Students of the Yeshivah of Flatbush (YOF) High School now have complete access to Wireless as Rabbi Raymond Harari, Joel Braverman High School Head of School, recently announced the integration of the technology into its educational institution, both in Judaic and general studies.About 60 freshmen from the school have received iPads that they can use in class or at home, and, in the next few months, the entire freshman and sophomore class as well as faculty will reportedly have iPads for their studies and general use.
Tablets in a way are native form of communication for students as they focus on student engagement, individualized learning and research, help in collaboration between students as well as faculty, and offer more interactive activities in- and out of school.
YOF has been working with the Apple (News - Alert) team and other experts in technology and education to create a comprehensive digital citizenship curriculum for students, imparting knowledge on how to be a responsible citizen and a good Jew in the time of pervasive technology.
Assistant Principal Rabbi Joseph Beyda, who is overseeing the iPad initiative, said in a statement: "The iPad supports Hebrew -- you can type Hebrew into most apps. We will be using the iPad in Judaic Studies classes as well as in secular studies classes and believe that Hebrew will be more fully supported as iPad use continues to grow. As an example, Ulpan-Or, whose E-tone software we use in 9th grade Hebrew language classes, is about to release an iPad app. We will be the first school to use it.”
After doing some research on best apps, YOF will be adding iPad apps such as Pages (word processor), Keynote (presentation), GoodReader (file management and PDF reader/annotation), Tanach for iPad, On Your Way (Judaic Library), Google (News - Alert) (searching and applications), Evernote (note-taking), iBooks (e-reader), Dropbox (file storage and sharing), and Chief Rabbi (Jonathan Sacks articles and videos), in addition to Safari (web browsing) and YouTube (News - Alert) (videos).
In related news, students of Proctor High School DECA are also using iPads in marketing, computer and culinary arts classes and gifted and talented and elementary Title I programs.
Trupti Kamath is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by Stefania Viscusi