Introducing Video Tools into Classroom eLearning

A recent professional development session with a group of educators on how to include YouTube and Animoto activities in a classroom has given participating teachers ideas and strategies for introduce these powerful elearning tools into their lesson plans.

A group of New Jersey teachers including both new participants and graduates of the JETS No Teacher Left Behind introductory Professional Development course, requested a conference session with JETS Director Smadar Goldstein on how to implement basic online and video tools into the classroom. The two-part session included help with creating videos on YouTube and Animoto platforms as well as how to embed their own music and videos into Animoto.

Two sample Animnotos can be seen here

Chumash Class

History Class

Rabbi Shelley Kniaz of Temple Emmanuel of Pascack described the first session, which included the use of linoboards in the classroom. "My teachers loved the lino board.  Both have already created two and sent them to their students' families" she said.

Barbara Haber of Beth Haverim Shir Shalom described her experience, including the request from some of her staff for follow-up sessions. "The teachers really enjoyed the professional development workshop – they found Smadar to be wonderfully engaging and were impressed by her wealth of practical, hands-on ideas for implementing new technologies in the classroom!"

The teachers were already familiar with the Linoboards and they enjoyed trying them out and tweeking them during the session.  Ms. Haber noted that the teachers had requested one more in-house training session in which they would be able to trouble-shoot, brainstorm on ideas for expanding the lino boards' use, explore more uses for the Animoto and talk about how to expand all of these tools.

Rabbi Shelley Kniaz, Devorah O'Brien and Chana Zinstein

These additional sessions are scheduled for Ms. Goldstein's February 2014 visit to the States. Ms. Goldstein will be visiting Jewish schools throughout the United States and is available for additional sessions with educators.

The upcoming JETS online No Teacher Left Behind Course, to introduce elearning tools to Jewish day school and complementary school educators, is scheduled to begin on February 19^th. 

Ms Goldstein also directs an eCom community of continuing learning which encompasses dozens of Jewish educators from throughout the world. The 2013-2014 course has begun but new members can join at any time.   

No Teacher Left Behind -- eLearning PD for Lauder Staffs in Eastern Europe

Seventy years ago the prevailing wisdom held that Jewish communal life was dead in Eastern and Central Europe. The Jewish communities of the region had been decimated and most of the survivors chose to emigrate and leave their memories behind.

However, the Jewish communities didn't entirely disappear. As the years progressed, some   Jews emerged from their quiet lives while others joined the population. Over the last 25 years the Lauder Foundation has been at the forefront of assisting the members of these Jewish communities, particularly in the realm of education.

Since 1988 the Lauder Foundation has established thirteen Jewish schools throughout Southern, Eastern and Central Europe -- in Germany, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, the Ukraine, Bulgaria, Croatia and Austria. These schools include some partnerships with ORT and Chabad while others remain independent. Lauder schools involve both elementary and high school education and aim to help students connect, learn and develop their Jewish identities.

eLearning is beginning to play an increasingly important role in the Lauder schools. The Lauder Foundation recently turned to JETS Israel for an online course that will provide Lauder teachers with tools and techniques to include online learning in their curriculum.

The teachers from the Lauder schools in Germany  see the program as providing them with important tools that will allow them to enhance their classes with elearning. One teacher described the confidence that she gained from the course. "I learned a lot about distance learning technology and received so much guidance that I'm ready to launch the program in my own classes. The course provided me with enough tools to understand the logic and pedagogy of this teaching method."

During the course the students explored how to use an online blackboard -- elluminate -- and reviewed a wide range of online tools including using google docs in the classroom, scribblars, linoboards, vocaroos, vokis, social posterboards and Learning Management Systems such as Wikis and Haikus. Participants expressed their feelings, describing how the course provided them with concrete ideas that enable them to teach multiple age groups at once and ensure that each student receives the information and assignments at his or her own grade level.

Participants presented a sample online class to other course participants as part of the process of learning how to manipulate the online blackboard and introduce elearning tools into their curriculum. In summarizing his experiences, a Berlin-based Lauder teacher wrote "Online teaching can empower the student and make him responsible for his own learning. The tools that I learned will allow me to facilitate this type of education in my own classroom."

The staff of Lauder's Russian schools will begin their own No Teacher Left Behind course in basic online learning concepts in the coming weeks. As one of the participants from the Warsaw Lauder School noted after her course, "You don't have to be in the classroom to teach students. There is a wide variety of tools which make on-line classes effective and interesting...ice-breakers help me to get to know my kids better and the vokis enhance lessons in Hebrew language....it's a fun and creative way to teach."

#eLearningForTheTeachers

As the word spreads about the JETS eCom -- the eLearning Community of Jewish Educators new teachers are joining to learn and share. eCom began as a group of 20 educators who gathered together, online, one evening in September to discuss their needs and interests of attaining their goal of using elearning to enhance their classrooms, engage their students and create an ever more effective Jewish learning environment.

 

The educators focused on two main concerns.

1.      How can the group serve as a clearinghouse for learning about available online tools and opportunities especially in light of the fact that technology is always changing?

2.      How can each educator share his/her experiences and knowledge with his/her peers in an effective manner?

 

From this group the eCom community was born. eCom is a self-directed community in which teachers brainstorm, exchange ideas, trade experiences and share their knowledge as it relates to digital learning and online instruction. The group shares a Haiku Learning Management System in which teachers share and discuss ideas, present projects and explore new avenues in the field of online learning.

 

Some of the recent information that's been shared has included reviews of new online educational games such as quizlet , bitstrip, goanimate, equiz shows, puzzlemaker, Scratch story creation, word searches and more.  Participants explore these programs on their own and report back to the Haiku to share their experiences and their students' reactions to the new and varied elearning options.

 

The eCom community is an ongoing community -- new participants join weekly and can access all of the previous information via the Haiku LMS while they explore the process of elearning and the ever-changing role that elearning plays in our classrooms.