The Big Bang - Adventures in Cyberspace

The universe is expanding.  That’s the core of the Big Bang Theory. As the cosmos gets older, everything in it moves apart.  Not to delve too much into such esoterica like Hubbles Law, I need to affirm - אני מאמין - I'm a believer.  In the last week I experienced something akin to this phenomenon in my own universe. Let’s call it the Virtual Big Bang.

Last Wednesday I participated in the first #jedchat., organized by  Dov Emerson, Rabbi Akevy Greenblatt and Rabbi Meir Wexler. What was special about this was its synchronicity. Dozens of Jewish educators from around the globe simultaneously came together on twitter to build a new professional learning network.  This  real-time inaugural conversation focused mostly on introductions and general brainstorming about how to use twitter to grow this nascent PLN.  Suggestions for the topic of this Wednesday’s (November 2^nd at 9:00 PM eastern time) were thrown out.  We are all anxiously awaiting the result of the online poll that will ultimately determine what we’ll tweet about.

Then, earlier this week I took part in a Google+Hangout, initiated by Miram Brosseau, focusing on the bridge that is being constructed between technology and experiential education.  If you haven’t yet experienced a G+Hangout, you should.  All it requires is a Google+ account, a quick and painless browser plug-in download, a webcam and yalla…you’re in.  Video conferencing is old news, I know, but what G+ seems to have done is created a free and seamless environment for folks (up to 10 at one time, according to Google!) to come together to explore and learn together. What was exciting about this hangout experience was that it expanded my PLN that has, up to this point been, in a large way twitter based. Now, these tweeting encounters are being enhanced by virtual f2f encounters that deepen the educational experience. And it’s always fun to see the face and hear the voice behind the tweet.

We’re in the midst of a process of learning and development.  As we all know, technology has the tendency of not working at the most inopportune time. At a hangout I facilitated last week we found ourselves gazing at each other while using the phone - one of our participants had microphone issues.  But you know, that’s okay.  Let’s call it growing pains.

For the past few years there has been a lively discussion about the nature of community in the 21^st century.  What does it mean to be part of a group of people who may never physically meet?  What are the ramifications of non-f2f encounters that take place in the cloud?  Paradoxically, as social networks evolve and expand, (like galaxies moving through space), we individuals are drawing closer. The technology that expands our worlds is becoming the very tool that brings us together.

Boom.

Of Quills, iPads and the New York Times

The other day I opened up my print copy of the New York Times (yes, I still rely on that ancient form of technology: The printed newspaper.) I couldn’t help but notice the article on the front page, above the fold: Grading the Digital School: In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores. The piece described how the drive to digitize classrooms has not led to improved student scores, as measured by current standardized tests. Its perspective, in part, mostly challenged the prevailing philosophy that educational technology will result in increased student achievement. As I read it, I couldn’t help but think that all this is beside the point.

It isn’t that using iPads and Google Docs will necessarily make our students smarter. For better or worse, we live in an increasingly electronic world. The screen of tomorrow will define how we will interface with our environment; just as ink and paper defined how previous generations interacted with their universe. What we as educators need to do is grasp how the ubiquity of digital technology is shaping the way our students learn how to live in their future. We need to redefine our paradigms and expectations so that we can help them be prepared for tomorrow.

Indulge me as I look backwards: This is something I wrote nine months ago:

Technology is not meant to be the end, but to be the means. Technology is a tool to engage our students. Web 2.0 has introduced us to new ways of creating and defining community. Just as the chalk board created new ways to create relationships between the student and the teacher and the nature of education itself, the digital universe we are entering is opening up new doors that will lead to a different learning and teaching reality. It is incumbent upon us to grasp this new type of chalk, and start writing on the virtual chalk board.

I wrote the above words as part of a homework assignment for my just completed education technology certificate course. I called this, at the time, my edtech “mission statement”. I still believe it. My understanding of the ramifications of using education technology in the Jewish classroom has deepened as I’ve learned how these tools can be used. More importantly, I believe more than ever that ultimately all of these programs and applications are merely aides to help us achieve a final goal – creating a Jewish future.

Yes we have no choice but to embrace this digital universe - but not blindly. We need to be critical consumers, analyzing whether this gadget or that program will serve our needs. Will using a smartphone help our students learn to chant Torah? How? Will creating a VoiceThread effectively teach our students what the Amida is all about? What would be a more effective way to learn about midrash: Through bibliodrama or Animoto? We need to define our goals, and then determine the best way to reach them.

Yes, I believe now, more than ever, that 21st century technology is a means to an end. But I also am mindful that the words of Torah are written on animal skin using a bird’s feather and ink made of gallnuts. They can be just as meaningful on that ancient form of technology as they are on my iPad screen. It doesn’t matter how I let those words touch me; its that they do. And that’s the point.

