How+We+Get+There

The tools we choose to use to enhance our students' learning תפילה need to be appropriate for our goals. We're not creating lessons to use edtech. We are using edtech to fulfill specific needs. What follows is a list of activities and experiences that can serve to reinforce what the students are learning.**Please add more as you think of them**. I am using concepts associated with the revised version of Blooms Taxonomy by Lorin Anderson and David Krathwohl.This highlighted text is a link to a good overview.


 * Games and fun activities reinforce decoding skills, enabling students to recognize Hebrew rules and norms. Ultimately they will be able to apply this knowledge through demonstrating their decoding skills in a number of different modalities, including repetition and chanting.
 * Storytelling: By retelling the general background of the prayer in the student's own language, they are demonstrating their understanding creatively through invention and interpretation, composing novel explanations geared towards their peers and their parents;
 * Explaining/acting out prayer choreography: They will exhibit their ability to distinguish when certain rituals are performed by creating presentations for one another and their parents;
 * By creating their own representations of the prayer service rubric, they will show how they understand, organize and apply their knowledge in creating an order of service
 * As the students rewrite prayers in their own words, they are showing how they can understand, analyze and evaluate the text, through synthesizing a novel and meaningful formulation.

The digital tools that can be utilized to implement these activities are listed on the next page. This list is by no means complete. Technology is ever-evolving, and it is likely that some of the applications will become obsolete or replaceable by something better. This is just a first step.

There are a lot of tools in the cloud and there is not a lot of time in the day. Complimentary school educators need to budget their precious time so that the students (and they) don't spend a lot of time learning how to use a new application and trying to create an overly ambitious project. Keep it simple and small. In "Reflexions on Becoming a 21st Century Supplemental Jewish School" Margaret Wheatley illustrates this point by discussing the use of "micro-projects": activities that can be done in 2 to 3 class periods. The following lessons try to work within those parameters.

Also, using edtech applications by no means implies that non-digital tools are obsolete. There are many different methods that can enhance teaching and learning. 21st century technology is just the latest addition to an educator's tool box. Using cardboard flash cards and bibliodrama make as much of an impact as laptops and iPads.

Each of the lessons that follow each contain a number of different types of digital exercises. In a congregational/complimentary educational system there is limited time that can be devoted to תפילה instruction. Not all students can be expected to do all the activities. Stations can be set up in a classroom that will enable collaborative groups to complete a project, which then can be displayed to the other groups as well as to parents and other caretakers.

Both schools currently involved in this wiki have a web presence. The products of the students' work can be posted on these sites, so that parents can become part of the process. If students know that there work will not only be viewed by their teacher, but also their peers and family, this may provide motivation to publish a "quality product".

=Decoding=

One final note: keeping the above in mind, decoding practice (specifically the "S's" associated with Singing, Saying , and Skiming& Finding , for all תפילות can be practiced by the following activities: The next page explains more about the tools used in these activities.

Students can create:
 * a Voki (avatar) reading the prayer;
 * a Screencast in which they are reading the prayer and pointing to each word;
 * a Pod/vodcast that in which the students are chanting the prayer while performing the choreography.
 * Using Skype, students from one synagogue can read to and help one another: A form of long distance peer tutoring.

As these projects can be utilized in all of the lessons, they won't be repeated on all the pages - unless members of this wiki feel they should or would like to add more.

So onward to the next page to learn more about the tools.