I am the Director of Educational Technology at The Frisch School, a Yeshiva high school in Paramus NJ. I am also a Smart Board Certified Trainer. I do consulting work for Gemara Berura Smart Board training and give webinars for Yeshiva University's Institute for University-School Partnership's Online Continuing Education Program. You can read my blog at http://techrav.blogspot.com and follow me on Twitter @tzvipittinsky.

Thank you Richard.  I actually spoke with the head of Davka and he said that they are planning on developing some OTFs in the near future.

I thank you and your colleague for their suggestions; however, the issue with DavkaWriter is that its fonts are completely native to the software and are not exportable.  Obviously, this becomes a problem when you want to be more creative than DavkaWriter permits.

Available at www.jr.co.il the Jacob Richman lists are a compendium on line of resources on Jewish and Israel education topics and materials including games, videos, music, and other resources for individuals and the classroom. I find the directory of his web resource, which is included in the above adress particularly helpful. I also have made good use of his video collection, also listed at the page and of his hotsites. He also maintains material on new olim to Israel.

Although it is older technology, I often find that Dagesh is a better Hebrew word processor for my use than Davkawriter. I believe its fonts are exportable. A nice function that I frequently use on it is auto nikud.  I also believe it to have a greater library of clip text than davkawriter, if memory serves.

I teach in our local Solomon Schechter affiliate where I am also the Hebrew Language Coordinator and Jewish Holiday Programming Coordinator.  I'm the Education Director of Camp Ramah in the Poconos and the Enrichment Specialist at my synagogue.  I am pursuing another degree and happen to be enrolled in a course on Technology and Jewish Education, so it is fortuitous that the opportunity to join this presented itself this week!

I have a SmartBoard in my classroom, which I use frequently.  I use it often as a projector but we do 'interact' with it.  I've also used it for Skyping with the class.  For example, just prior to the elections in Israel a couple of years ago, we skyped with the father of a former student.  He was the Philadelphia consul and had just returned to Israel.  He explained Israeli government to my fifth graders right at their level!

I am hoping to gather as much information between this forum and my course to become better at integrating the technology available to me and to prove to my own children that an old dog can learn new tricks!

The course I am enrolled in is part of the Ed.D. program at Gratz College.  The instructor for the course entitled 'Technology and the Future of Jewish Education' is Deb Nagler who will be presenting this coming week at the JEA in New Jersey.

Hi Richard, I am not actually a professional Jewish educator at this time so I hope you don't mind me lurking in your group! I worked for USCJ earlier in my career but since then have gone on to work in secular IT and software roles. Interest in any synergies we can create between Jewish educators interest in technology, and technology folks interested in Jewish education.

Hi

My name is Fran Zavin and I am education director at B'nai Israel Congregation in Rockville, Maryland. We hav begun the journey of integrating technology into our program, but really only just begun it. I am excited about being part of this group and sharing/hearing what others are doing.

B'yedidut,
Fran

Shalom Fran,

I have two suggestions and here they are.

1. Post questions to the members of our CoP and begin a conversation on how we can help you.

2. Perhaps these two webites may help you find web tools that might assist you at B'nail Israel:

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AVHRiMW9xDMfZGRycHJnaGZfODZjdzd0czlkMg&hl=en

http://richarddsolomonsblog.blogspot.com/

Kindly let us know how we can assist you.


Richard

Hi Richard,

I just read your post about PBL and was thrilled to see what you are doing with your students. how is it going?

I was curious whether there would be time/space to connect korbanot to prayer? Perhaps it would illuminate an often hard to understand tradition.

All the best
Andrea

Hi Andrea,

My students are education directors, regional directors and staff developers working with teachers in day and complementary schools. They are the ones who should receive all the credit. I simply share ideas, demonstrate examples, and give them the opportunity to collaborate and create meaningful and engaging Judaic curriculum. By the way, have you seen this? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mtHLXpMqNZROxCLY_3z50Rg5sJg34WKE-TSuDoHeyEU/edit?hl=en_US Richard