Finding Dragons in the Clouds

I remember, as a kid, lying on my back on the side of hill looking at the sky, finding a dragon, George Washington and a tree floating amidst the white, billowing clouds.  I'm going to bet that most of us have had similar experiences, finding disparate symbols in the mist that resides in the sky.  Clouds are made up of water vapor, much of which has previously fallen near or to earth and then evaporates. They are self-renewing. But I think they stand for something else:  The infinite reaches of nature.  For me a cloud summons Heschel's idea of radical amazement.  So attending ISTE 2011 I find myself being amazed and amazed again.  Not at the works of nature or God, (unless we believe that the Deity's Hand is in everything) but at the efforts of Woman and Man.  It's not so much that I am blown away by the latest animation software or iteration of optical touch screens. I am. It's that we are not done yet.  We are still Primitives.  Next year at ISTE there will be new technology.  New applications.  What is innovative today will be passé next summer. But that really doesn't matter.  What's important for me, at least, is what these works of humanity represent.  It's the symbolism that I'm writing about.

I have a confession to make.  In the middle of the day today I escaped the world of apps and androids.  I needed fresh air.  I also had a pilgrimage to make.  You see, I’ve never seen the Liberty Bell in real life.  It’s always been a part of every American’s life.  For my family and me, all being immigrants from the “old country”, it took on special significance, as my parents had chosen the freedom of America that The Bell represented.  So I figured that I’d take a couple of hours to visit this symbol of liberty for which my parents risked their (and my) lives to reach.

Symbols are something conceived by humans to represent something greater.  Our Jewish tradition is full of them: the Chanukiah, challah, the mezuzah, and tallit to name a few.   The Liberty Bell is an example of one of the icons of American secular religion.  I was surprised by my reaction as I stood before this flawed chunk of metal.  I was truly in Awe.

As I gazed upon the cracked and silent bell, I realized that it’s message of liberty (an idea that was associated to the bell 100 years after its casting to protest the abomination of slavery) transcended its physicality. The Bell represents something greater than itself.  It is a symbol that bridges the past with the future.

What does this have to do with Google, Second Life, and wireless document cameras?  These amazing constructs that astound us at their power are but transient symbols and signposts pointing to tomorrow. One of the sessions I attended focused on virtual games and simulations. The instructor (Dr. Greg Jones) pointed out that there is no definitive research that shows that using gaming and sims in the classroom results in higher student achievement. They are short lived. Tomorrow there will be something new. Dr. John Medina, the keynote speaker on Sunday also said that it is still to early to judge the long-term impact of digital technology on the brain. The ISTE conference and the drive to integrate education technology in our classrooms is not The Answer.  It is a symbol for a direction that we are choosing to travel.  It is representing a new way to interact with our environment, what we have learned, and what we will learn.

In the Jewish world, we are also travelling this evolutionary path.  We are used to it. We started out with Oral Law.  Then we wrote it down.  Then we interpreted it…again and again. That’s what the Responsa and commentary are all about.  We’re still doing it.  Storahtelling.  Media Midrash. Bible Raps. G-dcast.com.  Jewish Education Network. YU 2.0. There’s more.  Things I don’t know about and things we haven’t yet thought of.  And before all that I am…Amazed.

Clouds represent the infiniteness of nature, and if you will, the Holy as It interacts with the physical world.  The cloud that we are creating represents human potential.  Just like the Liberty Bell.  The cloud we are crafting does not reside in the sky.  Lo BaShamayim Hee.  It resides in us, in our hearts. Clouds flit across the sky, ever-changing.  The electronic cloud we are creating also doesn’t stand still. We shape its form and direction.  We must remember that we are in the midst of an ever-changing process that defines intellectual and technological development.  This also applies to how Jewish learning accommodates and adapts to contemporary reality. If we want a definition of Jewish survival, I think that’s it: We never stand still. We change our shape and form, but we won’t dissipate into nothing.  We adapt and renew, taking on new forms. Just like clouds.

Before I forget, here's a picture of the Liberty Bell.  Can you find the crack?

Lessons Learned in the Cloud...So Far

My head is spinning.  My first 36 hours at the ISTE 2011 conference have left me intellectually exhausted. And my feet hurt.  I need to tell you that the Philadelphia Convention Center is BIG.  Really.  So what have I learned that I can share with you? Well, let’s frame it in this context:  What are my “takeaways” after one full day at the largest educational technology conference in the world? Here’s a random and partial list:

1)   The conference keynote speaker was Dr. John Medina, author of the New York Times Bestseller, Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School.  Dr. Medina, a molecular biologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine revealed that every person’s brain responds to the environment in its own unpredictable and unique fashion. If there is one generalization that can be made about the human brain, it’s that "it is designed to solve problems related to survival in unstable meteorological settings while in constant motion". According to Dr. Medina, the best way to learn is in a setting that is characterized by “aerobic exercise punctuated by islands of learning”. In other words, the classrooms in which we place our children, and the offices in which we find ourselves are incompatible with our biology. The implications are that when it comes to learning, there is no one-size-fits all. Brain research is the proof text.

