Richard D. Solomon's Blog on Mentoring Jewish Students and Teachers: How the web tool, Schoology, can be used to facilitate instruction in the secular and Judaic Studies blended learning classroom

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

How the web tool, Schoology, can be used to facilitate instruction in the secular and Judaic Studies blended learning classroom

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices, and demonstrate how these best practices can be applied in the real (i.e. physical) and virtual (i.e. online) classroom for both teaching and teacher training. The combination of face to face instruction in a physical setting and online learning is called blended learning. In this section of the blog we will describe how the internet can serve as a supplemental resource for instruction and the mentoring of pre-service and in-service Jewish educators. In this post we will discuss on Schoology a web tool that can assist teachers with their administrative (e.g. grading student work) and professional duties can be used to facilitate instruction in the secular and Judaic Studies blended learning classroom.

Assumption: The teacher or mentor teacher has an interactive white board (i.e. SMART Board, Promethean, etc.), a Tablet PC (also called a Slate or Blade), a computer presenter or computer with internet access attached to an LCD projector in the classroom. It would be ideal if students or mentees had access to their own laptop computers or Ipads. Given parental and school approval, and the development of specific guidelines, smartphones can be used to enhance instruction as well.

Note: Although Schoology can be applied in the Judaic Studies blended learning classroom, it can be also be used for training pre-service and in-service Jewish educators for professional or staff development. It is our hope that Jewish educators around the globe will form an online community of practice, a CoP, a group of people who share an interest, a craft, and/or a profession, to enhance the delivery of instruction and training of Jewish educators. For example, here is a CoP you might want to join.

What is Schoology?

Schoology is a web tool for assisting secular and Judaic Studies teachers with their administrative (e.g. grading student work) and professional duties.

Where is Schoology located on the internet?

https://www.schoology.com/home

How the web tool, Schoology, can be used to facilitate instruction in the secular and Judaic Studies blended learning classroom

Click on the links below which explain how Schoology can be used to facilitate instruction in the face to face and virtual secular and Judaic Studies classroom:

On the next post we will discuss another web tool for assisting secular and Judaic Studies teachers with their administrative (e.g. grading student work) and professional duties. The new web tool is Engrade.