Upon arriving to the school, signing into our lobby, and being greeted, each parent was given an ipad.  Parents were told that the ipads would be used as part of the questioning process but in the meantime, to please explore the wonderful educational apps available to the students while waiting for the open house to begin.  Once we were ready to start, the parents were asked to click on the Twitter app on each of their ipads.  In order to facilitate the navigation of locating the Twitter app, we made sure that the Twitter app was anchored at the bottom of the ipads so that it would show up on each screen.  Prior to the open house, we created a Twitter account for each ipad with Twitter usernames like Davis Academy Guest 1.  Once the parent clicked on the Twitter app, they would see that they were already logged in with their unique username and could see a message welcoming them to the open house.

Once everyone was settled in with their ipad, I proceeded to explain that we really wanted to hear what the parents wanted to know.  Our hopes were that parents would feel comfortable tweeting their questions in an anonymous format throughout the open house.  This would serve several purposes: 1) while parents were in classrooms hearing from teachers and students, learning about the curriculum and seeing the classrooms, they could instantly tweet their questions that would be addressed later 2) parents would feel uninhibited in seeking answers to their questions and 3) it would demonstrate the ways in which we are incorporating technology into our instruction and encouraging students to share their “voice”.

As the tweets were being received, I tagged them with descriptors enabling me to generate a Twitter cloud.  An example of this is the question that was tweeted that said, “How do you meet the needs of diverse learners?”.  This question was tagged as “differentiation”.  After being in the classrooms, the parents returned to the media center where I displayed the Twitter cloud on a large screen.  The remainder of the open house consisted of the administration, the teachers, and current Davis parents addressing questions that were raised via Twitter.

Although we have had positive feedback regarding our open houses in the past, using technology in this way generated a new level of enthusiasm and excitement.  Providing the technology as a tool to encourage open communication while still allowing parents to get a strong sense of all that is offered at The Davis Academy, created an environment rich in collaboration and an environment that ensured that all questions could be addressed.  We are pleased with the outcome and will continue to explore innovative tools that will enrich our open house experiences.

Drew Frank is the Lower School Principal at The Alfred and Adele Davis Academy in Atlanta Georgia, where he previously served in multiple teaching and administrative roles in both the lower and middle school. Drew is a proud member of the Day School Leadership Training Institute (DSLTI) cohort 5, and he has incorporated many of the constructivist and collaborative learning activities (spiritual check-ins, fishbowls, case studies, and consultancies) in to these and other school and faculty programs.  You can follow Drew on Twitter @ugafrank.

Last night I gave one of the first ELI Talks at the North American Jewish Day School Conference (NAJDS). As I sought a “network” image for my presentation, I noticed how different the shapes of these maps can be.  In a fascinating discussion with Deborah Fishman we explored different types of skills and personalities in network weaving  – those who have deep connections with a modest network.  Those who have tentacles that reach far and wide.  Those who are nodes, connecting people to one another.

I’m going to hypothesize – I don’t have data on this, and I’d be interested to know if it exists – that different styles of network weavers (personality, skills, training, preferred tools, strategic objectives) will produce different patterns of network maps. For example, compare the structure of the following:

I hypothesize that we could codify these types in some way akin to a Myers Briggs Type Indicator evaluation to better clarify network weaver types.  Further, I think that organizations, if they are able to clarify what they want from a network weaver, would have a preferred “type” of network weaver.

In our challenge to develop excellent network weavers, and encourage more organizations to effectively use them, could this sort of “type indicator” help organizations clarify what they are looking for, and help match-make employers and employees more effectively?

I wonder to what degree these types are influenced by personality, training and/or experience?  Can you train or assign someone to be a type of network weaver, or are they predisposed to certain styles because of their personality?

I welcome input, research, challenges here – I’d love your help in refining these ideas.

There is a great deal of buzz about the use of networks in moving the Jewish community forward. It tends to rely a great deal of some of the big name thinkers from the general world in areas such as networks, and some “first cousin” concepts and practices, such as Communities of Practice, Professional Learning Communities and the like.

Here’s something incredibly cool: the networking that took place historically, and continues to take place around Jewish wisdom has unique characteristics:

• The Sages of ancient (and modern) times communicated and innovated using many of the practices that are at the core of networks today.
• Unlike today’s networks, the Jewish networks that built a new Jewish life in the Talmudic Era and beyond, included communication between people who literally could never have spoken to one another: the network extended beyond distance and, incredibly, beyond time restrictions. Rabbis were “talking to” rabbis who were long deceased.

My teacher, the late Rabbi Selig Starr, of blessed memory, of the yeshiva in Skokie, IL, once took me aside. He said to me, “Samlan, you are a social being. The people will love you. But you need to socialize with Rabbi Akiva, Hillel, Shammai. When I go home and study, I have conversations with them.”

