• Are you a creative, curious, risk-taking educator in a Jewish educational setting?
• Do you have a really great idea for using new media / educational technology that you’ve wanted to test out?
• Do you want Darim to be your personal coach and mentor as you plan and launch your project?
• Is your organization ready to think about what it means to achieve your mission in a digital age?
• Are you interested in joining a community of like-minded educators for 9 months of intensive professional development and collaborative learning?

Darim Online is pleased to announce the opening of applications for  our next cohort of  Social Media Boot Camp for Educators. This program will support innovative Jewish educators in using social media effectively in their work, and assist their organizations in evolving models for success in the digital age.

The Social Media Boot Camp for Educators program is made possible through a generous grant by The Covenant Foundation.

About the Program

Darim is seeking to mentor up to 10 Jewish educational organizations, represented by 3-5 person teams, that are engaged in innovation and risk taking and which serve North American Jews. These teams will participate in a year long professional development and coaching experience to advance their work.

Program Structure

This Boot Camp cohort will run during the upcoming academic year, September 2012 – May 2013. Boot Camp teams are expected to commit 5-10 hours per month toward related professional development and project implementation (including webinars, coaching, and project development).

The program includes:

• Participation in our series of monthly skill-building webinars which includes Darim’s overall Learning Network for Educators (teachers, directors of education, rabbis, lay leaders, and others interested in Jewish education);
• Private coaching and consulting with Darim consultants to address strategic and tactical goals, and to help design, implement, and refine a technology-supported project. Teams from each organization will meet with a coach approximately twice a month over the academic year, with additional communications as needed;
• Connection with other members of the Social Media Boot Camp, to learn from each others’ experience and projects through an online community and webinar-based sharing;
• Representatives of your organization are welcome to attend any and all Darim Online Learning Network webinars

About the Team Driven Model

This program seeks to support educators and their organizations in creating and implementing social media projects that achieve their mission, and serve to mature the organization’s strategy and operations for success in the digital age. To achieve this goal, we believe that it is important for teams to participate in the program. Suggested team composition should include: an educator, senior staff, and lay leadership or other volunteer.

Teams will focus on a particular goal and project which may include innovations in: curricular design, professional development, parent-school engagement, or marketing and communications… just to suggest a few ideas. While the team will focus on one specific project, we expect that the experience of the Boot Camp will pay dividends in many areas of your work. We hope through this experience you will become active participants in shaping the future strategic direction of their organization.

Eligibility and Expectations

Eligibility

Applications are open to educators and their organizations, including but not limited to classroom teachers, education directors, rabbis, and cantors who work with North American Jews. We welcome applications from educators working within traditional institutions as well as those engaged in new models of Jewish education.

Our current cohort includes national Jewish educational organizations, congregational / complementary school programs, and a day school.

Expectations

We are dedicated to your success!

We therefore emphasize that regular participation in the Boot Camp is essential to gaining maximal value out of your experience and is important to the dynamic of the overall Boot Camp community.

Please be sure you and your team are willing to commit to this program. Below are our expectations for a successful experience. We recognize that we are working across multiple time zones and schedules and we are committed to being flexible and accessible within the program’s parameters so that you can derive the most benefit from your participation possible.

• Regular attendance at our series of skill-building webinars, which include education-focused sessions and general skill building sessions. Each member of your team is expected to attend at least 7 webinars over the course of the program, two of which can be downloaded and played instead of attending live;
• Regular participation in team coaching sessions with a Darim coach (approximately twice a month);
• Dedication of at least 3-8 hours per month to develop and launch your project;
• Regular participation in the Boot Camp’s online community;
• Presentation of your work in at least one Sharefest! Webinar;
• Willingness to share and disseminate lessons learned;
• Documentation of your experience in a format that can be shared with the community (e.g., a guest blog post on JewPoint0.org or a written case study).

Upon successful participation in this program per the terms above, each team will receive a budget of up to $250 to be used toward your project, subject to approval by Darim. Each team will be required to submit receipts for such purchases (e.g., securing a domain name, a private blog, a Flip video camera or other products or licenses).

Applications

Applications for the Social Media Boot Camp for Educators can be found here and are due Sunday, April 1, 11:59pm ET. Those chosen to participate in the cohort will be announced in late May.

Apply here!

