JETS eCOM Learning Community -- November Focus on Learning Management Systems

Throughout the month of October the JETS eCOM community of Jewish elearning educators focused on various options for introducing interactive games and other types of online activities into their curriculum. eCOM grew out of the perceived need within the Jewish educational community for a unified approach that would allow both experienced online educators and novice elearning teachers to enhance their knowledge of the available tools so that distance learning in the Jewish classroom will continue to evolve and flourish.

Twenty influential Jewish educators from around the world gathered in a web conference call in September 2013. They wanted to review where online education is today in Jewish day schools and afternoon schools and consider how to advance elearning in the coming years. eLearning has become increasingly important in Jewish schools throughout the world but many teachers are only vaguely aware of the possibilities that the system offers while others need more guidance to successfully implement it as an integral part of their daily curriculum.

The year-long asynchronouscourse is progressing according to the participants' interests and needs. October was devoted to ways to incorporate games and other interactive elearning tools into the classrooms and the topic for November involves how a distance learning educator can make the most effective use of a Learning Management System.

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are software applications which allow an educator to administer, document, track, report and evaluate an online course. The facilitator presents a lesson, either by a frontal method of by posting the material on the LMS platform. Then the teacher posts all of the assignments for the lesson. The students can view each other's work and, as part of the assignment, may even comment on each other's work and use a team approach to complete assignments.  

The eCom course is actually based on the Haiku LMS so the course participants will learn about the system as they navigate it as part of their course studies. The November course includes an overview of LMSs and a discussion, a discussion of how LMSs change the way that students learn and teachers teach, instructions in using an LMS, a survey of the different LMS options and options for including other online learning tools within the LMS platform.

Keeping on Top of Things

During the recent JEDLAB-JETS online gathering, participants discussed the need for a centralized web presence where Jewish educators will be able to reference the available tools that make online education interactive and engaging.

JEDLAB was created in April 2013 to serve as a network for Jewish educators. JEDLAB members "meet" virtually on the JEDLAB Facebook page to discuss, debate, trade information and exchange ideas to make Jewish education a more challenging and engaging environment for teachers and students.

Throughout the years various Internet websites, forums and web presences representing brick-and-mortar centers have been established. These online spaces were designed to provide teachers with relevant teaching materials to improve their online classroom. A quick perusal of these sources, however, indicates that the sites were built years ago. The information was collected by a center staff member who posted the links and then forgot about the webpage. These resources haven't been updated in years has results in broken links and outdated information.

More distressing, even, these sites don't include the options for Learning Management Systems, virtual blackboards, Wikis and other web tools that form the core of today's elearning classroom. The world of online education is changing almost weekly and the existing lists of resources -- even those that were posted three, four or five years ago, haven't kept up.

When JEDLAB and JETS met on September 16^th 2013 to discuss the continuing evolution of Jewish elearning, participants foremost expressed their desire for a centralized inventory of Internet tools which would provide teachers with the guidance that they need to access relevant, state-of-the-art etools. In keeping with the interactive nature of Web 2.0, the registry was envisioned as a collaborative effort. Group members will work together to create such a catalog and will then meet in webinars and PD encounter sessions. During these sessions participants will learn to use new tools and crowdsource on ways in which the tools can be used effectively in the Jewish classroom.     

Tikva Wiener of the Frisch Real School volunteered to begin to collect the information and create a realtime web presence on the RealSchool website. In conjunction with this list Jerusalem EdTech Solutions will be running a series of webinars as well as a year-long course of collaborative interactive design which will help Jewish educators facilitate the use of these tools in their classrooms. Presenters and moderators for these sessions include some of the most important and vibrant voices in the field of 21^st century Jewish elearning including Tikvah Wiener of RealSchool and Smadar Goldstein of JETS.

Both the year-long PD course and the webinars are scheduled to begin in November 2013. Signup is via each course's webpage.  

JWA, JETS and JEDLAB Meet to Advance Jewish eLearning

The first JEDLAB-inspired webinar occurred on Sept 16^th, hosting 16 Jewish educators from around the globe. Veteran EdTech educators Etta King, Education Program Manager at Jewish Women's Archive and Smadar Goldstein, Founder and co-Director of Jerusalem EdTech Solutions (JETS), coordinated this online learning hangout to talk about how technologically-adept educators can learn from each other and bring newcomers into the elearning world. 

The group, which included both day school and afternoon school teachers, online educators, administrators, educational coaches and other professionals met for a participant-driven, collaborative discussion about online professional development in the Jewish educational community. Etta King opened the session by describing her wish to find new and creative ways to develop and implement curriculum that focuses on Jewish values, Jewish heroes and social justice. Her previous conversations about online learning have been within the JEDLAB community as well as within her own organization, and now she threw open the question of how to involve more participant-educators with the goal of creating a structured program of professional development which could establish universal objectives for online learning.

The participants expressed interest in an online class as a good way for Jewish educators to advance together. Such a class would allow for collaboration and a process learning experience that could strengthen teachers' skills for coping with varied classroom situations. In addition, the webinar participants noted that, in the same way that students learn best when they apply a skill or concept immediately, teachers will also increase their teaching skills when they can acquire new information in an online PD class and apply it in their domain within days, without having to go through a long period of planning before implementation.

The webinar participants offered concrete solutions. One idea was based on the Craftsy.com website in which a community of people interact online for a shared goal. This type of framework could be specifically helpful to lay leaders and other non-professional educators who are teaching in Jewish educational frameworks but lack an education background.

A second suggestion involved educational forums that teach different concepts through a video, discussion, assignment and opportunity for participants to examine each other's work. Such a format provides constant feedback and, in an expression that was repeated several times during the class, enables educators to learn from each other by "peeking into each other's classrooms."

Hang-out participants were asked to note which type of tools they know how to use. One educator mentioned the DangerouslyIrrelevant website which draws information from classrooms and educators around the country. The site keeps teachers up-to-date on new technologies and tools while emphasizing that education will always depend more on the educators than on the tools themselves. 

In summary, the question focused on the core of the webinar -- how can Jewish educators use online professional development opportunities to gain from each other?

The session ended when the group broke up into break-out groups to discuss how to move forward to share resources and information, both individually and among the larger JEBLAB community.

Etta King's group decided to look at the larger picture in deciding which gaps need to be filled so that the new PD course doesn't end up reinventing the wheel. JEDLAB should serve as a clearinghouse for learning "what's out there, especially in light of the fact that technology is always changing and educators must stay abreast of the changes. Accessing materials should be easy to ensure that teachers don't need to recreate the same materials and same lesson plans and can use the time and energy to create new materials. Tikvah Wiener, who will be moderating the November webinar has already begun to gather resources on the Frisch RealSchool blog.  

The suggestion was made to create a platform which will allow teachers to contribute their materials and lessons and will enable other educators to access those materials at will. There can be different categories including categories for beginning and advanced teachers, day schools, afternoon schools, etc.

The second group, facilitated by JETS' co-Director Smadar Goldstein, discussed the feasibility of creating a series of webinars in which each participant would facilitate a session in a specific area of expertise.  Each webinar could be given on a different platform so participants would also be introduced to different platforms as part of the program.

The session ended with the promise to set up a blog with a calendar so that all participants, as well as new people who want to join the conversation, can stay abreast of the schedule for 2013-2014 PD classes.

Educators are invited to share their knowledge at an upcoming webainr. Please sign up here.

The next PD session will be held on November 11^th 2013 at 11:00a.m. EST :

• Twitter Tests?: Using Social Media in the Classroom. Presenter: Tikvah Wiener, founder of RealSchool