2)   Learning is quickly leaving the realm of the traditional classroom, and is entering an augmented, virtual reality. Mobile technology, such as QR codes, smart phones, and iPads, will soon be mainstream tools in the classroom. We’re talking within a matter of a few years, according to the Horizon Report: 2011 edition, an authoritative annual publication focusing on the future of education.

3)   On another note, it seems that Google is striving to become the proprietor of all human knowledge.  I couldn’t believe how many applications can be found with the name Google associated with it:  Plan your next vacation with Google City Tours; explore the human body with Google Body; investigate the science behind a bottle stopper at Google Patents; read the front page of your favorite magazine or news paper at Google Fast Flip.

I could go on.  I won’t because there is so much more.  I think the main thing I’ve taken away so far is that many of the assumptions that we have held about the nature of knowledge, learning and teaching are being revisited and rendered, in some cases, irrelevant. It’s almost like we need to start over and rebuild what we think we know when it comes to teaching our kids.  Knowledge no longer resides only in books or in the minds of great teachers.  We can find it anywhere, and anytime we want. 

What is great is that when it comes to the future of Jewish education, I’m going to be an optimist.  There are many Jewish educators here. Some are associated with Dayschools, others with what’s called part-time or complimentary Jewish education:  congregational schools, after-school programs and informal education.  We are all here to learn, with our general and secular education colleagues, how to build a better future for all of our students.  It is an exciting time. There is hope for a Jewish future.

Oh, and there is one more thing I’ve taken away. Hand luggage isn’t always hand luggage.  Don’t plan on a quick getaway from the airport by meticulously packing all of your belongings in a small carry-on. The flights attendants may decide that there is no room for your small bag. Then Murphy’s Law will come into play:  Your hand luggage will be the last piece to arrive.

Maybe some things will never change.  

Flying Into the Cloud

There’s something about airports. I find them exciting. For me I think they represent travelling into the unknown.  I mean I know that I’m flying to Philadelphia to participate in the ISTE11 (International Society for Technology in Education) conference, but I’m not exactly certain what to expect.  That’s a thrilling prospect.  What I understand is that thousands (according to one description I’ve read, 20000) educators and participants will be there.  Wow!

Thanks to PELIE (Partnership for Effective Learning and Innovative Education) I’m going to have the opportunity to explore ways that Jewish education can be transformed, through the use of digital and cloud based learning experiences. My pedagogical toolbox will be restocked and refitted.  These new implements of learning and teaching can be means that will certainly enhance the way we engage our students.  Just as the radio and television revolutionized what went on in the classroom in the last century, Google Docs, edmodo and mobile technology can transform learning tomorrow.

Of course, I’m going with a specific goal – exploring how edtech can be integrated into the Jewish classroom.  Just as secular education suffers from budget constraints, Jewish education (especially complimentary Jewish education) also is impacted by a deficit in financial support from synagogues, federations and national organizations. My hope is to explore how we can overcome monetary limitations and create vibrant Jewish educational experiences with the technology we already have, while advocating for increased investment.

For the next few days I’ll be blogging here about my experiences.  If you are interested in learning more about this conference from a Jewish perspective, follow on twitter at #pelietech, #jed21 and #avichaifdn. For general info about the conference, follow #iste11.

Onward and Upward!

Genesis Redux

“The medium, or process, of our time – electric technology – is reshaping and restructuring patterns of social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life...Everything is changing…Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men [sic] communicate than by the content of the communications.” (Marshall McLuhan)

These prescient words were written by Marshall McLuhan in his ironically entitled book The Medium is the Massage in 1967.  The volume was an accessible explanation of his earlier (and denser) work.  His premise, ergo the title, was that:

“All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive…that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.  The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments.”

Facebook has changed the world.  It’s not so much WHAT’S said on this social network.  It’s how it is said.  It is the way we make ourselves known. We declaim.  We share private moments. We express our opinions without regard of who reads our words. Being a friend is now a verb and relates to people who, in the past, we would have ordinarily forgotten. We publically open ourselves up to the world.  The public square, once the center of town, is no longer a place where we need to physically gather to find out “what’s happening”.  It is nowhere and everywhere. It is the global, virtual, social network. The soapboxes upon which we stand are plugged into an available power outlet.

So what do we do about this?  Embrace it.

If what we say becomes, as McLuhan wrote, shaped by how we express it, then we need to understand the social networking environment.  Notions of privacy are being thrown out, and replaced by new norms. The nature of public discourse is being redefined. The way our students conduct themselves in both the physical and virtual universes has been shaped by digital life and will translate into modes of behavior and learning in the classroom. The way we teach must reflect the way our students interact with their environment.  We, the instructors, are just one facet of that educational milieu. Rather than bemoan the accouterments of social networking, it is incumbent upon us to truly understand the ramifications of these new definitions and modes of behavior and direct our energies towards accommodating what we do, as teachers and educators, to these new realities.