A copy of the application form is available here to preview. We recommend that you prepare your responses in advance and cut and paste the text into the application form, since you will be required to complete the application in one sitting (but give us a shout if you run into trouble).

Important Dates

The Boot Camp runs during the 2012-2013 academic year (September 2011 -May 2012).

Please note: Although the program officially kicks off Fall 2012, we recognize that some participants may wish to begin their planning earlier; we are open to providing coaching on a limited basis to participants over the summer.

February 20, 2012 – Application process open
April 1, 2011 – Applications due by 11:59pm ET
Early May 2012 – Announcement of Social Media Boot Camp for Educators cohort
June 2012 – early coaching option for Boot Campers;
September 2012– Cohort Kick-Off, regular coaching schedule and webinars begin;
May 2013 – Final Boot Camp for Educators Sharefest!: to present work to the community; cohort concludes.

Questions?

Please contact us at learningnetwork@darimonline.org

In the field of nonprofit technology, we have another term for these sorts of folks:  The Accidental Techie.  As defined by Webster’s Online Dictionary:

In the field of nonprofit technology, an accidental techie is an individual who has gravitated toward responsibility for an organization’s information technology infrastructure, even though his or her professional training or job description did not include tasks of this kind.

In other words, someone’s filling the void, charting new territory, and becoming a resource for others in their organization.

More often than not, we find the accidental techies in synagogues are the educators.  Today in the last of our 6 part webinar series for NATE and JEA educators, we explored why this is often the case (they love learning curves, rather than being intimidated by them; they are willing to try new things and refresh their approach often; the “new rules of the game” walk in their door every year; and they know technology alone isn’t a silver bullet — the SMARTboard doesn’t educate the student, the teacher does), what their colleagues and organizations actually need, and how it feels to occupy this role.

As social media and other technologies are influencing individuals, society, and business, organizations must evolve the way they conduct their work and communicate with their constituents.  Enter technology.  From data management to communications to customer service.  While few will argue about the importance of these tools, most organizations have not actually made the structural changes to support their use.  One important shift is staffing.  Who has these responsibilities written into their job description?  Who is in charge of listening and engaging community members?  When do you need to move from the occasional IT consultant to someone who has expertise in-house?

In today’s webinar, educators shared the roles they are playing — from IT support to providing in-house trainings, from being the communications “nag” to the “technology advocate”. In some cases participants felt they are swimming upstream in a culture that does not yet recognize the importance or need of these tools and applications, nor recognizes the asset they have in a tech-savvy educator.  In other cases, participants felt that their congregation is in fact very appreciative of the expertise they bring, and are so eager to take advantage of it that they don’t have enough time to do their “real” job.

This is a moment of important evolution.  If you are an accidental technie or positive deviant, please know you’re not alone.  It’s so valuable to hear each others stories, to know what’s working well and where you could use some creative ideas and support from your peers.  How are you problem solving, balancing your various responsibilities, gaining respect and appreciation for this additional role you are playing, and ultimately advancing and maturing your organization?

I invite the NATE and JEA participants — and everyone else — to use the comments on this post as a space for sharing, listening, asking and supporting.

Interested in learning more about accidental techies?

Judi Sohn, from the Colorectal Cancer Coalition, writing on the NTEN blog

Robert Weiner, nonprofit technology consultant, writing on the NTEN blog

And now, announcing the 2011-12 cohort!  Drumroll please…

Centropa
Support the work of Centropa’s United States education department and its educators through the use of social media, including curricular resources and professional development.
Team Leader: Lauren Granite, US Education Director

Congregation B’nai Amoona, St. Louis
Create a mission driven vision that takes advantage of social media and other 21^st century technology tools to create strong and meaningful connections with a focus on integrating family education, adult education, and experiential education.
Team Leader: Jennifer Newfeld, Director of Congregational Learning

IKAR, Los Angeles
Create family-based learning activities and interacting with Jewish ideas and values through home-based Judaism that complements students’ face to face learning.
Team Leader: Rabbi Rebecca Rosenthal, Director of Education

Jewish Enrichment Center, Chicago
Develop a strategic “networked nonprofit” model of leadership that includes school professionals, parents, and volunteers.
Team Leader: Rebecca Milder, Director

Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, Evanston
Investigate new meanings of community and develop a Shabbat chavurah to support reconnection of the family and expand the ways members connect and communicate Shabbat experiences.
Team Leader: Terri Ginsberg Bernsohn, Religious School Director

