A year long project that would pave the way to integrate ongoing 21st century leaning into my Jewish Studies classroom. I have utilized educational technology tools in my classroom for the past few years to create end of unit projects, assess comprehension and practice reading fluency. The vision for this project was to better make use of iPads and other forms of educational technology tools on an ongoing basis to stimulate and encourage more conversational Hebrew both inside and outside of the classroom.
My year long project to integrate ongoing 21st Century learning in the Hebrew Classroom
1. בקול הכל
Lead Educator: Liat Walker
liat.walker@mjgds.org
School: Martin J. Gottlieb Day School
Address: Jacksonville, Florida
בקול הכל
2. To explore how to better
make use of iPads and
other forms of educational
technology tools to
stimulate and encourage
more conversational
Hebrew both inside and
outside of the classroom.
3. 80% of the students will
improve their communicative
oral language skills by at
least one level (refer to TaL
AM stages) every year, as
measured by a pre & post
VoiceThread sample
assessment.
4.
5. First step: Choosing the best tools
Criteria: User friendly, easy to share on students’ blogs
6. Two tools were chosen:
TinyTap which is a free iPad app
VoiceThread which is a free website
7. Class time dedicated to the project was 1 hour per week.
This was done in the form of Centers so each student spent approximately 15-
20 minutes creating games on TinyTap.
8. Games created by my students
were published under
my user name “Liat Walker” on
www.tinytap.it
9. To learn more about how I used Tiny
Tap in my class please go to my blog:
liatwalker.wordpress.com
10. At home the students spent 1 day a week on a VoiceThread assignment
11. To learn more about how
I used VoiceThread in my
class please go to my
blog:
liatwalker.wordpress.com
13. School readiness is very important.
The school culture at the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School is already aligned with
21st century goals. Each of our classrooms is equipped with 5 iPads and the school
has 2 laptop carts with 20 computers in each one. Our students are comfortable
with using this technology in their daily learning. I extended this built in
technology readiness into the Jewish Studies classroom.
14. Teachers must be comfortable and knowledgeable with using technology in general
and more specifically in using educational technology tools.
Be willing to research each tool and use it themselves so that they build proficiency
and confidence.
Be willing to invest time to not only create samples for the students, but also be able
to anticipate and be prepared to answer student’s technology question and technical
difficulties that the students might experience.
Be in contact with the technical support/IT personnel at the school to help with
technology problems as they arise.
15. Although today’s students are well versed in using technology tools such as iPad,
tablets and computers, they may not know how to use technology appropriately
(digital citizenship) and as an educational tool. Students need to be taught basic
digital citizenship norms before and during the project.
Prior to the implementation of this project, the Third grade students at the Martin J.
Gottlieb Day School had utilized technology as a tool to use in creating,
communicating and learning since kindergarten. These grade 3 students were
therefore ready for this project.
The students are in a Hebrew immersion program and are used to receiving
instructions in Hebrew from the teacher.
16. 90% of the students improved their communicative oral language skills by
at least one level and several by two levels. The students LOVED creating
and playing on TinyTap. Also there is excitement in the Jewish Studies
classroom and the students are now more enthusiastic about learning
Hebrew. This project helped me pave the way to integrate ongoing 21st
century leaning into the Jewish Studies classroom.
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17. My initial plan was to design a program for my 5th grader students
The current 5th grade is comprised of 9 diverse leaners with many behavioral and
individual learning needs.
I struggled to find a quantitative Pre-assessment tool that accurately reflected their
verbal skills at the beginning of the school year.
After my mentor visited all of my classrooms, together we decided that this project
would be better suited and more effective with another grade. We agreed that the
needs and behavioral issues in this 5th grade class were too diverse for a first year
project.
18. In October, I restarted the project with my 3rd grade students.
This class is composed of 14 highly motivated students, whose Hebrew
language skills were more advanced than that of my 5th graders.
I also have a teacher assistant in this class who helped to facilitate group work.
This has been a critical part of this project.