Socrates, in Plato’s Phaedrus, bemoans the state of humanity, blaming its inevitable demise on the invention of those insidious new technologies, the alphabet and writing.   He claims that this new fangled idea of writing things down will result in the destruction of memory. How far have we gone! Technology shapes the way we experience the world. McLuhan wrote: 

“The wheel is an extension of the foot; the book is an extension of the eye…clothing, an extension of the skin…electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system.  Media, by altering the environment, evoke in us unique ratios of sense perceptions. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act – the way we perceive the world.  When these ratios change, men [sic] change.”

Social media has led us to new ways to interact with the world and with each other. Maybe this is the next step in human evolution. 

And it was evening, and it was morning, the next day.

Answers to Open the Door

Pesach is a time for questions.

So, in the spirit of the season, I would like to ask you some.  I’ll start with one: How do Jewish educators learn to use 21st century educational technology in the Jewish classroom?  This will lead to a few more.  What follows is a survey with 15 questions (an auspicious number for Pesach). The goal of this short (5-8 minutes) questionnaire is to find some answers to the question of how and what we learn.  

My friend and colleague Barry Gruber recently posted a piece about the smorgasbord of opportunities to learn what the ‘net provides. He’s right – it truly is a blessing.  I wonder if this cornucopia is so bountiful that there will be many who, like the 4^th child, will be so intimidated by all the resources available that they will be daunted by the act of beginning to learn. They won’t know where to start. They won’t know what to ask. If this is the case, what should we do about it?

Ergo the survey.   This is an independent project to explore the nature of on-line Jewish professional development related to the utilization of educational technology.  It’s focus is to find out how we Jewish educators learn about these new tools, where we learn from, and if we need to make these learning opportunities more accessible.  I'm hoping that this information will help shape the way Jewish educators can easily learn more about the use of digital tools in their classrooms.

Teaching is leading.  We educators create an environment for our students to construct their knowledge base.  The tools that are being developed today and tomorrow empower us to achieve this goal.  The complicated part is that we need to learn how to use them.  There’s the rub.  What’s the best way for the educators, who can’t go to conferences or don’t have local resources provided by central agencies, to learn how to take the next step into the world of digital Jewish learning?

Questions.  There are many.  And the answers may lead us to an understanding of what we can do to build a solid base of Jewish educators who can comfortably engage their students, speaking a common language. This is why I’m asking you all to take part in this adventure.

I must thank Jonathan Woocher and Rebecca Leshin of the Lippman Kanfer Institute for supporting this project and providing the platform to make it possible. I also want to acknowledge the many educators in the Jewish cloud who have contributed ideas to help create this survey.  There are too many to mention by name, but I do want to thank you all for you assistance.

So please click here to access this professional development survey.  Answers can be signposts leading us in the direction of creating Jewish futures for our students. We just need to start with the questions.  Together let’s find the answers.

If Not Now, When - Blurring the Lines for the Future of Jewish Education

The dust is settling after the January JEA and NATE conferences.  Synagogue educators of all stripes and flavors are returning to our old haunts: Congregations and real life. A taste of what is possible still remains in our mouths, though. We need to ask: How do we keep the spirit that we felt in Mt. Laurel and Seattle, alive?  How do we move forward?  What’s next?

Now is the time for us to translate what we started to learn last month into our everyday routines.  What this means, IMHO, is that we need to work harder to create our own Professional Learning Network (PLN). We have learned that we don’t have to be in the same room/city/state/continent to learn from each other.  We have learned the real strength of social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Now we need to take the next step and get involved in these networks, learning from each other and building something brand new.

The laboratory that was NATE or JEA was great:  A controlled environment where the best of the brave new world could be displayed in all its cyber glory, pointing a way to what could be. But we all know that when we’re on our own in our offices back home, life has the annoying habit of happening: Distracting us with emergent issues like the kid and her mom who goes to soccer practice instead of the B’nai Mitzvah family program; the teacher who can’t get it together enough to turn in a legible lesson plan, let alone any; the board member who doesn’t understand why religious school teachers should be paid a reasonable wage. We all face these issues daily. We must not let them get in the way of our moving forward to build a vibrant edifice that IS the Jewish future. We can’t let the mundane get in the way of the sacred: L’mavdil ben kodesh l’hol.

Let it be proclaimed through all the lands and Second Life: The tools we need to learn how to construct tomorrow’s educational systems are available in the cloud, from teachers and thinkers at #jed21, from networks, sites and blogs like the Jewish Education Change Network, YU2.0, Welcome to the Next Level, The jewish-education Daily and many many more. They are a mere mouse click away. 

