Eli Kugielsky's Blog (13)

I once read that one of the main reasons that people feel hurt is because of predetermined expectations. When a person is expecting something and then it doesn’t happen, that is a recipe for feeling let down. In life, I have taken many courses and attended countless conferences and workshops, and what I have found was that there were times when the higher the expectation was that I set for the event, the higher my letdown was too. To that note, I decided from then on to at least only attend…

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There are so many advantages in using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom, including the creating of a community of learners in your classroom, in which the learning is not just focused on individuals, but rather on the whole class growing together, and one of the other advantages being the low cost. Evernote is one of the 2.0 tools that bring these advantages to your classroom.

Evernote is an online organizational tool that allows you to clip text, images, audio, and PDF files from the…

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Did you ever have one of those days where things seemed to be making sense (at least academically) all day long? Today was one of those days for me. As part of YU’s EdTech certificate program that I am participating in, I was assigned the task of staying current with the ISTE conference either by being there live, or by watching the conference via video on demand. For those who are not yet familiar with ISTE, it stands for International Society for Technology in Education and is designed for…

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The 21st century research moves us educators away from the three R’s (Reading wRiting and aRithmatic), and leads us to the four Cs (Critical thinking and problem solving, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity and innovation. We have been introduced to many new Web 2.0 tools that can help us transition there. There were times along the way of this journey where things made more sense than others, but even at the best of times, I wasn’t sure how it all came together. Today, when I was… Continue

When our school started pushing 21^st century skills, and when I signed up for the YU EdTech certificate program, it was made very clear that technology is not the end result, it’s just a tool to help us get there. Throughout these courses we have been exposed to and had “shimush” with so many different tools, and that was amazing. I have gained so much knowledge, and my 21^st century appetite has been growing too. However, this week, when the assignment called for us…

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Do you ever go to a simcha and watch how some people just gravitate towards the band, as if that’s the main event? How about after a good lecture where there are those who just stay there until the guest lecturer actually drives away, without even saying anything to him? In both of these scenarios, I would be the one that I described. For me, it’s (at least according to my wife) not about a psychological problem that I may have, it’s all about the talent that I am so impressed with. When…

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I am not sure if now is the right time of the year to use the following saying, but there is a saying that says “when in Rome do as the Roman’s do”. Social networks are here, and they aren’t going away so fast. So as Jewish educators, how do we educate our students that everything has a purpose and a value? We show them how everything can be used for good too by having them use it for a good purpose. In order to turn this into a reality, I created a group in edmodo called JH Parsha (The code…

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Isn’t it funny how busy we all are? One might think that with the invention of machines and technology, that we would have so much more time than the people of the earlier generations. But truth be told, we are busier now than we were ever before. These same inventions that were supposed to simplify our lives have somehow managed to add a different sort of craziness to our lives. That is where productivity tools come in. They are supposed to be the Excalibur of our generation. These tools…

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I am really excited about discovering podcasts and how to create one, but I am really excited about actually using them for my classes next year. In the podcast I created I spoke about the concern that I had when students who were showing a great grasp on the subject matter while in class would be the very same ones who couldn’t perform well on a simple assessment the very next day in class. A great, easy, and free tool to use is a podcast. With a podcast, a teacher can record himself…

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Call me old school, but I am very cautious about giving out personal information over the internet. After reading chapter 10 in a book called “Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use”, I was all the more reminded of just how careful we have to be while cruising down the internet. I remember during our in-service this year, when we had to type in our cell phone number to activate one of the online tools, how I used my friends number because I was too scared to give my own number.…

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I have read a few blogs and articles about the concept of using Twitter in the Day School classroom, and the main obstacle which I read of using this tool, is that many Day Schools either forbid the usage of cell phones by the students, or that even if the students are working on their laptops, they have no access to the school wifi. These readings put a major damper on the excitement of trying something new in my classroom.

As I sat by my computer doing this assignment tonight, a…

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Using web 2.0 tools in my classroom is very new to me, and therefore quite daunting. This year I introduced Google docs and Glogster to my students as alternate ways to assess their mastery of the skills lessons covered in class. After reading this past chapter on Blogging, I see great potential for me and for my students. What I think I might introduce to my classes next year is a reflective question about something that came up in that days lesson as a homework assignment. For an example…

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I recently read an interesting article in Education Week which writes about Teachers College of San Joaquin, which plans on giving iPads to all its incoming graduate students and faculty beginning this summer. The primary reason for this bold move is to bolster classroom innovation as well as slash paper consumption by 92 percent. The article continues to explain how their school can afford to go ahead with this proposal. "We actually could provide iPads for our students without charging…

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