"Super..." and "Amazing..." Curricular Projects

This is cross-posted from Caren Levine's blog  jlearn2.0. Caren is one of those people who is always thinking about the intersection of Jewish education and technology. Her digital and analog lenses work in stereo, kind of a unified field theory of Jewish education. She cross-posted it to YU 2.0, a wonderful membership site maintained by our friend and fellow JJF Fellow, Dr. Eliezer Jones.

A question I am often asked is, "Yes, but what are some examples of how these resources are integrated into the curriculum? By real live educators with real live learners!"

Presenting two free ebooks to whet your appetites and tickle your imaginations:

The Super Book of Web Tools for Educators: A comprehensive guide to technology in all k-12 classrooms. Articles include perspectives from administrators and teachers, as well as elementary school, middle school, and high school projects, and projects centered around particular subject matter or tools (ESL, Skype, blogging). Contributors include notable education bloggers Steve Anderson, Richard Byrne, George Couros, Larry Ferlazzo, Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano, and others. Check it out!

Open publication - Free publishing - More classroom

But wait, there's more! Be sure to read through Terry Freedman's The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book, a compilation that is chock full of practical ideas for the classroom. The many contributors include an international cast of educators such as Terry Freedman, Jackie Gerstein, Julie Lindsay, Sharon Peters, Shelley Terrell, Silvia Tolisana, Jen Wagner, and Reuven Werber, to name drop just a few.

Amazing Web 2 Projects 2 Online Version

Inspiring Jewish Educators

Why would a group of Jewish educators spend half a day with a leading Israeli venture capitalist firm? I would like to suggest that educators can learn a great deal from venture capitalists—especially if the firm is Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), founded in 1993 by Erel Margalit. The firm, currently with $820 million under management, is dedicated to building world class media strategy companies, and also to bringing together “profit and social profit, innovation and creativity, technology and leadership, in one place.”

Our JJFF (Jim Joseph Foundation Fellowship) visit began with a tour of JVPs Lab (Ha’Maabada), a performing arts incubator for graduates of Jerusalem’s arts academies. We then learned about “Bakehila,” an educational empowerment program in four of Jerusalem’s underprivileged neighborhoods (including 15 schools and 10 learning centers).

But the main purpose of the visit, in the words of JJFF Israel Seminar Coordinator, Rabbi Zvi Grumet, (Associate Educational Director of the Lookstein Center of Bar Ilan University and editor of Jewish Education News) was to “look outside of our own world (of Jewish education) and view models of innovation in the business world—to see people who do creative things and think creatively."

Meeting Gavin from the Animation Lab and viewing some of his high quality/high resolution animated film, seeing Maor’s work on the soon to be released Anyclip.com project, and learning about Veoh, was invigorating.

The cynical part of me thinks such a visit makes us question why we are in Jewish education when there is so much excitement and life (and maybe even compensation!) in a place like JVP. But maybe a business like JVP is precisely where Jewish educators should look for inspiration and ideas. This will give us the chizuk (reinforcement) we need to stay in Jewish education!

In our short visit, I observed:

1. excited, enthusiastic and super intelligent workers
2. physical space organized for collaboration and sharing (well lit work rooms with tables meant for working together; doors, even of bosses, which were literally transparent and inviting, sending the message to “come in” and share an idea
3. an environment consciously sending the message “we are here to take care of you so you can use your professional skills to produce an amazing product” (they provide food, administrative support, legal and accounting work, etc. to people involved with the projects they support.
4. super cool, innovative products. For example, anyclip.com, now in beta, will be released in a month, allowing people (including Jewish educators) to access that perfect movie clip.

Today, fourteen Jewish educators went from learning about innovation at JVP, to learning about an innovative king, King David (via our afternoon at Ir David, the City of David). May we continue to learn from models of inspiration and bring this excitement back to our various Jewish educational settings.

How Do We Talk About Israel in Our Schools?

I am currently in Tel Aviv at the final meeting of the Jim Joseph Foundation Fellows at the Lookstein Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora at Bar Ilan University. Stuart Zweiter is the director of the Lookstein Center and coincidentally (to our being here) posted this observation to the Lookjed listServ (an e-mailed forum for Jewish Educators facilitated by Shalom Burger, director of the JJF Fellowship) on December 7. I think he asks some vital questions that I hope you will join me in discussing in the coming weeks. The original posting is archived here. You can reply there or here. I will copy comments here to the Lookjed list. If you would like to subscribe to Lookjed - and I recommend that you do, go to the on-line form at http://www.lookstein.org/register.htm.

This past Friday night Natan Scharansky told a few of us sitting  around the Shabbat table with him that he had found in his travels to  North American college campuses that Jewish students were uninformed  as well as scared to speak up for Israel, scared that if they were to  actively defend or speak positively about Israel it would impact  negatively on their academic career as well as their future professional career.

This morning in a discussion I had with the head of a major Jewish Foundation I was told that during a visit she recently had at a very  large Jewish high school, she found the students preparing for an  internal school debate on the topic, Israel: Is it an apartheid state? In an informal discussion she had with several students at the same  school, she was told by them that they love Israelis but do not like Israel.   

This evening I read a piece in the JTA concerning the vote taking  place this week at Princeton University on whether to ask the  university's dining services to provide an alternative brand of  hummus. Why? Because the current brand being offered is Sabra, which  is half-owned by The Strauss Group, which has publicly supported the  IDF and provides care packages and sports equipment to Israeli  soldiers.   

We all know of many similar examples. I am mentioning these because  they all occurred in just the past few days.   

This post is not an invitation to debate political issues related to  Israel. Rather, we are very interested in learning how Jewish high  schools and junior high schools of all stripes are educating their  students regarding Israel. It seems particularly important during this  period in which there is increasing de-legitimization of Israel. How  much time do schools invest in this critical issue that all of their  graduates will face on college campuses? Is it dealt with in a serious and systematic way through formal and informal educational  programs? Where does it fit into your school program? 

What does your  school do? We are hoping that through the Lookjed list the Center can  raise consciousness of and attentiveness to this issue and that the  thousands of subscribers to the Lookjed list can learn about the  different efforts and programs that are being implemented in schools.   

This question, of course, touches on how we prioritize what is  included in our school programs and how schools allocate and divide up  the time that is available. That itself is an important question for  reflection and deliberation by school principals and teachers. All  schools make choices regarding what is in and what is out? Where does  this issue fit in?   

Stuart Zweiter  

Director, the Lookstein Center