Matan
Develop online professional development events for Matan’s Jewish education institutes and support associated communities of learning for leaders and future leaders in Jewish special needs inclusion.
Team Leader: Meredith Polsky, Special Education Coordinator

Temple Beth Abraham, Tarrytown, NY
Create multiple points of community building and engagement for current and potential congregational members with support from social media and personal learning networks.
Team Leader: Pamela Barkley, Director of Education

Temple Judea, Coral Gables, FL
Strengthen communication and engagement with parents and families in a strategic way to build and augment the synagogue’s educational community.
Team Leader: Beth Young, Director of Education

The Weber School, Atlanta
Use social media to provide students with opportunities to develop social and academic relationships with Israeli teenagers with whom they will be visiting during a 5 week Israel component in the middle of the school year.
Team Leader: Rachel Schwartz, Teacher, History and Judaics Departments

University of Washington, Stroum Jewish Studies Program, Seattle
Develop a localized, interactive, and immersive digital ecosystem for Jewish studies students, beginning at the University of Washington and eventually expanding to other universities.
Team Leader: Professor Noam Pianko

These teams  exhibited exceptional enthusiasm, readiness, and vision and we look forward to working with them this year!  We’re thankful to the Covenant Foundation for supporting our work with this cohort.

In addition, as part of this funding, Darim will be presenting a series of webinars over the coming year with a focus on innovation and social media in Jewish education, including guest experts such as David Bryfman.  All Darim Online members are welcome to join these webinars.  Not a member yet?  Sign up here.

Finally, Darim is running a six part webinar series for congregational educators this summer, starting July 5, in conjunction with NATE and JEA.  Learn more and sign up here:  NATE members click here and  JEA members click here

That’s right. PLAYING.

Mid-text message, while the educator’s snarky responses to Charlie and Russel’s questions were popping up on the gigantic screens, and giggles were erupting throughout the ballroom, I had this vision in my mind: We’re all lion cubs. Children, of all species, play. They play not just because they’ve got nothing else better to do, but because they need to play to learn and practice the skills they will need to employ as adults. We play to learn balance, boundaries, social skills.

As adults, we often forget how to play in this way. We’ve grown out of it. It’s natural. But in an environment where we continually need to be learning new boundaries, new skills, new tools, this kind of play is actually really important. While we often focus on “professional development” and “training” (both of which are important and have their place), I was struck by these conferences’ ability to help us play. In my pre-conference Boot Camp at NATE, participants launched Twitter accounts, and tried their hand at blogging for the first time. Low risk, just play.  At JEA, a “technology theater” gave participants permission to sample tools and dabble in a simple, exploratory way.

In our work at Darim, we often observe that the “accidental techies” are educators.  “Accidental techies” are the people who are intrigued with a tool, play around, and start to accept responsibility for the organization’s social media activities.  I don’t think this is a coincidence.  Perhaps educators feel more permission to play.  Perhaps people who like to play as adults become educators.

Regardless, I encourage you to embrace your furry playful lion-cub self.   Go ahead, play a little!

And thanks to Russel and Charlie for presenting your rich and educational session is such a fun and playful way.  Kol HaKavod.  You taught us more than perhaps you had planned to.

Participating organizations will bring teams of 3-5 staff and/or lay leaders to a series of online workshops and trainings to learn about the influence of technology and social media on their field, and practical applications of these powerful tools in their work for marketing, communication, professional learning, and program delivery.  Participating teams will also receive private and small group coaching and consulting to help them design and implement a technology related project in their work.

Darim is seeking to build a cohort of innovative and risk taking organizations for this program.  We define these terms broadly.  Applicants need not demonstrate any particular level of technical proficiency or experience, but do need to have a track record of innovation and/or risk taking in some area of their work – from program design or teaching methods to communications or staffing.

Interested?  Complete this brief form and we’ll make sure to notify you when the application and more information is available in the coming weeks.

The ultimate form of ‘cool’ in the Jewish world is when your non-Jewish friends also think it, whatever IT is, is cool. Well, cool just happened – twice. [If you've seen the videos, feel free to skip below them to the bottom of this post.  Unless, of course, you can't help yourself but watch them again.]

