Section archive - Technology & Computers

Tzvi Pittinsky (@TechRav) reposts a reply to a Lookjed query about how technology can be successfully integrated into Jewish education. He describes how the Frisch School uses wikis, Google Docs, Prezi, Youtube, Skype, Voicethread and other web 2.0 tools to enrich and enhance Jewish learning.

Alicia Post covers the new Jewish educators weekly twitter chat, #jedchat, which launched last week when over 50 Jewish educators, practitioners and thought leaders from around the country got together to partake in an online real-time witter chat. This first ever Jewish educators chat was organized by Rabbi Akevy Greenblatt, Rabbi Dov Emerson and Rabbi Meir Wexler.

Since 2007, The Open University of Israel has been converting many of its textbooks to a digital format and making them available to students and others online. In the 2010-2011 academic year the University began a pilot project, making two digital textbooks for ebook readers available to students. In the 2011-2012 academic year, students will be using iPads to work with their digital textbooks.

Bryan Schwartzman tells of the first major academic project undertaken by the Philadelphia Day School Collaborative, a consortium of seven Philadelphia Day Schools – integrating the Gemara Berura, an Israeli designed software package into the Talmud studies curriculum of the schools. The seven schools will be introducing students to the program in the fall. The local roll-out for 'Gemara Berura' represents a bold attempt to utilize technology to shed light on an ancient discipline.