Project redirected to 3rd grade
19. Creating the SMILE assessment for the Pre-assessment
Picking the right images for the pre and post assessment
Finding the best, user friendly, easily accessible technology tool to assess &
document
Creating authentic open-ended conversation starter assignments to fit the
students’ current Hebrew vocabulary and their interests
Deciding if the student’s recordings should be assigned as homework or done
in class
Conducting formative assessments
20. Not being able to collaborate with other teachers in my school due to lack of
time, lack of interest and because the project did not pertain to their
students
Not knowing what kind of help to ask for early enough at the start of the year
Not scheduling time for personal reflection throughout the year with
teachers, even outside the Jewish Studies staff, who might be able to help
and brainstorm different solutions for current challenges
21. Next year
• Repeat the project with my next 3rd grade & introduce the project in 4th & 5th grades
which means training and collaborating with a the 4th grade teacher .
• Develop authentic open-ended conversation starter assignments for each grade to fit the
current curriculum, Hebrew vocabulary and interests. Refine the the Assessment scale.
Looking down the road ….. In Five years
• I would love to collaborate and share my project with teachers outside of my school.
• I plan to find other technology tools to help enhance student oral language skills.
22. The Martin J. Gottlieb Day School has used the TaL AM Hebrew immersion program for the past ten years.
The school is a Solomon Schechter school, which means that the students spend 40% of their day in their
Jewish Studies classroom. Even with all of these advantages, many of our students are not able to speak
Hebrew fluently at the end of their Fifth grade. I believe this is partially the result of not having ample
opportunities to speak Hebrew in the classroom through engaging activities and authentic opportunities.
Therefore, I wanted to provide the students with more opportunities to use authentic communicative
Hebrew in order to improve the proficiency of their oral language skills. My goal was to use our students’
21st century skills and tools to provide additional opportunities to speak Hebrew in response to authentic
open-ended conversation starter assignments, which fit the students’ current Hebrew vocabulary and
personal interests.
Between October and April 2015, 90% of the students improved their communicative oral language skills by
at least one level as measured by a modified TaL AM Stages of Student Oral Expression Skills (scale) and a
few improved by two levels. More important, there is excitement in the Jewish Studies classroom and the
students are now more enthusiastic about learning Hebrew, This project helped me pave the way to
integrate ongoing 21st century leaning into the Jewish Studies classroom.
Notes de l'éditeur
The Martin J. Gottlieb Day School has used the TaLAM Hebrew and Heritage curriculum for the past ten years (a Hebrew immersion classroom). The school is a Solomon Schechter school, which means that the students spend 40% of their day in their Jewish Studies classroom. Even with all of these advantages, many of our students are not able to speak Hebrew fluently at the end of their Fifth grade. I believe this is partially the result of not having ample opportunities to speak Hebrew in the classroom through engaging activities and authentic opportunities. Therefore I wanted to provide the students more opportunities to use authentic communicative Hebrew in order to improve the proficiency of their oral language skills.
The first step was to search for the right technology tools, which would work best for my needs. They needed to be user friendly, easily accessible from any device, easy to share with a group of students and able to be embedded on the student’s blogs.
TinyTap is a social platform which empowers families, teachers and students to learn from each other by creating their own personalized learning apps and playing thousands of new ones shared daily by a worldwide community of educators and learners worldwide. It was developed by an Yogev Shelly who is Israeli.
VoiceThread is a totally web-based application that allows you to place collections of media like images, videos, documents, and presentations at the center of a conversation.
This is where having an assistant teacher a floating teacher was critical. The class was divided into three groups which rotated through three centers. I facilitated the center utilizing the 5 classroom iPads , the second was an online reading program and the third varied.
The students knew that their games will be shared with other students in our school and on the internet. This was a great incentive to plan and create fun and educational games.
In order to build readiness the school culture has to be already aligned with 21st century goals. Each of our classrooms has 5 iPads and we have 2 laptop carts with 20 computers in each one. Our students are comfortable with using this technology in their daily learning. I extended this built in technology readiness into the Jewish Studies classroom.
Level of competency and confidence which comes with an investment of time.
The Third grade students have a Level of proficiency, ease and comfort level.