Yes, these resources are there to teach us, but what we need to do is to organize, to work together, regardless of affiliation or movement. This is my Unified Field Theory for Jewish Education: One “place” where we can all “meet” and discuss and build. Rather than the disparate links that can become overwhelming to us and especially to those who didn’t attend either conference, we should create a clearinghouse that will enable us to learn from each other.  We don’t have time in our ridiculously busy days to follow every tweet or blog. I know how traumatic missing 12 hours of tweets can be. We congregational/supplemental/complimentary school educators need to (If I may mangle my friend and colleague Ira Wise’s blog title) get to the Next Level and create one forum that will be OUR Professional Learning Network, irrespective of denomination or movement. 

I’m ready to work on this experiment.  Anyone want to join me?

And if not now, when?

From Sinai to Cyberspace, Pt. 2: Thawing out

As I reflect on the Jewish Educators Assembly conference that just ended, the lyrics of an old song pops into my head: “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.”  It’s not that we’re clueless when it comes to us knowing what Jewish education will look like in the future; it’s just that we’re not sure in what direction we’ll be traveling.

So…maybe we are a little clueless after all.

Let me back up for a moment. The close to 200 participants at the Conservative movement’s education conference were exposed (many for the first time) to web 2.0 platforms that foster collaboration and have the potential to build community in new ways. For many of those present, the learning curves were steep as questions were posed, such as: “How do I set up a twitter account?” and “What is a Personal Learning Network?”  Lisa Colton (@darimonline) presented the challenges facing Jewish professionals as we reach out to a new generation of Jewish parents. Caren Levine (@jlearn20) introduced tools that enhance professional development, all within the context of social media, and opportunities of cloud based collaboration.  David Bryfman (@bryfy) stressed the importance of stepping out of our professional and institutional comfort zones as we look at existing structures, re-visioning them through a process of re-prioritization. discovering  new opportunities we never dreamed of. 

So in this embarrassment of riches with which we were blessed at the JEA, we must ask the hard question:  What is truly necessary in our work and for our constituents? And here is where we get to the hard stuff.

Who are our constituents? Parents?  Kids?  How are Baby Boomers, Gen “Xers” and Millenials different from each other?  How do we rise to this challenge of being effective in reaching different generational cultures? How do we cope with the democratization (or is it the rise of the consumer ethic) of knowledge? More than any other time in history, not only do people have a greater exposure and ability to get answers to ALL their questions; they also demand a say in what they want to learn, and when.  We seem to be on the cusp of a reordering of the traditional dynamic between parent, teacher and child.  Pam Edelman, from Yerusha, presented a model of Jewish education that is sort of a combination between home-schooling and the scouting merit badge program.  It exists outside of current institutions, and was born out of young families’ frustration with organized Jewish life today.  Is this a fad or a trend?   Should we, as Jewish professionals, feel threatened by this new phenomenon, or embrace it?  

The new tools that enhance collaborative learning (like Voicethread and Google Docs) and building school communities (such as interactive school websites like Activit-e) reflect the reality that relationships are central to building authentic Jewish lives. What this means is that the digital tools we have available to us today are only means to create a 21st century Klal Yisrael. This idea of unity certainly isn’t new.  It’s just that the way to achieve it, is.

 Ultimately, the question that underlies all others, in my mind, is what will Jewish communal life look like the day after tomorrow?  The idea of Social Networking was ubiquitous at the JEA conference. It’s all about relationships and how technology can be a tool to enhance the growth of community. As others have said before me, it’s not about the tech, it’s about the people.

As I write these words, I’m sitting in the Philadelphia airport waiting for my flight to take off in the driving snow.  At the same time, the final keynote address is being given back at the conference.  Robyn Faintich (@Jewishgps) is live-tweeting it at #jea59. The speaker, David Bryfman has asked the participants to close their eyes and “think about the future: What COULD Jewish life look like in your imaginary vision.  Who are the learners? Where? When?”

Next week the Reform movement's educators are meeting in Seattle for their conference: called "Imagineering Jewish Education for the 21st Century". They too are exploring the frontiers of technology and Jewish education. I can't help but think that we are at a serendipitous moment, when we all are on the same page of Talmud. We all know what needs to be done, we're just trying to figure out how. I believe now is the time for Jewish futurists, educators,and leaders from all movements to come together and explore tomorrow. If I may borrow Jack Wertheimer's imagery, we need to break down the denominational silos and finally collaborate.

We don’t know what next week will look like.  Before us are possible paths. In this age of cloud computing, virtual communities, and social networks, we need to take the leap of faith and move forward, not knowing exactly where it will take us, but being confident that by embracing the future, we will ensure a Jewish context for all those who will live in it.

From Sinai to Cyberspace, Pt. 1: Preparing to freeze.

I'm sitting in a pizza joint in Palm Beach International, waiting for my flight to the frozen tundra of southern New Jersey.  Why would I, a 17 year resident of tropical Florida be braving the Arctic cold of the North East?  What would have prompted me to purchased a down jacket - my first since the 1970s?  There's only one answer:  looking for tomorrow,  today.