It took me over 30 years to understand that what he was telling me was: The rabbis and scholars who came before us are very much a part of our network, in every sense of the word.

Here’s an example of how it works, a social network representation of a page from the Babylonian Talmud. The text of Talmud Shabbat 21 a-b takes a conversation about the wicks and fuels that can be used for Shabbat lights and moves from there to a conversation about the lights used for Chanukah.

The Talmudic text begins with Rav Huna, who is right in the middle of the graphic above. He is in the middle of the Talmudic period, and lived in Sura, Babylonia. In the text, Rav Huna, the Chachamim (rabbis who lived long before his time), Rava, Rav Hisda, Rav Zeira, Rav Matna, Rav, Rav Yirmiah, “The Rabbis”, Abaye, Rabin, Rav Yochanan, Rabbah bar bar Hama all enter the conversation.

What then follows is the famous disagreement between the followers of Hillel and the followers of Shammai as to whether a pious person begins the holiday of Chanukah lighting one light and increasing to eight, or beginning with eight and decreasing to one. This leads to interaction with two later sages, Rav Yosi bar Avin and Rav Yosi ben Zevida. and to Rabbah bar bar Hama mentioning two unnamed characters, each of who backs either Hillel or Shammai. This “discussion” takes place (without benefit of phone or Internet) across great geographic distances, in Babylonia and in the land of Israel. It also occurs across several centuries.

One interesting caveat: The rationale attributed to Shammai’s opinion about the Chanukah lights brings a relationship between the holidays of Sukkot and Chanukah into play. The origins of Chanukah in the holiday of Sukkot dates back to the apocryphal books of the Maccabees. While these books are not directly quoted, Shammai (and those who explain his views) clearly have an intellectual connection to those books, which I show in the graphic.

In the diagram above, the conversation continues (and it mentioned on the Talmudic page in the margins) with later codifiers of Jewish practice – Maimonides, Rabbi Jacob and the two authors of the Shulchan Aruch code of law – entering the conversation by codifying the current practice (putting them in “direct” conversation with Hillel, who lived over a millennium before).

As Jews, we are networked. It is part of our heritage. In bringing the use of networks to build and spread ideas, what we need to do is to re-educate the Jews of today to join the networked Jewish conversation that has existed since the dawn of the Jewish people. This isn’t about taking a new idea and translating it to the Jewish world. It is about taking an ancient habit of mind, teaching it to this generation of Jews, and giving it new life.

Rabbi Arnold D. Samlan is Founder and President of Jewish Connectivity, a Jewish Life Coaching and Consulting practice. He is also a staff member of the New Center for Collaborative Leadership at The Jewish Education Project. Arnie is on Twitter @JewishConnectiv, and his blog is at the notorious r.a.v.

Today’s shift, which adds posts, photos, profiles and conversations from Google+ that are public or were shared privately with the person searching, is valuable for users because it brings “your world” (as Google refers to it) into search, aggregating all of the information you might be interested in seeking.  It’s valuable to Google as  further boosts the centrality of Google+ relative to other social networks (which for now are not included), and positions your search engine as the singular window into all aspects of your world.

If I’m planning a trip to Paris I might find in my search hotels, reviews, discounts, maps, historical info, and now tips from friends who have been there, or even become aware that someone I know will be there at the same time.

But more than the search engine as the window into the world, these changes position me as the center of the universe, with information orbiting me.  Helpful, perhaps.  But what are the implications?

The Filter Bubble

But the flip side of all of this is the narrowing of our worlds. Eli Pariser’s The Filter Bubble describes how because of the search algorithm (the ‘filter’), we don’t even know what is being hidden from us.  What we’ve done and sought in the past strongly influence what we are exposed to in the future “leaving less room for the unexpected encounters that spark creativity, innovation, and the democratic exchange of ideas”.

Now that’s not so radically different from the way we lived prior to the internet.  If I live in a particular neighborhood or my kids go to a particular school, I’m more likely to be friends with those people and remain in that orbit.

But other recent research shows that young people today, while fairly technically savvy, have not been taught skills to evaluate the information they find.  “Google’s a trusted web site,” says one British student in a BBC segment. She used the first result Google returned and didn’t really think about it any further.  While teaching a course at the high school Genesis program at Brandeis University a few years ago, I challenged my students to do a research project with limited access to resources:  Only books, internet minus Wikipedia and the top 5 Google search results, or anything.  As you can imagine, the results were vastly different.  The students who were limited in their online search had a much deeper understanding of the material because they were exposed to many more sources and forced to evaluate and synthesize the information.

