Here are my notes from our meeting:
1. There is a webinar/training web site that has many wonderful creative training webinars about using technology. It is called "Darim". The cost for an institution to register with this site is $500/year and then you would have unlimited access for anyone at the institution who wanted to watch one of the webinars. See http://darimonline.org/next_steps/downloads.php "Darim Online provides professional development, knowledge sharing, consulting and coaching to Jewish organizations in North America. By becoming a member, your organization is entitled to participate in our webinar events, access valuable resources through our online resource bank, Dirah, and take advantage of the expertise our staff and consultants provide."
2. There is an interesting web site that allows students to put together fun presentations of audio, video, text etc. into one web page (I think that is how it works. I need to try it out myself) It is called "Glogster" (http://www.glogster.com/)
3. There is a site that is like Facebook, but supposedly "more secure" that is used by a couple of schools for creating groups for the students, families and teachers. It is called Edmodo. The web site is here: http://www.edmodo.com/home. This is free. I set up a skeletal profile for myself there. If you want to get your schools to use them, you can do that and then you can be posting articles, messages, comments, photos, etc. to your kids, your teachers, etc. and create separate groups for each class, etc. The "look" of Edmodo is very similar to Facebook. I haven't played with it much yet myself. Another possibility is for us to create an ISJL group on Edmodo where we could share stuff (?)
4. Babaganeuz has weekly emails with suggestions for teachers about uses of technology. So does Behrman House
5. Varda Books (http://www.publishersrow.com/JDL/) has a pdf formatted book library that they are now offering to synagogues for an annual fee that would allow all our members (and our school teachers, students, etc.) to use the entire library. It is pretty extensive now, and includes (for instance) the JPS Bible commentary series (each of the books of the Torah, Haftarah, and a couple of the megillot so far), as well as lots of other classic Jewish books. This would be mostly something useful for High school kids and adults. The complete list of books is at the URL above. Publishers Row is a platform that distributes pdf formatted books. eBookShuk is the name of the Jewish eBook service. I don't know exactly what "VardaBooks" relationship is (it seems to be synonymous with eBookShuk.) You can call Varda Books at 1-866-322-0993 for information about how to purchase an annual subscription to their library.
6. By the way, you can purchase access to the Encyclopedia Judaica (the new edition) online - for your school through . We probably don't take advantage of this as much as we could. (Gale virtual reference library at http://www.gale.cengage.com/)
7. There is a web based communication product like Skype that allows several people to join a conference all at once. It is called ooVoo http://www.oovoo.com/home.aspx Free video chat wherever you are. We could have "virtual" classes where everyone logs in at the same time and we don't need to actually be at the same place. You can use this for your schools, students, teachers, etc.
8. You can create wiki sites of your own that everyone can work on to create a project or base of information. Again, this is a kind of project that would probably work better for high school kids (maybe 6-8 graders in religious school also). You can also have the kids do PowerPoint presentations, or take photos with their smart phones, or videos, and audio files, and then edit them together to make a presentation. Kids love doing this sort of thing (I am told) and can be an alternative method of teaching some material. We can also creat wiki sites for ISJL schools to pool our knowledge about Jewish education.
9. There is something called "Elmo" which is the latest thing in overhead projectors. See Amazon http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=elmo+projector&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=4307806607&ref=pd_sl_5n7xbu7zgy_b Not sure which item at Amazon people were referring to.
10. Finally, to add a little pizzazz to a lesson, you can have the students write up (on computers) information about a Torah portion or some topic and then have them make a "word cloud" using wordle.net (http://www.wordle.net/). this tool basically makes a visual picture of the material by making commonly used words larger and less frequently used words smaller. (see the web site for a few samples) In my opinion, this is kind of a gimmick, but if it makes the kids more interested, why not. The educational point would be, for instance, in the Holiness Code in Leviiticus, if you did a word cloud on it you would no doubt find that the word Holy is very large (commonly used), and therefore is an important aspect of that section of text. (Just an example)
We also agreed that we should not get too crazy about the technology. For one thing, all the "distance learning" tools are terrific - but nothing beats real face-to-face contact. Ultimately, we do not want to creat "virtual" communities, but "real" communities of real people really interacting in person. So, the distance learning technology is helpful for building the relationships, and communicating the information, but it is only a "tool," or an "assist" and should not be a total subsititute for direct personal connection.
I'll post some good web sites for Jewish information shortly.
Rabbi Steven Morgen
Congregation Beth Yeshurun
4525 Beechnut
Houston, TX 77096
(713) 666-1881
Email: smorgen@bethyeshurun.org
Web Site: www.bethyeshurun.org