I'm on my way to the Jewish Educators Assembly Conference, called "From Sinai to Cyberspace: Exploring the Impact of Technology on Jewish Education".   The Conservative movement (like the Reform next week) is embarking on a journey to investigate the interface between digital learning and Torah. We educators know that something must change.  We also know that the process of re-visioning Jewish learning is well on its way.  We are in the midst of learning how these Jetson-like tools can work for us today.

I plan on blogging the conference, sharing with you my thoughts,  impressions, questions, and maybe even gossip and trivia, if anything pops up.  I'll also be tweeting my experiences at #jea59 (as well as #jed21).  If you can't be with me, freezing your tuches off, at least you can vicariously experiencing how today we take our steps, virtual and real, into the future.

Tinkering With Tomorrow

When I was a kid I loved tinker-toys. I would spend hours constructing skeletal looking and what I thought were futuristic buildings.  I never knew what the outcome would be, I didn’t know if what I was building would stand up to the forces of nature or my brother’s kicks, but I had fun.  I just built and then decided if what I created was worth the effort. That was then, this is now.

I bring this up as I finish watching the videos from the recently held Jewish Futures Conference that were just posted for all of our viewing pleasure and edification. Go here to watch the presentations yourself. I’m also in the midst of reading a fascinating collection of essays published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, entitled Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World, edited by Heidi Hayes Jacobs. The book and the conference videos are serendipitously providing me an opportunity to think about how we, as Jewish educators and futurists can tinker purposefully with a Jewish tomorrow.

What will we want our children, our students, to know when they emerge from their Jewish educational cocoon?  What will the Jewish curriculum look like tomorrow?  In one of the pieces in Curriculum 21, Jacobs suggests that we ask three guiding questions as we reevaluate curriculum and content in secular education. Let’s consider them within a Jewish context:

1.    Within the discipline being reviewed, what content choices are dated and nonessential?  In our world of Jewish learning, this question can be considered heretical.  Isn’t it all sacred?  What isn’t essential? How do we evaluate that? Who makes that judgment call?

2.    What choices for topics, issues, problems, themes, and case studies are timely and necessary for our learners within disciplines?   What is happening in the Jewish world NOW? How does Jewish practice and interpretation reflect life in the 21^st century? What are the roles of Israel and the Diaspora; of men and women; of interfaith families in Jewish life?

3.    Are the interdisciplinary content choices, rich, natural, and rigorous? What does it mean to engage in Jewish life, learning, and spirituality? What are the different ways of creating meaningful Jewish experiences?

Among the winners of the Jewish Futures Competition, a contest for the most “forward looking” Jewish educational thinkers and doers that was featured at the Jewish Futures Conference, we find Charles Schwartz and Russel M. Neiss, the creators of MediaMidrash.org. In their submission to the competition they posited a paradigm for future Jewish engagement resting on four guiding principles:  

1.    Jewish resources need to be open, discoverable, and accessible. The body of Jewish learning needs to be available to all who seek it - free and non-proprietary.

2.    Remixable. Jews need to be provided the tools and opportunity to transform and reinterpret Jewish tradition and life. 

3.    Jewish education needs to be meaningful and relevant, providing the learner with a context in which to construct a Jewish life that matters.

4.    Meaningful Jewish life needs to continue to incorporate a process of community building, recognizing new definitions of affiliation and belonging, both face-to-face and virtual.

The way Jewish knowledge WILL be acquired tomorrow is different than the way it WAS attained yesterday. David Bryfman once wrote about the 19^th century revolution in general education revolving around the new fangled tool called the chalk board.  We are in the midst of a similar phenomenon, this time being driven by digital and social technology.  Learning is becoming non-linear. It is more and more a social process, driven by demand and developed by a community that is linked in synchronous and a-synchronous environments, both present and remote. For better or worse, education is turning into an even messier affair than it already is.  This is what will drive us to answer the questions of what to teach. The structure will be more fluid, transparent and flexible. Stephen Wilmarth writes in Curriculum 21 how education has been a cathedral, an elegant top-down process designed by “wizards and experts”.  The future reality can be described as a bazaar, a market place that is noisy and unpredictable, a result of uncontrollable forces.  Knowledge will be open to all, redefined and remixed when appropriate so as to become personally and communally meaningful in contexts of yet unimagined social networks, creating new types of communities.

Jonathan Woocher, in his closing remarks at the Jewish Futures Conference notes that there is no one Jewish future.  It can’t be pre-determined.  There are multiple possibilities. Schwartz and Neiss retell the midrash of Moses visiting Akiva’s classroom of the future, not understanding a word, even though his teaching is the lesson being taught.   If we were to step into H.G. Wells’ Time Machine and be transported into a Jewish learning environment of the future, what would we find? Would it be alien to us?  Should it be?