On December 4, the CNN.com top headline picture was a snapshot from a viral video by the Maccabeats, male a capella group from Yeshiva University.  The video Candlelight, a parody of teen heart-throb, Taio Cruz’s top 10 hit, Dynamite, and Mike Tompkin’s a cappella version of it.  The Hanukkah version has racked up more than 2 million views on YouTube, earning the Maccabeats appearances on The Today Show, The Early Show, CNN.com and The Washington Post, among others.  Candlelight includes lyrics about the Hanukkah story and traditions such as latkes and dreidel spinning. The video humorously depicts the Maccabeats reenacting aspects of the ancient Hanukkah story in makeshift gladiator costumes occasionally flash-forwarding to present day Yeshiva college buddies flipping latkes, studying Torah, and singing on camera, Brady Bunch-style.

Simultaneously, another new Hanukkah video, by reggae rapper, super star, Matisyahu, attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors. Matisyahu’s song, Miracle, is a contemporary interpretation of Hanukkah, where in a dream sequence Matisyahu meets Antiochus, the King of the Greeks, and the father of Judah Maccabee (the hero of the Hanukkah story), also named (get this!) Matisyahu.

At Shabbat services last week, I mentioned the viral videos and then many laughed and nodded in recognition of the achievement by OUR Maccabeats and Matisyahu. We’ve got communal pride because this caliber of media rarely emanates from the Jewish world, and when it does, Jews take notice. These videos have the perfect combination of ingredients — including high-quality talent and cinematography, great humor, a clear connection with popular culture, and a powerful story line that is authentic Jewish history.  These guys took it to the next level by unashamedly expressing their Jewish pride by using fun costumes, humor, and symbolism to tell the Hanukkah story.  We’re not just talking about playing dreidel, we’re talking about the pressure to assimilate, and the temptation of … well, “chocolate stuff”.  (Don’t know what I mean? Watch “Miracle”!)

While they are surely educational, the approach isn’t shoving historical facts down your throat. I asked my 23 year old office manager, Seth, why he thought the videos were cool and he didn’t skip a beat in responding, “First off, they’re hilarious. They are a great example of the talent that comes from our Jewish community. Now that these videos are viral, not only within the Jewish community but everywhere, it gives us pride to be Jewish because Jews AND non-Jews are watching and loving these videos.  Hanukkah has lost a lot of its religious meaning and understanding for many of us (young people) and these videos give us a different way to look at the holiday and put a modern spin on it. They highlight the Jewish people and bring attention, in a very good way, to our Jewish community.”

For Seth and many other young Jews, these videos exceed their apparent entertainment value and become more meaningful because they have a clear educational purpose. They don’t just hover around the contemporary iconic Hanukkah symbols such as dreidles and Hanukkah menorahs. They tell the REAL historical story of Hanukkah. They serve as relevant and meaningful sources of Jewish education for this holiday that has lost much of its meaning having become a contemporary American Hallmark holiday. They employ the ultimate tools for reaching and impacting young lives – music and video – and then stream the content on YouTube, the most powerful platform for video sharing.

It’s also a powerful place for expression, identity building, and discussion.  A few comments on the videos are posted here – they are fascinating to browse to gain insight into youth (and not-so-youth) culture today of both Jews and non-Jews.

Timing is everything, and the chance of being exposed to anything by or about Jews is dramatically increased during the Hanukkah season. It is no coincidence that these 2 videos hit their rocket-like trajectory on the 3rd and 4th days of Hanukkah. Familiarity breeds popularity. In the case of the Maccabeats, their song Candlelight was a parody of one of the most popular songs in the country. Almost every kid in the country had already memorized Dynamite by Taio Cruz and only had to learn the new Hanukkah lyrics in the Maccabeats’ parody.

So let us rejoice for the blessing of these two incredible viral videos that have infused our Jewish lives with such excitement and pride during this holiday season. And let us contemplate a time when individuals in our Jewish community can achieve national recognition in between holidays, using the power of music, video, and genuine high-quality talent to not only entertain, but educate both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences about our Jewish rituals, values, and history.

Rick Recht is the top touring artist in Jewish music, the Executive Director of Jewish Rock Radio,
Executive Director of Songleader Boot Camp, and the JNF National Music Spokesman.

This time last year, the most I knew about anything wiki related was Wikipedia, a site that I went to if I needed a quick, and hopefully accurate, background on something.   In a few short months, and with the help of my talented and incredibly patient Darim coach, my approach to wikis and web tools has changed dramatically.

