technology

Make the Most out of Summer

Now that the school year is winding down, you are probably giving a sigh of relief and planning some fun activities for the summer. Don’t forget to include your professional development on your to-do list for the summer. Edutopia has provided lots of free resources, including this Summer Rejuvenation Guide, filled with things to learn and do.

Enhancing Congregational Life with Online Efforts

You probably have a pretty passionate core group of congregants who oversee and care for much of what your synagogue provides: a core group for your religious school, a core group who attend services, a core group giving back to the community, and on and on. The opportunity you have is to enhance and add onto these core groups that are the cornerstones of your community.

How safe is your information online?

      Recently after the security breach at Epsilon Marketing, people are asking themselves if their information is really safe online and how much information should you store online? What kind of risks are there for keeping your information online?

Can the iPad 2 change the face of education?

     When the first iPad came out in April 2010, it was marketed as a textbook/classroom tool for students. Almost a year later, however, it has not taken off in the classroom in the ways that Apple had planned. The launch of the iPad 2 this past weekend again restores those hopes with several new features and additions which hope to reignite those promises of revolutionizing the classroom.

Encouraging your Educators to Blog

BH guest blog by Yoram Samets, Founder of Jvillage Network

Have Your Students Live A Double Life

Let your students explore the intrigue of living a double life by having them create their own avatar. Using this site, your students can create their own alter ego by customizing their avatar’s features, clothing, and background. Students can also add a voice to their avatar by recording their own commentary, or uploading text which the program will convert into audio.

Online Passwords: Headaches or Lifesavers?

     Have you ever had a friend who has unknowingly sent you some kind of spam through email and then had to spend hours or even days sending around more emails telling everyone not to open the previous message because their account was hacked? Sure, we all have. It may even have happened to you.

High Tech; Low Tech; No Tech

I love my digital toys.  I use at different times an iPhone, iPad, and laptop.  I’m going paperless at the office. I was an avid PC Magazine reader until it stopped publishing—ironically put out of business by the internet.  And so my eyes lit up when—reading the presentation schedule for an upcoming conference—I saw a session “Innovate or Die.”

Virtually helping your students from anywhere!

     One problem with moving your teaching online to the computer is worrying if your students will be able to use the software and understand how it works. Fear no longer with great new free services such as http://join.me/.

Shabbat Attendance: Not One of the Ten Commandments

BH Guest Blog by Yoram Samets, Founder of Jvillage Network

Think you can't afford a smart board for your school?

     When I ask someone to tell me how much a smart board costs today, the most common answer I hear is in the range of $10,000. Did you know you can have all the features and functionality of smart board in your school for much less? Want to know how?

Make your own animated videos

What better way to teach a topic than by having students re-create it? Whether teaching about an upcoming holiday or the weekly parashah, you can use www.goanimate.com to create an animated video as a class. This site is easy to use and doesn’t require any downloads. They feature several characters and backgrounds to choose from, or create your own.

Without Bread... Reflections on Resources and Funding

“Who will pay for this?” is the question Rabbi Noa Kushner asks in her thoughtful S3K report “Doing Jewish Stuff”—An Experiment Called NITA.” NITA—meaning “we will plant, we will grow” is a program run by Rabbi Kushner in Marin County, California, a region of 15% affiliation rates, that connects young unaffiliated Jews with their Judaism.  Not an eas

Maybe Not So Easy: Technology and the GA

The General Assembly. Biden. Netanyahu. 4,000 Jewish professionals and lay leaders. High trief food options. Kippot at Café du Monde and on Bourbon St. Where to start? Most notable for me: technology was everywhere. From Shalom Sesame and the engagement of pre-schoolers, to teen programs, to engaging with marginally affiliated Jews in small communities, technology is in everyone’s solution set.

My Rewired Brain

My brain is getting rewired.  I can feel it. I’ve been testing an iPad—the office bought two for evaluation purposes.  As part of my test, I’ve been doing my newspaper reading—the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal—on the iPad.  I try to the papers (why do I call them “papers”?) before work, and then catch up on parts I missed when I get home.  (And, sometimes I skip the arts section, not to mention sports.) So how’s it going?  It’s changing the way I read the paper.  Here’s how:

Skype offering free trial of Virtual Classroom Environment

Teachers around the country seem excited about the potential to use Skype video calling technology to create virtual classrooms that can help offer families flexibility, increase learning time in the face of reduced class hours, reduce drive time to school, serve isolated communities, and personalize learning. And right now, Skype is offering a free trial of their new 10-way video calling feature. The new feature lets you connect with up to 9 other people to see and hear them all at once!

From Normal to New Normal

I received an excited phone call last November from an East Coast religious school.   The educational team was almost breathless.  Construction had displaced school for a year and they had to reduce Hebrew instruction to one day per week.

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Discover Israel

 Let's Discover Israel

Offer younger children an exciting and age-appropriate introduction to the Jewish homeland