[Quick note about last week’s post covering edJEWcon LA: The decision to take edJEWcon on the road this year as regional mini-conferences was jointly made between the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School and the Schechter Day School Network out of recognition that the dual national Jewish day school conference schedule made it impossible to hold a third-annual full edJEWcon here in Jacksonville. In order to keep the brand and the learning alive – and out of responses from across the nation – we decided to take the show on the road. By continuing to provide the highest quality 21st century professional development to Jewish day schools throughout North America, we have simply widened the scope of what edJEWcon might be in the future. There may be a full edJEWcon in Jacksonville in 2015 as well as other regional mini-edJEWcon’s. But what last week demonstrated and what April 1st will demonstrate at edJEWcon FLA, is that the desire for what edJEWcon has to offer the field remains intact and the need for edJEWcon to grow and thrive remains significant. We’ll keep you posted on the future of edJEWcon and if it winds up coming to a neighborhood near you soon!]
In December of 2012, I blogged about an amazing new project we were launching at our school:
We are pleased to announce that Jewish Interactive will be embarking on a joint project with the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School of Jacksonville, Florida, where students will be designing from the ground up an educational Purim video game. Jewish Interactive will actually build the software, to be released in advance of next Purim for use in their current network to more than 50 elementary schools around the world.
In this jointly planned and executed cross-curricular project, MJGDS students will first learn about the software development cycle and form project teams, each receiving a specific role, e.g.:
Project manager
Content expert
Instructional designer
Gaming expert
Graphic artist
Programmer
Animator
Sound effects
Students will research and gather the Jewish content to be included in their game, develop a curriculum and learning objectives, script an instructional game design, and develop characters and graphics. Every step of the process will be supported and guided by the team and educators at MJGDS and the Jewish Interactive team.
The MJGDS team has been a leader of innovation and entrepreneurship in the field, and a strong voice of change and advancement, most noticeably through their edJEWcon initiative, a conference for Jewish schools and institutions on 21st century teaching and learning, and the cross-curricular use of technology in their own school, sharing Jewish Interactive’s vision.
Jewish Interactive is thrilled to embark on this joint initiative with MJGDS and to pioneer the involvement of students at the very core of the learning experience.
And it is with great pride that just over a year later, we can share the following post from the Jewish Interactive website:
Whack-a-Haman is an international collaboration between Jewish Interactive (based in South Africa, UK and Israel) and Martin J Gottlieb Jewish Day School (Jacksonville, Florida).
The students designed the game and its assets under the guidance of Jewish Interactive and their teacher. Jewish Interactive produced the game.
Download and play this game on your computer now.
MJGDS Team
- MJGDS teacher/director: Mrs. Gutterman
- Project Manager: Casey B.
- Quality Control: Sarah C.
- Art Director: Sarah S.
- Art Team: Talya P. and Lily H.
- Audio Engineer: Sydney T.
- Photographer: Noah R.
A special thanks to sixth grade for coming up with the questions:
Benjamin C., Elior L., Gil S., Itamar L., Jamie B., Jolie W., Rebecca B., Zachary S. and Zoe M.
Follow the MJGDS blog describing their progress here.
JI Team
With thanks to the JI team for mentoring and believing in the talent of young adults and for their individual roles:
- Instructional designer and production management: Corinne Ossendryver
- Programmer and game mechanics: David Komer
- Graphics: Rachel Silke
- Curriculum development: Chana Kanzen
- Content approval: Rabbi Johnny Solomon
- JI Director: Nicole Newfield
Jewish Interactive presented Skype lessons to the middle school students on:
- Purim
- Lesson plans and education
- Instructional design of games
- Audio
- Graphic design
- Basic programming
- Marketing and budgeting
Thank you to all the students who submitted game ideas and we look forward to collaborating and producing them in the future.
Thank you to Jon Mitzmacher and Andrea Hernandez, Corinne Ossendryver, Chana Kanzen and Nicole Newfield for initiating this project and to Shana Gutterman for making it happen.
Or to see how our students’ wrote about it:
I cannot be more proud of the results! And I am pleased that Shana Gutterman has been asked to present alongside Jewish Interactive at next week’s iJED conference in New York to share with the field the amazing work she and the students have done.
I cannot think of a project that brings together everything we have been learning, talking and trying to do here at MJGDS these last four years than this amazing project. I hope you download the game. I hope you go onto to the students’ blogfolios and let them know how incredible their project was.
This is this thing called “21st century learning” in full flower. This is the future of Jewish education. And this is just the beginning…
UPDATE: This just came from the good folk at Jewish Interactive…
Dear Team
- Project Manager: Casey B.
- Quality Control: Sarah C.
- Art Director: Sarah S.
- Art Team: Talya P. and Lily H.
- Audio Engineer: Sydney T.
- Photographer: Noah R.
Benjamin C., Elior L., Gil S., Itamar L., Jamie B., Jolie W., Rebecca B., Zachary S. and Zoe M.
Message to Kids : Thank you for being part our time. We have been honoured to work with you as colleagues. You guys have talent and we will watch you as you grow and develop over the years . We believe in you and know you all going to do big things in this world to make it a good place for us all. We look forward to more projects with the whole school.
Shalom and thank you from Jerusalem,
Nicky
•••
Nicky Newfield
Director, Jewish Interactive
Mobile +27 82 307 4691
Email [email protected]