I was working at the Partnership for Jewish Life & Learning, whose mission is “Transforming Community through Education.”  One of the Partnership’s most innovative projects is called CE21: Congregational Education for the 21st Century.  This is an initiative in which 6-7 congregations participate at a time and engage in a complete overhaul of their approach to congregational education, something that many people would agree is a broken system.

Any innovative project for the 21st century needs to include the power of technology tools.  Our goal was to showcase the most cutting edge technologies both as a tool for the congregations, but also as a model for them to use in their own congregations.  Although I was tasked with injecting this project with web 2.0 tools, I considered myself moderately capable in the use of social media, hardly the expert that I wanted to present myself as!

I was lucky enough to find out about the Darim Online program which provides excellent technology coaching for Jewish educational organizations.  As described below, through my work with my Darim coach, Caren Levine, we created something that I am really proud of, and most importantly, is helping congregations transform their communities.

My goal was to create a forum for communication between seven congregations involved in CE21.  They are all local to the area, but  getting together at the same time for meetings or calls is a challenge.  Through exploring what would be the best option for them to communicate, Caren and I came up with the idea of creating a wiki using Wikispaces.   My most important criterion was usability for the target audience, who I knew might not be tech-savvy.  Wikipedia is already very familiar to people, and that served to make people comfortable with the idea of a wiki from the start.

Once I knew that I wanted a wiki, I had no idea how to create it or how to make it effective.  The following six months opened my eyes to how to create an incredible web resource.  The best part is that I have learned a lot through the process.  My lessons are listed below, with some explanation, and hopefully some instruction about how becoming comfortable with wikis and web technology is really about so much more.

1. Be patient with yourself: learning how to speak a new language is never easy. My first few sessions with the Darim coach were all about learning the language of the wiki (like what “wiki” even means!).  I wanted to know a lot immediately, but it took time to get used to the format, the language, and the tools that made information appear the way I wanted it to.  I learned that there are web tools to help us become more comfortable with other web tools like the Common Craft video on how to use wikispaces! Taking a few minutes to invest in learning the right way to do things from the beginning pays off tremendously later on.   That investment turned into the use of  some really cool tools that we integrated into the Wikispace.  Our goal was to make it as user-friendly as possible for our members, some of whom were not very tech savvy.  We installed a navigation bar which serves as a Table of Contents for the site and was constantly visible on every page.   We tagged pages with key words, and then created a tag-word cloud below the navigation bar to make it easier (and more visually pleasing!) for members to find pages relevant to certain themes.  The more frequently a word – or theme – is tagged, the larger the word appears.  I also knew that our site is very text-heavy, and I was looking for a way to make that more appealing to the user.  With the help of Caren, I learned how to code the text so that within each page, we included a table of contents to help the user navigate the page.  These small tools – all of which I learned through practice, practice, practice – took the site from a warehouse of information to a resource that was very user-friendly.
2. Practice makes perfect, or at least makes it passable. As with anything, the more you practice, the better you become at it.  The key for me to remember in creating the wiki was that while my end users were at a level that required a certain amount of knowledge to use it effectively,  I did not need to know everything about Wikispaces.  Sometimes the perfectionist in us gets the better of us, but the truth is what was really necessary was for me to meet my clients’ needs and make this tool helpful to them.  What they needed was a forum for communication and a resource for information.  A wiki was the perfect medium for that because it allowed them to exchange information and communicate without having to coordinate a specific time to talk  with each other.  The user-friendliness of  Wikispaces made the experience really enjoyable.  It also served as a model for how members could use a Wikispace with their own congregations – as one did.
3. You have friends who can help you – whether at Darim Online or at the Wiki help desk. Questions would come up along the way as I continued to build up the wiki with more content and more features.   Could it do this?  Could we see that?  The good news is that a lot of these questions were generated by the wiki members – which is exactly what we wanted!  Rather than try to figure everything out on my own (which I probably would not have been able to do anyway), my Darim coach was always ready with either a really nifty solution, or the right person with whom to be in touch for assistance.  I don’t think anything came up that we couldn’t answer with a little bit of patience and creativity!
4. Communication is what makes us human. Our ability to exchange ideas and collaborate has the potential to lead to greatness.  Wikis make that even easier by providing forums for users to post their ideas and create content, building a site that is the woven fabric of the community’s ideas.  The primary difference between a traditional webpage and a wiki is that content can be more easily generated collaboratively by members without an intermediary such as an administrator or webmaster.  The CE21 Wikispace – and the ideas and research there – is the product of the communication of the seven CE21 congregations.
5. Congratulate yourself on your successes. In creating a wiki, not only did I learn something new – a skill that I can bring with me wherever I go – but I know that I am helping my local congregations make their communities better.  This means individual members will have an enriched Jewish experience, which is really what this is all about.

