Introducing a New Partnership and (drumroll, please…) jbop!

Looking for computer-based Jewish educational materials that actually… educate?

Are your students itching for educational software that’s not hokey and corney, but… cool and fun?

Does your school require technology that’s… easy to use?

Torah Aura Productions is teaming up with JeMM Productions, developers of fine technological Judaica, to bring you jbop 3.0, the next generation of computer-based curricular materials.

jbop is an innovative enrichment tool (“interactive activity center”) for use on computers in Jewish schools and homes. It’s a set of modules — each with six full interactive activity areas — on subjects from Pesah and Purim to Israel and Torah.

Best of all, jbop…

…represents the latest in technology-based education. It was developed by a team of top-notch Jewish educators in Israel and the United States, underwent research and development funded by the Covenant Foundation, and has already been successfully integrated into schools nationwide.

…is highly interactive, cool and fun. The jbop activity center features activities that let students animate their own Bible scenes, sing along with jewish music karaoke (and email sound clips to friends!), and play a variety of state-of-the-art games.

…is highly intuitive, simple to use, and easy to install. Using jbop doesn’t require you to distribute CDs or mess with the access settings of your personal firewall (you don’t even need to know what a personal firewall is!). No configuring. No technological gobbledygook. Just software that works. Just download, install, type in your access code, and you’re ready to rock-and-roll.

jbop 3.0 will be beta testing in May, and will be ready for full school and home deployment soon thereafter.

But you don’t have to wait. For a limited time, Torah Aura and JeMM are offering the jbop Yom Ha’Atzmaut Activity Pack free of charge. This special Israel@60 offer includes all of jbop‘s Israel lessons, and as an added bonus, you’ll also receive the Welcoming Shabbat Activity Pack.

To try out jbop today, get the free download at http://www.ejemm.com/jemm/israelat60.htm.

Questions about jbop? Check the TAPBB jbop FAQ.

What is jbop?

What is jbop?
jbop is an innovative enrichment tool (“interactive activity center”) for use on computers in Jewish schools and homes. It’s a set of modules — each with six full interactive activity areas — on subjects from Pesah and Purim to Israel and Torah.

Who developed jbop?
JeMM Productions, makers of The Interactive Haggadah, Who Stole Hanukkah?!, Portrait of Israel, and other popular interactive multimedia products. The Covenant Foundation supported enhancements to the tool and effectiveness testing within focus schools (conducted jointly by JeMM and the Colorado Agency for Jewish Education).

Who uses jbop?
The jbop suite of tools is ideal for day schools and supplementary schools, either in the school computer lab or for assigned home use.

What age students can use jbop?
jbop is designed for first through fifth graders.

What’s special about jbop?
When your school integrates jbop into the curriculum, you’re adding a set of interactive activities — engaging, creative, varied, flexible — which accommodate a wide range of content and offer students and educators new modes of Jewish learning.

What content is covered?
Holidays and Shabbat; Bible; Values; Israel; Prayer (25 units in all)

How much time is needed for each jbop unit?
Activities are entirely modular and non-linear. You can spend anywhere from 20 minutes on a unit (doing two or three activities) to over an hour (covering four to six activity areas).

How are teachers trained to use jbop?
With jbop on your computer and the jbop Educator’s Guide in hand, a teacher can master the basics in two hours. For schools interested in large-scale deployment of the system, jbop — like everything else from Torah Aura Productions — comes with free teacher training and school support. For more information on teacher training, contact Josh Barkin, director of school services, at josh@torahaura.com.

Can I sample jbop?
For a limited time, Torah Aura and JeMM are offering the jbop Yom Ha’Atzmaut Activity Pack free of charge. This special Israel@60 offer includes all of jbop‘s Israel lessons, and as an added bonus, you will also receive the Welcoming Shabbat Activity Pack.

To try out jbop today, get the free download at http://www.ejemm.com/jemm/israelat60.htm.

How I can buy jbop for my school?
Starting in May, jbop will be available from Torah Aura Productions. Stay tuned to this space for more information.

Introducing Artzeinu: An Israel Encounter

Ready for a completely new way of teaching Israel artzeinu?

Welcome to Artzeinu: An Israel Encounter.

Not just a travel book, Artzeinu is an insider’s guide to the people, history, and culture of Israel.

Designed for 5th and 6th grade, it’s a book that teaches more than geography, an encounter that goes into the heart and nature of Israeli life. This is not just a tour book, but an exploration of the essence of Israel.

Here’s how it works.

Artzeinu: An Israel Encounter is organized geographically, but it goes several steps further by using places in Israel to tell stories, meet Israelis, and grapple with the challenges of Medinat Yisrael:

Want to make Israel engaging and exciting? Give your students 3D glasses.

In honor of Israel’s 60th birthday (and the upcoming publication of Artzeinu: An Israel Encounter) we’re going to be taking some space in the TAPBB to talk about some real Israel issues. This is the second in a series of essays about how Israel fits into the school curriculum.

by Joel Lurie Grishaver

This week, we’re announcing the publication of a new kind of Israel textbook, Artzeinu: An Israel Encounter.

We’re proud of it because it’s beautiful, filled with gorgeous pictures of eretz Yisrael and amazing maps drawn by a master cartographer. We’re also proud of the activities in the book, and of its ease of use.

But we’re most proud of the fact that it presents a three-dimensional look at Israel.

Recently, I wrote about teaching the “real” Israel with an Israel curriculum that has to do two things. First it has to model love for Israel through the way it covers the subject. This is not a social studies text; it is a family history. Second, one must admit that Israel struggles with problems.

Teaching the real Israel is challenge enough. But we also deal with another problem. How do we make Israel—a country thousands of miles away and a world apart from our North American Jewish selves—engaging, interesting, and exciting for our students?

Shoah Art Can Be a Transformative Experience

by Laurie Bellet

With the sound of typewriter keys in the background, a group of students clustered in front of an ‘in progress’ mural, trying to determine how they will find space for the 669 luggage tags they need to incorporate. Metaphors for the rescued children they represent, it is crucial to the integrity of the work, that each tag find a suitable ‘home.’ This is the current experience of my Shoah elective class. Basing their work on the DVD “The Power of Good,” the class artists are studying the efforts of Sir Nicky Winton who, as a 29 year-old British businessman, in 1939, engineered the successful rescue of 669 Czechoslovakian, Jewish children.

Every year, I facilitate a class of middle school students who use art as the vehicle through which they study the Holocaust. Using art in this manner is a powerful learning experience. When students are younger, I prefer to use stories with an art experience as the hands on component. After reading and discussing The Butterfly by Patricia Polacco, my elementary students create butterflies decorated to demonstrate story comprehension. My older elementary students struggle to recreate the visa symbol, written by rescuer Chiune Sugihara and chronicled in the book Passage to Freedom. Combining the two themes by placing the visa symbol on a butterfly is particularly striking. Other books that provide wonderful templates for elementary Shoah art include The Lily Cupboard, Flowers on the Wall and Best Friends. Children who are students of the Shoah from a young age, are able to handle more intense work, such as recreating the artwork made by the youngsters in Theresienstadt who studied with artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis as described in the book Fireflies in the Night.