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.

No Teacher Left Behind -- Sample Lessons

JETS' No Teacher Left Behind reconvened last night after a month-long hiatus for the holidays.

The course is geared towards Jewish educators who want to become involved in bringing online education into their classrooms, schools and communities.

During the first four weeks of the class the course facilitator, JETS director Smadar Goldstein, introduced the group to the Elluminate online blackboard which allows classes to be conducted in which participants from around the world can see, simultaneously, the same documents, presentations and videos while communicating with each other. The format is especially useful for distance learning situations in which students are scattered in different locations because the students can collaborate while seeing and hearing the instructor and each other.

Smadar also presented a variety of other online tools to the students and allowed them to explore and experiment during the first four classes. Some of these tools include mind-mapping, voxopops, scribbler, linoboards, creating videos, voki, woodles, google docs and more.

This month started out with participants' lesson plans. Over the course of October's four classes each participant will present a sample lesson plan in which they incorporate  some of the tools to which they have have been introduced.

Leah started the first sample lesson with an ice-breaker. She posted a google doc with some questions that allow each participant to tell a little about him/herself. 

Leah then moved into her lesson, describing how she introduced the concept of "slicha" -- sorry -- to a class of American schoolboys. Leah prepared a linoboard that was aimed to bring the boys' attention to the word "slicha" for the Ten Days of Repentence that fall between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

She explained how she involved the boys by asking them "why is it so hard to ask "sorry" and "what does it mean when we say "I'm sorry."

She further personalized the lesson by asking them "What's harder -- to ask forgiveness from a friend or to ask forgiveness of yourself ?" A picture collage that showed people behaving badly was presented and the question was asked "did you do any of these things and if so, how did you ask for forgiveness?

Leah ended her unit with a printout of the Adon HaSlichot -- a prayer from the Yom Kippur service. After the boys read the prayer she asked them "how do the piyutium of adon haslichot relate to actions that we need to ask forgiveness for?  Were there things that spoke specifically to you? (the student)

In feedback the participants of No Teacher Left Behind agreed that the unit was a highly engaging and interactive one. One participant asked Leah to explain her heavy use of Google docs and she explained that her class is conducted on Skype, limiting her ability to use many of the tools that are available to other online teachers.

Michal's class involved a presentation of Hip Hop Hebraics that she's presently doing with her JconnecT class. Before the class starts Michal introduces the Hebrew version of the 5 Ws, which for Hebrew Speakers is the Mems -- Mi, Mah, Matai, Maduah and Afoh (Who, What, When, Why and Where) .

Michal introduced Hebrew by discussing the origins of the Hebrew language. She showed her class a picture of aleph and a ox head and participants discussed the connection? In its raw form the ox's head was similar to an aleph and it's possible to see how it could have evolved into the present day aleph, but it takes some thought and is probably a fun exercise for a group of pre-teens. Michal went on to say that an ox is a wild animal. To train an animal is to לאלף -- to train -- is the connection is.

The lesson continued with other graphic examples of changing letters and connections. Michal explained that in the early days, a letter was supposed to remind you of the word for which it stood. She showed examples of how some Hebrew letters may have evolved.

The class then listed to Ehud Banai's Hebrew Man video and answered related questions on a google doc, reinforcing the lesson with the four Mems for language acquisition skills.

Questions included?

·         What is the message of the song

·         Who sings the song

·         Why do they sing the song in English

Students were then asked to look at the other students' comments, choose one other person's comment and comment on their comment

Michal ended her lesson by showing the contrasting people who speak Hebrew including the dignified Golda Meir and the rap artist Subliminal. Students were to consider the discrepancy in Hebrew as a holy, important language and as a language used in everyday communication by ...everybody.

The review of Michal's class was complementary. Participants felt that, as is important for an online class, the students were active and involved in the learning process. 

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.