Rabbi Yedidya Rausman is the Founding Director of WebYeshiva.org. He received his BA at CUNY Queens College and his rabbinical ordination from Yeshivat Hamivtar and Rav Zalman Nechemia Goldberg. In this article, he explores the possibilities in live, interactive, distance-learning programs.
Over the last ten years, retail sales, communication and education have changed dramatically. Instead of shopping at the traditional marketplace, making a phone call or attending classes at a typical brick-and-mortar building, society today has evolved to an online platform where Amazon.com, Facebook, Twitter and online universities are growing substantially. The expansion of the Internet has created a revolution that makes opportunities available just with the click of a mouse. In fact, despite the recent economic downturn, Amazon.com has been listed in Forbes.com as one of the fastest growing retailers with 80% growth over the last three years. Facebook currently has more than 500 million active users, and as of June 2010, Twitter had 65 million tweets per day. The statistics are testimony to an ever-changing world that is evolving to an online platform that is expanding as fast as technology capabilities allow.
While society’s method of commerce and communication has evolved to an online platform, so has education. Ernst (2008) notes that there is an overall movement towards online education because there is a greater need for flexible scheduling coupled with the emergence of communication technologies that have allowed distance learning to become an effective educational method. The Washington Post recently reported that the evolution of Web technologies, such as streaming video, social networking and interactive gaming, have created a collaborative, classroom-like experience online. The online learning experience has not only permeated college education, but companies have recently offered public school and private school curricula for K-12 students online. The mindset behind online educational classes is that instead of education being “school-centered” in a traditional classroom, it is “student-centered” and tailor made for the individual student.
In fact, the “student-centered” approach seems to be growing particularly in the college sector. In 2006, The Sloan Consortium conducted a survey that indicates that online learning enrollment significantly surpassed general college enrollment, with 3.5 million people taking at least one online course that fall. As more online instructional applications develop, institutions of higher education are offering more online courses versus traditional classroom courses. Sixty-seven percent of colleges and universities agreed that online learning is a major part of their long-term strategies (Ernst, 2008). Why is that? Today, people are juggling multiple projects, jobs and responsibilities, and are looking for convenient methods to achieve their goals. Distance learning offers a mother with young children or a business professional juggling work and college the ability to take courses at their own pace and schedules. Online learning affords people the opportunity to advance their educational portfolios when otherwise they would not be able to do so.
There is a growing need for Jewish education to be accessible to anyone, anywhere over the Internet.ATID, an organization founded by Rabbi Chaim Brovender to help shape and develop the future of educational leadership in the Jewish community, responded to this need by establishing WebYeshiva.org, the first fully-interactive Torah study program on the Web, to enrich the lives of Jewish students of all ages around the world. The organization utilizes the latest video-conferencing technology to offer real-time, interactive classes by outstanding Rabbis and teachers.
Jewish education
Jewish educators maintain a certain value for the traditional face-to-face learning approach that could not be substituted by an iPad or laptop screen. Discussing face-to-face, deep traditional ideas in Torah-thought is an experience that could profoundly affect both teacher and student on many levels. As Jonathan Woocher, CEO of JESNA, one of the largest Jewish education organizations in North America wrote, “An enterprise that is 3,500 years old need not rush to redefine its fundamentals based on a quarter-century of not unambiguously positive change” (2006). Indeed technology should not affect the warmth of an interpersonal teacher-student relationship, however technology has an ability to enhance and revitalize an existing educational approach in a way that may not have been realized by many Jewish educators.
We should consider the educational opportunities technology can offer the Jewish community at large. Web-conferencing allows Jewish institutions to offer many benefits to the Jewish community, including an expanded reach to Jews in remote areas with little access to Jewish learning, the ability to offer an “all-star” cast of educators despite geographic location, and the ability to take students to areas beyond the boundaries of the traditional classroom.
Reaching students in remote locations
The Internet has created a world where geographical location is no longer a hindrance in commerce, communication or education. The Internet has broken global boundaries with efficient communication capabilities, and has allowed companies to expand to multiple countries in a way that was once unimaginable. Bill Rust, Research Director for the education sector at the market research firm Gartner, said that the new technologies have created the “death of distance.” “When we talk about death of distance, with e-learning activities and collaboration tools, you can be next to somebody…or in a different country, the distance is not the limiting factor it used to be,” Rust explained (Overly, 2010).
Today, Jews are dispersed throughout the world – some can be in remote locations, such as Poland, Russia, or other countries that have little or no access to Jewish education. The Internet, Web-conferencing and other e-learning capabilities now allow Jewish educators to unite Jews from “the four corners of the earth” on one platform so that those who otherwise would not have had the opportunity to learn Torah can now do so. The geographic distance of the teacher and student or the student to other “classmates” is a factor that has been eliminated through the advancement of technology. Distance no longer matters; a teacher can teach students regardless of their location, and the interaction can still be dynamic. Students can interact with teachers in a classroom setting, or on a one-on-one basis, and can have full access to the text that they are learning no matter where they are. Just as technology created a world of globalization for commerce and communication, those same tools are allowing Jewish educators to globalize Torah and make it accessible to anyone.
In addition, students who once felt isolated from the Jewish community due to their geographical origin can now have a real connection to the Jewish community through online educational classes. Students can build networks of Jewish “friends” through various technology applications, and stay tapped- into the Jewish world. In cases where students are in isolated communities with little Jewish life, technology acts as the primary link to keep them connected to Judaism.
Creating an all-star cast
The relationship a student has with a teacher also acts as a link to Judaism, and it is crucial that the right teachers are chosen to impart Torah values. When developing the traditional Jewish day school, the choice of educators is dependent on the availability of staff in the area or on the few educators that are willing to relocate to the area of the school. Today, a school, synagogue or any other Torah institution can offer the best teachers from around the world to their local Torah institution. Web conferencing allows institutions to develop a high-level roster of teachers that can truly impact students and community members. Teachers can be located across the world and students can interact and seek advice from them as if they were in the same room. Technology has the ability to advance the level of Jewish education available to community members because it can provide an “all-star” cast of teachers that would otherwise be unavailable.
Taking students beyond the classroom boundaries
In addition, teachers can utilize Web- conferencing tools to bring Torah to life. For example, if a student is learning about me-arat hamachpelah, the teacher can take the webcam to the site and show students what it looks like today. Students can experience “first-hand” what they are learning, which creates a more meaningful learning environment. The classroom is no longer confined by its walls; technology transcends the boundaries of the classroom to provide students a richer Jewish experience.
Using technology to spread Jewish learning
In response to societal changes, ATID also created TorahTutors.org, a one-on-one, text-based Torah study tutoring Web site, to make high quality learning accessible to as many people in the Jewish community as possible, regardless of religious affiliation, and allow them to customize a learning schedule that fits individual backgrounds and goals.
Both TorahTutors.org and WebYeshiva.org have seen tremendous success in reaching out to students through an online platform. Understanding that society has evolved to the online platform, WebYeshiva.org and TorahTutors.org utilize existing technology to reach students in remote locations, provide students with high-level teachers and take students beyond the confines of the classroom to provide a more meaningful Jewish education in an ever-changing world.
References
Ernst, J. V. (2008). “A Comparison of traditional and hybrid online instructional presentation in communication technology.” Journal of Technology & Education (19)2.
Overly, S. (2010). “Online education evolves as advances in technology make major impact.” The Washington Post, 27 September.
Sloan Consortium (2007). “Distance learning: Going the distance.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 22.
Woocher, J. (2006). “Jewish education in the age of Google.” Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs 8.