Long Distance Runaround: Pondering the CyBar/CyBat Mitzvah

When I first read this past Sunday’s New York Time’s article on digital B’nai Mitzvah preparation, my first thought was that it was intriguing that this topic would be the lead story in, of all things, the Fashion and Style section. It then occurred to me that the topic’s visibility in the soft news section is a sign of how truly mainstream Judaism has become in American culture. This is what we have been fighting for – to be accepted in secular society. We have done such a good job that a central Jewish-American ritual has become a subject of pop culture. Like all the rest of American lifestyle, our traditions are now morphing into something potentially unrecognizable in this real world made virtual.

The point of the article, as I see it, can be found in this question asked in the fourth paragraph of the piece: “If dating, shopping and watching TV can be revolutionized by the Internet, why should bar and bat mitzvahs be immune?” That is it in a nutshell. Our communal striving for normalization and acceptance in the Diaspora has essentially led to the eradication of the line between the holy/kadosh and the mundane/hol. Nothing is sacred. Our coming of age ceremony, which is more of a process of becoming then merely a single event, has lost so much of its uniqueness that it can be acquired while the recipient is physically absent. Is this a tragedy? Maybe. What do we do about it? Embrace it.

Reaction to the CyBar/CyBat phenomenon seems to center on it being a reflection of a general decline in the centrality of Jewish communal life in the early 21st century. This is not news – those of us who work in synagogues struggle with this on an almost daily basis. We respond by trying to find new ways to engage our existing synagogue members and families, as well as to reach out to the unaffiliated. We are constantly exploring new models and technologies, and striving to create new visions that will enhance existing institutions. This is as it should be, and this is why we need to see the rise of the digital B’nai Mitzvah as an opportunity for us to expand our community. This requires developing a new paradigm of affiliation and membership. We need to leverage on-line participation, incorporating it into what we do in our brick and mortar facilities. This may take the form of a new synagogue membership category with its own price structure - call it “Virtual” if you will. We should contemplate creating semi-permeable walls that welcome those who are trying to find their own personal niche in the Jewish community. We must dare to think that digital experiences, if handled artfully, can be gateways to synagogue life for the unaffiliated. Face-to-face encounters no longer may be the only, or even primary, means of introduction to the Jewish community.

A Florida Rabbi I know, upon reading the Time’s article commented, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” This made me think of Sun-Tzu, the 6th century Chinese author of “The Art of War” who wrote, “keep your friends close, but your enemies closer”. We, the inheritors of the tradition passed down to us from Moses to the Great Assembly to our parents need to find the open hands waiting to receive that birthright. Could it be that those we think are the “enemies”, those we accuse of emasculating the Judaism from which we grew, are actually reshaping our heritage, leading us to the next step in a dynamic and flourishing Jewish future?

Learning To Read All Over Again

It’s that time of year again. I’m not talking about Yom HaAtzmaut, or Shavuot. I’m not even referring to end of the year progress reports, Hebrew evaluations and confirmation services. This is the time that my thoughts focus on the next few years. What will my school look like in a year or two? How can I, in partnership with my school parents, initiate and implement constructive and transformational change?

There are a lot of interesting ideas floating around the cloud these days. One I just discovered can be found at Yerusha (here: http://www.yerusha.org/index.html and here: http://www.forward.com/articles/127124/). This new model of Jewish education aspires to returning parents to the role of primary educator through learning experiences that integrate technology and homeschooling. I would love to know how and if it works. I do know that there is much to learn from this program. This is just one proposal – one way that we can reach our students, whoever they are.

I recently attended the 2010 Technology Conference hosted by the Palm Beach County School District. There, I explored how the iGeneration (or whatever you want to call folks born in the last decade or so) speak a different language. We educators need to adapt to shifting notions of literacy, adopting the concept of “Transliteracy”: the ability to read, write and interact across an array of platforms and tools. This doesn’t just mean that we need to integrate the iTouch and Google Earth into our lessons. What it demands from us is that we must re-learn how to read. It is incumbent upon us to develop the ability to understand the new alphabet that our students are embracing. At the same time, we need to learn to listen to the language our school parents are speaking, as they strive to find ways of connecting their kids to a Jewish future.

Jason Ohler defines literacy as “being able to consume and produce the media forms of the day. The default media form has shifted from the essay to the multimedia collage.” (http://www.jasonohler.com/storytelling/beyondwords.cfm). What this means in the world of Jewish educational engagement is that we need to reset our defaults. These new modules may vary from cell phone texting as a classroom tool to a community oriented spiritual experience by a lake. It doesn’t matter if the learning is electric or organic. Labels are irrelevant. What matters is not that we can decode a language – reciting a string of symbols without comprehension - but that we can really read - ascribing meaning to the words written in those symbols. It means immersing ourselves in a new literacy that will shape how the future will be perceived. It means that maybe, if we become fluent enough in these new languages, we too can become writers, reaching the readers, opening doors to Jewish tomorrows.

But first we need to learn to read all over again.

