I found a way to eat my lunch in peace. All I have to do is approach some innocent faculty member in the cafeteria and begin a sentence with “I have this great idea for integrating technology into your…” And immediately I begin to sense a quick and steady movement as teachers around me begin to plot their escape. I can then sit and eat my meal in peace.

Seriously, the words “technology integration” scare people. Couple those words with “Limudei Kodesh” (Judaic studies), and you begin to have a mass exodus towards the nearest fire-escape. Many teachers believe that Limudei Kodesh and technology cannot and should not be integrated.

But, in every school there are pioneers who are willing to step forward to try and implement new learning structures. They believe that technology integration has invaluable benefits in enhancing and even accelerating learning. As it turned out, the Jewish History teacher at Ramaz had already decided that she wanted to develop a student-based learning project to construct a deeper knowledge of the Medieval Era in Jewish History. Together, we devised a plan. We developed an interdisciplinary project that involved the JH, art, and technology departments. As a culminating project, students were asked to develop an art poster depicting a famous Jewish personality from the Medieval Era. In the center of the poster, students were to draw a visual representation of the individual, surrounded by a collage of artworks and objects that were connected to what they have learned about the life of the individual. In preparation for this activity, we developed a web page with hyperlinks to famous personalities from that era, as well as links to Jewish art galleries and Judaica sites. Students were introduced to the website we prepared and asked to choose a personality. Through online research they were to compile ten index cards with different points of interest about their chosen personality, and once they completed the background research, they were asked to browse the art galleries and Judaica sites and find images or objects that related to their data. Ultimately, the activity evolved into a research/scavenger-hunt/art project, so that we were able to rub our collective hands together and “shepp nahas” (take pride) from the creation of an original interdisciplinary project. In a conventional biographical research project, students are often asked to restate facts. In contrast, this learning structure fostered independent learning by synthesizing multiple resource formats and requiring students to make concrete connections to and judgments about acquired knowledge. Sample projects and activity links are available at http://teach.ramaz.org/ms/jhistory.

Creating a scavenger-hunt may seem like a daunting prospect for those teachers who have never done it before, but in reality, it can be done with relative ease. For Judaic teachers brave enough to try, a web Scavenger Hunt is the way to go. Scavenger Hunts offer an excellent way correlate web experiences with specific curriculum objectives, while truly engaging the students in inquiry.

Here are some tips for constructing a successful Scavenger Hunt:

1.Think of the topic you want to reinforce. (For example: chametz on Pesach, kashrut, synagogues around the world)

2.Compile a list of questions that you want your students to research.

3.Using search engines such as Google (for searches in Hebrew, use http://www.google.co.il ) or AltaVista, search for texts, audio, images or videos that provide the students with the answers. J. Richman’s site ( http://www.jr.co.il/hotsites ) also offers a comprehensive list of Jewish related topics.

4.Compile a list of URLs.

5.You may create a website or a Word document with links to all of the sites. Filamentality ( http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/fil/) is a site that offers templates and web space to host Scavenger Hunts and other Internet activities. This is a good tool for novice Internet project builders.

One idea leads to another, so that after our initial success, we began to think of other ways in which technology can complement the Jewish History curriculum. Thus was born the idea of the HoloQuest. ( http://teach.ramaz.org/ms/holoquest/) Students studying the topic of the Holocaust were learning the facts and figures of the period. But did they relate to the Holocaust as a catastrophe that happened not so long ago to their own people? Did they absorb the reality that the only thing that stood between them and this “ancient history” was but 60 short years? The HoloQuest was designed with these questions as goals in mind. In this “Subject Sampler” activity students were asked to experience the colors, textures and sounds of the Holocaust. The Subject Sampler was not designed to teach them the factual history of the Holocaust, but to give the students an essence of “What does the Holocaust have to do with me?” Students were introduced to various aspects of that time period, through viewing images of the Warsaw Ghetto, being exposed to Nazi propaganda, delving into the life of Anne Frank, being an inmate at the Birkenau Camp, and listening to audio testimonials of survivors – all with the goal of having students connect to the topics emotionally. Students were then asked to reflect and respond by writing essays on topics of their choice. The results were remarkable, as students demonstrated emotional involvement, reflecting their personal connections to the Holocaust. As described in Bentaim BaBainaim, the Ramaz Middle School publication: Relating to children who smuggled food into the Warsaw Ghetto, one student wrote, “I really admire them. I don’t think I could let my family starve either.” Another commented about the ration cards that Jews received in exchange for food, “They only got to eat 300 calories a day! I would eat almost that much for breakfast and still be hungry by fourth period!” In comparing his life to Anne Frank’s, one student related how Anne did not like wearing the yellow star because it singled her out as a Jew. “I, on the other hand, am proud to wear a kippah and tzitzit because they show everyone I am a Jew.”

The Subject Sampler model is more specific in its goals than the Scavenger Hunt, and is designed to encourage a community of learners around a specific topic. In creating an activity using this format, consider the following:

1.Choose a dynamic and inspiring topic. Subject Samplers tap into the Internet’s quirky, passionate, real stuff in order to connect students to the chosen topic.

2.Select a small number of websites organized around the main topic. Try to utilize the web’s multi-faceted interactive capabilities by selecting a variety of formats.

3.Rather than focusing on hardcore knowledge acquisition, encourage students to react to the websites from a personal perspective.

Not every web activity requires the advanced preparation of websites and resources. By word of mouth, as more teachers began taking advantage of the available technology, new activity formats began to emerge. In an “electronic appearance” activity format, students can communicate either in real-time or asynchronously with someone who is a subject matter expert. We are now in the process of planning with the halakha (Jewish Law) department faculty the creation of an online interpersonal exchange around the topic of the importance of keeping kashrut. The goal of the “electronic appearance” activity format is to allow for accessibility and interaction with experts that may not otherwise be available to the students. In this activity, students will chat online with a mashgiah (a kashrut supervisor) about the various facets of his job. This activity can be produced using IRC (Instant Relay Chat) which is readily available on the net. (http://groups.msn.com/) Teachers can create discussion forums or chat rooms with restricted entry in a matter of minutes. (To learn more about activity structures, visit Dr. J. Harris’s site at http://virtual-architecture.wm.edu/.)

It is important to remember that one does not need to be a high-tech computer wiz and web designer in order to create and implement an effective web-based activity. The activity can be designed by the tech-unsavvy using a simple word processor with links to the various resources. More important than the activity design is the content of the activity. Effective web based learning activities should take advantage of the Internet’s rich, vast and highly interactive environment. The Internet is unique in that it offers immediate access to current news, as well as a diversity of perspectives, access to a wealth of multimedia resources, collaboration and communication, and an increasingly interactive learning experience. It is essential to utilize these distinct characteristics of the web in constructing powerful and valuable Internet-based curriculum.

These days, my lunch periods have changed. I no longer sit alone in the cafeteria.