The bottom line here is the difference between information and knowledge.  We often confuse the two.  Google’s shifts may change the way we access information, but it is our responsibility to create our own knowledge.   And it is the responsibility of educators and parents to recognize that this process of knowledge creation and meaning making is different today than it has been in the past.  We must teach these skills, and illustrate to students the implications of Google’s decisions, lazy searching and the conclusions we draw.

Happy searching and socializing.  And don’t forget to get outside of your own orbit from time to time.

More on Google’s recent change:

Mashable: Google Merges Search and Google+ Into Social Media Juggernaut

Huffington Post: Google ‘Search Plus Your World’ Brings Google+ Into Search Results

New York Times’ Bits Blog: Google’s Social Move Attracts Critics

New York Times’ Bits Blog: Google Adds Posts From Its Social Network to Search Results

Managing lots of information, relationships, and resources can be a challenge for any organization. While it can be easy to be overwhelmed by the variety of options on the market – and their pricing – there is one platform I recommend you explore, and it’s free: Google Sites.

I came across Google Sites while searching for solutions for managing the production of PresenTense Magazine, which entailed upward of 80 volunteers collaborating around 30 articles over the course of several months per issue. Our contributors spread from Los Angeles to Jerusalem to Budapest and everywhere in between. I needed to store items as varied as drafts of the articles themselves; spreadsheets recording who was working on what; and running blog-style thoughts from conference calls and online and in-person brainstorms. It was crucial that everyone on the team could easily access the information necessary to do their job – true when working with colleagues, and perhaps even more so when working with volunteers.

Satisfying all of these specifications could be seen as a challenge. However, once the right platform of Google Sites was discovered and properly developed, managing our bountiful ecosystem of data helped enable us to convert our advantages – such as geographic diversity, a multitude of ideas, and an eager crew of enthusiastic volunteers – into opportunities.

Here are some benefits, tips, and drawbacks I’ve discovered in Google Sites. I hope you will consider them and that they will similarly help you turn your organizational assets into opportunities.

Why use Google Sites?

Everything organized in one place.
Rather than dealing with a litany of Google Docs, you can not only store them in one place, but also use article-style pages to organize links to spreadsheets, blog pages, and “file cabinets” (where you can store files such as images, documents, or presentations).

Easy to learn to customize your own site.
To set up a site effectively might take a bit of practice, but it does not take knowledge of HTML. If you spend some time exploring the different template options, you can build a functional site in just a few clicks – and it is easily customizable to exactly your needs.

Convinced? Here’s how to use it!

Learn how to take advantage of the templates
Think about how the different templates could make sense for your use. The templates can be highly effective if you apply the right template to the right purpose. For instance, the template called “List” can be a to-do list or task management tool, a spreadsheet that stores contact information, or a list organizing other items stored in the site (i.e. you can link directly to article pages or file cabinets within the site). The templates each offer great flexibility so you can customize them for your purpose.

The more organized you can be, the better!
You can at any point reorganize the skeleton outline of your site (which pages are organized under which other page). You can also create a table of contents which allows users to easily jump to the page they’re looking for. Take advantage of these organizational methods to make sure everyone working on the project can find what they need, fast.

A word of caution: A few Google Sites drawbacks

Not the best tool for engagement
While Sites is a great way to store information such that it is easily accessible, in my experience it has been difficult to use it to start conversations. Perhaps the user interface is not intuitive, or requires a greater investment of time to figure out than people who are just looking for information to do their job are willing to give.

Sharing can be a little complicated
If you do not have a Google account, you have to go through the extra step of creating one. While in theory this should be an easy process, I have had some non-Gmail-users unable to find how to access Sites, and this can be a source of frustration. If your information isn’t particularly confidential, you could consider making the site public (viewable to anyone) for the duration of the project. I’ve used this approach at times and it has helped overcome this obstacle.

Whether or not you ultimately decide to use Google Sites, I do recommend that, before embarking on any new endeavor in iformation management, you take a moment to answer these questions yourself, and/or survey your coworkers on their thoughts and needs:

• What tools do you currently use to manage your projects, and if they are not working, why not?
• What functions are on your wish-list for information management?

Then, you can more knowledgeably find the tools that will work for you – and find ways to more consciously tailor and employ them for your specific purposes. After all, at the end of the day, tools are only as effective as what we make of them!

Have you used Google Sites in your work?  If so, how?  What other tools have you experimented with for information management?

Deborah Fishman is a network weaver interested in new opportunities to create change in the Jewish world. She was most recently Editor and Publisher of PresenTense Magazine. She blogs at hachavaya.blogspot.com.

