Section archive - Technology & Computers

Four skills have been identified as critical for the twenty-first century – Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication and Collaboration. The skills of creativity and critical thinking will equip students to deal with an ever-changing world. The skills of communication and collaboration both focus on the increasing need for interaction with others. This issue of the journal addresses challenges of twenty-first century learning. For many, when they hear of 21st century learning they immediately think of technology. That is understandable, but as Gary Hartstein writes in the opening article, the technology is nothing more than a tool – like a pencil or a whiteboard – and needs to be harnessed properly with educational thought to move education forward.

Throughout the 2013-2014 school year, JETS has been facilitating a unique program of online classrooms in which American and Israeli students collaborate on shared projects as a means of 'meeting' their peers virtually 'Across the Sea.' The TALI Shutafut project twins classrooms in North America with classes in Israel to enable the 5th and 6th grade students to share projects and review each other's thoughts, outlooks and opinions. The program is based on the TALI system's 'Friend across the Sea' curriculum which JETS has adapted for online asynchronous class work.

Temple Emanuel in Pascack Valley, NJ is working with Jerusalem Edtech Solutions (JETS Israel) on a unique project of online education. Among the goals of the program, JETS and Temple Emanuel educational staff want to encourage a higher degree of parental involvement in their children's Hebrew school experience and an increased understanding of what their children are learning. The project, entitled The Holocaust: Remembering and Rebuilding, provides an overview of the Holocaust and the Rebirth of the State of Israel for the Temple's Bar and Bat Mitzva class. Students meet online over the course of three months to gain a deeper understanding of the Shoah and the establishment of the State of Israel, and how they impacted -- and continue to impact -- the Jewish World.

WhatsApp, a messaging app that allows users to interact individually, and as a group, with their friends, directly from their phones presents a number of educational and spiritual challenges, both for teens, and for educators trying to teach our students to learn to manage their lives and the many distractions that constantly bombard them. In this month's Eye on Education, Rabbi Yona Goodman, Director of the Institute for Contemporary Chinuch with Emunah at the Orot Israel College of Education presents some of the issues that WhatsApp presents, and suggests several ideas to address the challenge of 24-hour connectivity.