Of Parking Meters and Particle Colliders

At the beach I was flummoxed by technology. Once upon a time we’d go the shore, find a parking spot and deposit whatever loose change we had into the parking meter. There has been a revolution, though. The old fashioned parking meter was replaced by a computerized one, which now handles the entire lot. We keyed in our parking space number, deposited the requisite amount of quarters, and the meter remembered how much time we had. Cool! For some reason however, the-powers-that-be determined to revert to a hybrid system: No more parking numbers. We deposit our quarters and then (are you ready for this high tech solution?) we receive a paper receipt that we must place face-up on the driver’s side dash. It seems that the technological innovators of South Florida didn’t totally get what they were doing. It’s the old 1 step – 2 step shuffle. Backwards.

Recently I’ve read about the problems facing CERN’s Large Hadron Particle Collider - a piece of super advanced science equipment that was felled after only 9 days of operation by essentially an electrical short. So far it’s taken a year to figure out how to fix it. Sometimes I think modern technology is enthusiastically embraced without fully understanding the ramifications or consequences.

I’m not suggesting anything as luddite as to slow down. We need to progress. My question is if we’re moving too fast for everyone else? This morning’s NY Times had an article about the move into digital textbooks. You can find it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/education/09textbook.html?scp=4&sq=tamar%20lewin&st=cse. It’s not that it’s a bad idea. I embrace it, but the question (raised in the article) is what to do with kids who don’t have computers. Will the technology we need to utilize to move forward have an unintended side affect of creating a class of people who don’t have equal access - the educational haves and have-nots? We need to think this process through to its logical conclusion.

So how do we not repeat the mistake of the Delray Beach Ministry of Parking or CERN? How do we take control of the use of technology in our classrooms without paying a price? The particle collider costs something like $10 billion. The cost of our misusing technology or (worse) misunderstanding the ramifications of using these tools in the Jewish classroom is much higher. Yes, we’ll make mistakes and pay good money for them. This will not make our congregational funders pleased – they already have limited tolerance for trial and error anyway. But it’s the kids that concern me the most. I don’t think we want to lose an entire generation because we didn’t totally understand what we were doing.

As we travel into the yet uncharted void of the digital universe, it seems to me that we need to make sure of three things: That we are comfortable with the technology, that the teachers who will be the front line practitioners, understand how these tools work, and that the students don’t suffer from OUR growing pains. The kids will have no patience for our fumbling. On our journey, we need to tether our teachers and students with us. But the line needs to be short. We need to be able to reel them in quickly. We can’t lose them. The worst sin of an educator is irrelevance. It’s a price we can’t pay.

The Jewish future in 140 characters

Twitter has been called overrated, overblown, narcissistic and a waste of time. I never bought into that. I knew that there was potential there. I felt that meaning and relevance could be found despite the plethora of celebrity tweets. Last week my patience was rewarded.

It began with a question about the recently released paper describing the L.A Bureau of Jewish Education's Jewish education concierge program. You can find it here: http://www.jesna.org/sosland/resources. The discussion that ensued concentrated at first on the relative merits and legitimacy of the program described in the piece. It quickly expanded into a far reaching conversation among a group of folks who are tenuously connected by at least 6 degrees. Some of us have never met one another – our first encounter being in the #JEd21 thread (in the twitterverse you can define discussion topics – this is what ours was named). Community, congregation and education and the role of technology was our focus.

What I loved about it was that we were taking on these weighty matters using a new technology and overcoming a major obstacle. What we wrote needed to be meaningful and very succinct, resulting in a lot of creative spelling. Also, in a sense I felt it mirrored a Talmudic debate, to the extent that it was asynchronous. We were conversing over time and space. The nature of the exchange reflected the topic. How does technology impact Jewish engagement? How does it change the way we see community, congregations, synagogues and education?

The very relevancy of synagogues in this brave new future we are creating was put into question. What is the definition of a synagogue: The building or the congregation? This morphed into a discussion about the difference between congregations and communities. Can a true community exist in a virtual universe? Does a congregational experience need to be exclusively “f2f” (face 2 face in twitterspeak). Should synagogues continue to be responsible for Jewish education, or are there new and better venues out there - in the concrete world or in the internet cloud? Is this an either/or proposition? Is it “brick vs. click” or “brick with click” as it was pithily tweeted? What are the responsibilities of the learner and the learning provider in this newly defined world?

I am not giving this 3 day tête-à-tête full justice. There was much more – go to twitter.com and search for #Jed21 and read up. My point is that we have already embarked on a journey into the cloud. I don’t know where it will take us, but I do think we will end up in a stronger and more vibrant place. When Yochanan ben Zakkai went to Yavneh, he and his followers were doing something outrageously revolutionary, ensuring a Jewish future. I wonder if the 21st century Ben Zakkai is even a human. I think that we may be starting a new chapter in what it means to Jewishly engaged and it’s being defined by an interface between people and machines.

Maybe even 140 characters at a time.