personal cell phones and other devices, I see this teacher's point of view. We have to be careful, especially in Judaic Studies, to remember that we are the people of the book, not of the iBook. Our students need to open books, fall in love with books, turn the pages, learn how to navigate bookshelves, if we want them to become lifelong learners. iBooks and other electronic devices can be great supplements to this but they can never replace printed text on paper.

This reminded me of another discussion that I witnessed earlier in the day in a different session. The presenter was pointing out how technology can be a cause of literacy problems today. Since many of our parents no longer get newspapers or magazines, they prefer to read these things online, honestly I fall into this category, our children rarely get to interact with printed text. When one gets a daily newspaper or weekly magazine, one's kids see printed material which they might happen to read, especially on a long Shabbos. However, online reading is more planned, less serendipitous in nature. You read what you want to read, not what you happen to be browsing. And the online reading experience is a much more personal one which is much harder to model for our children than the act of reading the printed word. For more on this, I suggest you read Dan Rosen's reflections on today which can be access, online of course, here.

I am a conservative teacher by nature and look askance at teachers who advocate for radical transformative change. I like to work in incremental steps. Therefore, I do not view the iPad as a device to transform education as we know. But at the same time, when used correctly, the iPad can be a great way for a teacher to add many more strategies to their tool kit of ways to help their students. The key is for teachers to be willing to let go of the reins a bit and allow their students to fashion their own learning experiences with the help of the iPad.