Miriam Stein is the Director for Jewish Life at the Charles E Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville, MD.  She worked on the Wikispace for the CE21 project for the Partnership for Jewish Life & Learning.   Miriam lives in Washington, DC and when she is not working on cool web 2.0 projects and teaching, she is the proud wife of Andrew and mother of Aviv.

Last week BBYO announced the launch of what I believe is an exciting, inventive tool available to engage teens in a meaningful Shabbat experience: Build a Prayer.  As a free, online tool the site is designed to connect youth with prayer and Shabbat like never before by allowing them to build and customize their own service.

At BBYO, I constantly see teens, advisors and staff members using unique spaces and creativity to offer relevant, powerful Shabbat services, a unique challenge since most teens have only experience services within their synagogue. This challenge is only made more difficult by the fact that most teens aren’t comfortable in a traditional siddur – they don’t know where services start and end, what to include, or what is “safe” to leave out.

To meet that need (and often times to save money), these worship services are typically guided by a teen-designed collection of songs, poetry and prayers that is compiled through an effort of photocopying, cutting and pasting together old song sheets and prayer book passages. As an organization, we saw the need to provide Jewish teens with an accessible place to explore prayer and its meanings – doing it online also happens to save some glue.

What makes this site so exciting is that it brings thousands-of-years-old prayers into a modern day realm that teens relate to. It is streamlined and easy to use. In a few clicks of a button, teens have a complete service in front of them in which they feel some much needed connections. While not every teen feels comfortable finding their way in a traditional siddur, Build a Prayer allows teens to put together a basic Shabbat service in a space they can easily navigate.

The site is designed for teens, educators, camp counselors, youth group advisors, JCC professionals, chavurah leaders – basically, anyone who is interested in putting together a Shabbat service in a formal or informal setting.  The site allows Hebrew, English and/or transliterated text to be compiled with one’s own pictures, prayers or poetry toward the creation of a custom “Prayer Service” which can be printed and used anywhere.

With help from www.myjewishlearning.org and a series of videos, users can learn more about the traditions and tunes behind specific prayers.  Additionally, a content library holds creative elements from individual prayer services as they are created.  Because this is an online resource, people can collaborate on the development of each service and comment on them once they are placed in the Build a Prayer library.

While recent studies show that participation in traditional religious experiences decline during the teen years, the desire to connect spiritually on one’s own terms remains strong.  Build a Prayer is another resource we are offering the Jewish community as a way to better connect with Jewish teens. Organizations looking to reach the teen audience should look at this as a tool to literally bring prayer to life.

Matt Grossman is the Executive Director of BBYO.  He began his career at Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. Matt is also a member of the Darim Online board of directors.  Matt currently lives in Washington, DC where he works at BBYO’s international headquarters.

Darim will work with up to 3 individuals through coaching and mentoring over a five month Fellowship.  Check out details and the link to the application form here: http://bit.ly/defspring.

Meet our current Fellows:

• Joshua Altman, Temple Sholom, Greenwich, CT – Josh is creating an online collaborative newspaper / blog with his religious school students.
• Lynne Lieberman, Friedman Commission for Jewish Education, West Palm Beach, FL – Lynne is developing an online professional development course on differentiated learning for synagogue educators.
• Rachel Sesser, Temple Sholom of West Essex, Cedar Grove, NJ – Rachel is creating an online community resource for students and their families to engage in classroom and extracurricular activities.
• Viki Shayna, Temple Beth Emeth, Ann Arbor, MI – Viki is developing an extension of a community collaborative project that will bring together American and Israeli families online.

Get your creative juices flowing this holiday weekend!  Applications are due Friday, December 4, 2009.  Questions? Give us a shout at learningnetwork@darimonline.org.

Helpful hint: we posted a preview of the application on the Fellows information page so you can prepare your longer responses in advance and cut and paste them into the online application form.

The Darim Educator Fellows program is made possible by a generous grant from the Covenant Foundation.