Jewish tradition has always supported technological innovation.  In fact, with apologies to Apple or Android, it was Moses who introduced the world to the first tablets.  Kidding aside, the events at Mt. Sinai as described in the Book of Exodus do provide us with a clear understanding of the role of technology in Judaism.  As leaders in our respective Jewish communities, we take upon ourselves the responsibility of presenting the values, tenets, and traditions of our religion in the most understandable and accessible medium possible.

With this in mind, I have created The QR Project.  QR codes are two-dimensional barcodes readable by smartphones.  In the past two years, QR codes have become a popular tool for advertisers and marketers.  The QR Project, however, is demonstrating that QR codes can revolutionize the way we approach outreach, education, and conservation.

The most comprehensive example of the impact of QR codes can be found at Congregation Shaare Emeth in St. Louis, MO.  Over this past summer, I worked with Shaare Emeth to insert QR codes into their Religious School curriculum.  We put codes on any pages that require the students to practice out loud.  When they scan the code, their smartphone pulls up an audio recording of their cantor chanting the prayer.

We have taken these prayer QR codes and created a bookmark to accompany their siddur.  Adult learners and b’nai mitzvah students can scan the bookmark to learn the blessings.  Additionally, the recorded prayers are now housed on the Shaare Emeth website along with links to further learning opportunities.

The results speak for themselves.  The QR codes in their curriculum have been scanned more than 200 times since their debut in mid-September.  The online site that hosts the prayers has attracted over 3000 hits in that same time span, with over half of them coming from outside the state of Missouri.  And finally, the existence of the QR codes means the cantor no longer has to create a CD for each student, saving over 100 CDs per year and hundreds of hours copying.

Curious to know more about integrating QR codes? On Wednesday November 30th, Darim Online and I will be hosting a webinar to talk about the potential for QR code integration.  You will have the opportunity to learn the basics of how QR codes work and how to make them, as well as how to use them effectively in your community.  By utilizing mobile technology, you will put your organization at the forefront of technological innovation, position yourself to engage those critical, often young members of your community, and meet your constituents in the place that is becoming the most familiar—their smartphone.

Webinar Info

QR Codes 101

Wednesday, Nov. 30th at 1pm

Click Here to Register

Also see our previous post, “QR Codes: What’s it All About?”

Is your organization or congregation using QR codes?  If so, how?  Share your thoughts and stories in the comments!

Two years ago I had a similar problem.  Trained as a lawyer, being a publisher and editor, I live in a world of words.  They’re important; they’re permanent.  I am accountable for what I write, and for what my company publishes.  Words will endure.  They need to stand on their own, be thorough, be accurate, be complete.

But Behrman House needed a blog, and as the leader of our firm I needed to contribute.  To share my views in that informal setting.  So write I did, but I did it in my old way: I wrote, edited got it vetted by colleagues, checked, rechecked, sometimes rewritten.  A short piece, with a quick thought, could take hours.  It just wasn’t worth it.

I thought back to my college days, where I wrote a weekly column for the paper. I just banged it out.  Every week, one evening.  Went the whole campus. It was pretty good.  And I had no fear.

So I made a decision: I’ll trust myself: write the damn thing, read it once, fix obvious errors, and post it. Simple as that.

So I tried it.  Truth be told, the first time I chickened out. Sent it to Dena Neusner, our Senior Editor, who can tear apart and rebuild my writing like no one else, and makes it 30% shorter on a regular basis.  She did her magic, and I decided I was done.  Posted it.  And, next time I didn’t even send it to Dena.

I’m writing this to all of you who grew up in my world, the world of permanent words, the world where every one of those words is equally important, and permanent.  And to all of us I say:  Just write the damn thing, and post it.  It will be liberating.  Think of it as conversation, not a permanent position. (Lisa Colton spoke at the GA of the “permanent beta,” and she’s right.)  It will never be worth it to spend a half-day on a blog post, so if that’s your standard, you’re censoring yourself—it will almost never be worth it to spend the time, and so you’ll never be able to share your views.

Just write the thing.

PS: I wrote this one on the airplane coming home from the GA.  Once, straight through—a half-hour.  Put it aside for a day, then spent another 10 minutes cleaning it up.  I’m done. I hope it’s good, and I hope you find it useful. If not, maybe I’ll be more successful with the next one.

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David Behrman is CEO of Behrman House Publishers, the leading publisher of textbooks, software, and other educational materials for Jewish religious schools throughout North America.  Before joining Behrman House, he was a consultant with McKinsey & Co, in New York, where he served clients in the service, transportation, and not-for-profit sectors, and he also practiced corporate and securities law with Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York. He is a graduate of Haverford College and Stanford Law School, where he served on the Law Review.