Maximizing Linoboards in the Classroom

Linoboards are one of the educational world's fastest-growing online web-tools. Students always enjoy sharing their thoughts and ideas, and the linoboard allows them to do just that in a dynamic environment that immerses them in the subject matter while allowing them to express themselves freely. When set up effectively, the linoboard promotes retention, analysis, peer interaction, and opportunities for students to think creatively and to problem-solve.

JETS linoboard

In order to optimize the value of the linoboard, it is important for the teacher to organize the board effectively before the lesson so as to maximize student activity. Some tips that will help teachers make the most of the linoboard include:

1.       Set up a time limit to encourage the students to respond quickly. Tell the students that they have a specific number of minutes to respond on the linoboard to keep the pace of the class moving at a rapid clip.

2.       Remind the students to record their names on their sticky notes.

3.       Ask open-ended questions to solicit more thoughtful responses.

4.       Make your linoboard attractive with photos, videos, colors, and various text styles.

5.       Allow for differentiated learning styles. Give the students the option to choose which of the questions, videos, articles or other material to which they wish to relate. Offer them the opportunity to "work on 2 out of the 3 questions", respond with their choice of a visual, audio or visual tool, etc.

6.       Encourage peer interaction. Ask the students to debate one another, comment on each other's posts, etc. 

7.        Involve personal elements. Ask the students to comment on something in the material that is meaningful to them.

8.       Keep the assignment simple. Make sure that the instructions are clear and unambiguous.

JETS linoboard "Tzdekka Heroes"

It's 3:00a.m and I'm Troubleshooting

Last week I began my second year of online learning with a 7^th grade class in Deerfield Illinois. For me, living in Israel, this means waking up at 3:00a.m. to teach the 7:00p.m. Deerfield class. But despite the challenge (it usually takes me through Shabbat to get my internal clock back on track) I enjoy the interaction with the kids who are engaged, curious and ready to explore new concepts and ideas.

My 2014 class started off on an awkward note. We are using the Webex conferencing software to facilitate the class and, immediately after I launched the class, I received a message from Webex to tell me that the "audio part of the conference is not working today." Since the class runs for half an hour, there seemed to be no reason to close the class and start it again which would have taken up more than half the class time so we decided to conduct the entire class on chat.

Luckily I'm a fast typist and I spent the next hour typing my heart out -- answering the kids' chat questions and comments, giving them directions and providing them with an overview of what subjects would be covered during their 9-week class on "Israel." 

The second challenge occurred when Facebook failed me. To show the kids some of the unique aspects of Israel I had planned to have them take a look at the Facebook "Only In Israel" page. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/OnlyInIsrael/). I created a username and password so that the students would be able to click in but Facebook doesn't like multiple sign-ins from multiple devices and they effectively blocked my activity.

Live and learn. We moved on to the next activity and I quickly located an appropriate video that would fill in the class time.

Lessons learned:

1.      There's more than one way to skin a cat. If something goes wrong, you can usually find your way around it and should be prepared to do so. In the future, I'm going to make sure that I always have an alternate platform available -- probably Skype. I don't like skype as well as Webex because it doesn't offer the same opportunity to post documents, videos and other materials directly on the screen. However, it would have been a lot easier to have moved over to Skype and continue the class there than to type like a madwoman for 60 minutes.

2.      Always have a back-up lesson plan. I've found that, for a half-hour lesson, we generally have time for 2-3 activities including preparatory activities, the core information that I want to present and follow-up activities. It's important to have one extra activity ready to supplement anything that doesn't work.

When you're counting on technology to facilitate your lesson plan, you might as well assume that something won't work. If everything goes smoothly, that's great. But I will, in the future, be preparing a back-up plan for all of my lessons.    

3.      The kids will give you the benefit of the doubt. I don't think that I could get away with a chat lesson a second time but here, the students were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. They participated fully and we completed the material. It didn't go as any of us had intended but no one took advantage of the technological lapse and they did their best to ensure that the lesson was, under the conditions, a success.

Technology in a 21st Century Classroom

How important is it to include technology in today's classroom?

This question was recently examined by the New York Times which recently printed acritique of ipad education by Carlo Rotella, director of American studies at Boston College. Rotella, who himself doesn't even allow laptops into his university classrooms, set out to examine the effects, both positive and negative, of using tablets for students' class work, homework and educational games.

Rotella travelled to Guilford County, North Carolina, where the school district has embarked on an ambitious program that will provide all of this year's middle school students with a tablet device.  He spoke to district teachers and elearning facilitators and then moved on to speak to other individuals who are involved in online education in America' s schools. These included conversations with Joel Klein, former Chancellor of the New York Public School System and presently the head of the company that makes Amplify tablets, representatives of the United States Department of Education, educational research psychologists, experts on education and technology and even a neuroscientist specializing in the study of adolescent brain development.

Rotella admits that he is a skeptic of elearning, especially as it relates to elementary and young teen learners. But he noted the benefits of tablet learning which include:

·         Elearning makes personalization possible in the classroom. It provides the possibility for immediate feedback to both student and the teacher who can then make timely decisions about how to proceed with the lesson, when to work with individuals and when to work with groups, etc.

·         Entire units of curriculum can be loaded on the tablet in advance of a lesson or can be sent out as an instant update. This accommodates students as they work at their individual paces.

·         There is a wide variety of educational tools available for research, discussion, practice and demonstration of mastery to allow students to approach their studies from various angles. The teacher can then move into the role of a mentor who provides each student with individual assistance as needed

·          School districts spend less money on textbooks

·         eGames support personalized learning. Personalized learning matches game logic respond to what a player does. A game is arranged in series of increasingly difficult challenges to fit the sequencing of curriculum. (i.e. When you conquer the fractions level, you move up to the algebra level.)

One of Rotella's concerns related to the "discussion" aspect of tablet learning as opposed to real-time face-to-face conversations that would occur in a non-elearning class. As many teachers have discovered however, blended learning addresses this concern by incorporating elements of online learning with traditional frontal teaching, group activities and classroom interactions.   

Rotella examined tablet learning in a general format but for the Jewish classroom,elearning has many similar applications. Students can engage in core curriculum subjects such as gemorrah, chumash and Jewish history or may expand to explore subjects such as tikkun olam, Contemporary Jewish Issues, the Holocaust, the Arab-Israeli Conflict, varying Jewish communities and even questions about Basic Judaism through interactive online lessons.