Section archive - Technology & Computers

Many educational systems worldwide are making substantial efforts to integrate an international dimension into local schools, fostering significant changes in the processes of instruction and learning as well as transformations at pedagogical and organisational levels. In this paper, we analyse data collected in four schools in Israel that the local press and educational authorities have acknowledged as schools that prominently and comprehensively incorporated international, global and intercultural dimensions. We employ a case-study approach based on interviews with principals and teachers; analysis of schools' websites and documents; and on-site observations, in order to analyse the expression of internationalisation, understand who is involved in the implementation process, and stimulate thinking about the broader impact of this process.

In a move that will dramatically expand the number of Jews in Israel, the US and around the globe connecting one-to-one online through substantive Jewish content, Project Zug – an online learning start-up – is moving in-house to Mechon Hadar.The initiative will now be called: “Project Zug: Connecting through Global Jewish Learning, powered by Mechon Hadar.” Founded two years ago by American rabbinical student – Benjamin Ross – and an Israeli educator – Hagit Bartuv, Project Zug has achieved considerable start-up success, pairing more than 200 people of diverse backgrounds for weekly online learning sessions.

While I value tests, I also value student input and would love to find a way to give students greater input in creating their own exams. In a recent exam, I experimented with harnessing two simple educational technology tools, the Learning Management System and Google Docs to do exactly that by giving a pre-assessment assignment in which the class collaboratively created their review sheet for the test. In creating their review assignments, the students did an excellent job discovering the important ideas and details from the units studied. Many of their review items ultimately made it onto the test.

The Lookstein Virtual Jewish Academy is an online school dedicated to providing quality Jewish education to Jewish day school students as well as to select motivated Jewish learners throughout North America. The LVJA enables Jewish Day Schools to supplement and differentiate their instruction by providing affordable, innovative, and engaging instruction to students in grades 8-12 and in select cases enables individual students to connect with and become part of a global network of motivated and enthusiastic Jewish learners. The Lookstein Virtual Jewish Academy has been developing high quality online Jewish courses since 2011 and to date, we’ve successfully brought these courses to approximately 20 day schools and 200 day school students.