Is Sharing A Meal The Ticket To Teaching Cultural Awareness #VibeEdu #VibeIsrael

This is just one in a series of ongoing posts on the educational innovations in Israel. You can see additional coverage here. 

When Michael Biton took the role as Mayor of Yeruham, a small desert city, made up of about 10,000 mostly Israeli immigrants he had some challenges to realize one of his visions for the city. Known for it’s historical and archeological sites, the city was to become a sought-after tourism hot-spot. One that, among other things, offers sumptuous ethnic meals and gives visitors insight into the heritage, culture, and traditions of regular Israelis.

But first, he had to overcome a couple problems:

#1: The small town couldn’t afford any restaurants. The market was too small.

#2: There was a high unemployment rate for women

Fortunately, Biton had a recipe for success that included a combination of exploration, motivation, and innovation with a dash of chutzpah.

Mayor Michael Biton descending the stairs of the Yeruham Crater
to speak with students, educators, and edubloggers.

He recognized that there were some homes in city that had become hubs for community meals. From these homes the aroma of home-cooked, traditional recipes made mouths water. Fulfilling Jewish values of hospitality, caring, and solidarity, these families welcomed their neighbors into their homes.

It became apparent that these women had something to offer that might not only satisfy the appetite of tourists seeking delicious ethnic meals and insights into the Jewish culture, but it could also serve as a vehicle to provide added income for these unemployed women.

It wasn’t long before the Culinary Queens of Yeruham project was born. It has served as a win, win for both the community and those who come to visit.  There is perhaps no better way to learn about history, heritage, and culture than by experiencing a meal in the home of the people of that culture.

Follow Me! Learn about Learning in Israel During My #VibeEdu Tour

I am halfway through Vibe Israel’s education tour. The purpose of the week-long trip is to bring together a diverse group of educators and bloggers (check em out here) who then go back and share with others about the experience.

Want to know what I’m learning? Here’s how you can keep up.

Twitter

Follow me on Twitter at @InnovativeEdu. I will send Tweets throughout the trip. Follow the Vibe Israel Twitter account at @VibeIsrael.

Instagram

The VibeIsrael instagram account will have excellent photos from the tour.

Facebook

Like the Vibe Israel Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/vibeisrael

Hashtags

On all major social platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), the #VibeEdu and #VibeIsrael hashtags will help aggregate updates from the others on the trip too. Use Tagboard.com to see updates across platforms. 

The Innovative Educator blog

Stay tuned right here on this blog. I hope to find time to blog from Israel and I’ll be publishing reflections upon return. 

The Vibe Israel blog

Vibe Israel will share learnings via blog posts from all the education influencers on their blog at http://vibeisrael.com/blog. 

Thanks to Edublogger’s Ronnie Burt for the inspiration and format of this post. Read his post here. 

Could Surfboards + Wet Suits = Key to Supporting Disadvantaged Youth #VibeEdu

This is just one in a series of ongoing posts on the educational innovations in Israel. You can see additional coverage here. 

When you think of disadvantaged youth, it's not uncommon for images of teenagers hanging on the streets, drugs, incarceration and a dead end future to come to mind. But what if there was a way to help these young people find a new direction where their lives had meaning and purpose? 

On day one of my tour with Vibe Israel to learn about education in the country, I discovered this was a reality at a youth village in a place called Mevo'ot Yam. Here, a surfboard and a wet suit become a gateway to a future that is as wide open as the Mediterranean Sea that is the classroom to these students. Mevo'ot Yam Youth Village looks like a tropical resort, but instead it is home to disadvantaged youth who build crucial life skills such as goal setting, endurance, and inner confidence by learning to ride the waves of a surfboard and navigate the sea. Equally important is the realization for many of the youth that they can play a part in the shaping of the sea and the world.

One of the students (captured below) explained the plight of the clown fish made popular by the movie "Finding Nemo." After the movie, divers would risk damaging the sea ecosystem to capture these fish for sale. The solution to ending this problem was to breed clown fish so that the capture of those in the wild would no longer be necessary. This student learned an important lesson that is gaining popularity far and wide with the Maker Movement. It's better to make something (aka breed fish), than to take something. At the school they learn to breed endangered species that can help the oceanic ecosystem.

Off to Israel with #VibeEdu #VibeIsrael

Blogging is a lot of work, but it is worth it. Among the many reasons I love blogging is that it has enabled me to make both digital and face-to-face connections around the globe expanding my personal learning network. As a result of my blog, I have been invited to visit countries such as Prague, Spain, Canada, and Mexico to share the ideas I write about here.

Today, I will be heading to Israel to learn about and share what the country has to offer in the area of education. Here are some highlights of what I will have the opportunity to see:

• Visit the Jerusalem Venture Partners VC in Jerusalem and learn about their educational programs with disadvantaged youth.
• Visit 'NaLaga'at' Center at Jaffa port, and experience the center's activities connecting deaf, blind and deaf-blind-mute children and adults with the general public through art and cultural experiences, including lunch at the "Blackout" restaurant, where guests are served by blind waiters in total darkness;
• Meet Eyal Shavit, founder and chairman of the EduAction Forum, the biggest annual education conference in Israel with a clear agenda to bring about social change by educational entrepreneurship;
• Visit Tichonet high school, the first digitalized high school in the country;
• Visit The Peres Center for Peace in the Old City of Jaffa and meet the Peace Education team,who run projects that bring together Jewish and Arab children and youth;
• Meet the co-founders and educational team members of SpaceIL, a nonprofit organization working to land the first Israeli spacecraft on the moon as part of Google's LunarX Prize;
• Meet the students and the staff members of the Bialik Rogozin Campus that educates children and youngsters from 48 different countries, all dealing with a complex reality of language and cultural barriers;
• VIP visit at "Lunada" Children's Museum of Beer Sheva, a state-of-the-art interactive, experiential museum for the entire family which showcases more than 50 different exhibits in 8 indoor galleries and 2 exterior courtyards

The experience is made possible by the Vibe Israel program. They want the world to know there’s more to Israel than news related to the conflict in the Middle East.

The Hottest Posts Everyone's Reading

Here’s the roundup of what's been popular on The Innovative Educator blog.

A new post takes the lead this week. It addresses a statement that was made recently at an education event I attended. The presenter said to the room, that we can all agree, that when it comes to learning, the teacher is the most important factor.  He then went on with a presentation based on that premise, but it was one I disagreed with.  This week's #1 post explains why.  The second most popular post discusses the new role of the teacher when using tech programs (ABC Mouse, Minecraft, Skoolbo) ror learning.   

There are a few more posts to round out the top including one addressing critical issues in digital learning and best strategies to address them as well as one that explains why there's no need to freak out about the Common Sense Census on media use.  l.  I hope there's something that looks of interest to you.  If it does, check it out. If you’re inspired use one of those icons below the post to share it with others and/or leave a comment.

Entry	Pageviews
The Teacher Is Not The Most Important Factor ... Nov 22, 2015,	7197
When Tech Teaches, What Do Teachers Do? Nov 15, 2015,	2632
5 Critical Issues In Digital Learning - Best Pract... Nov 17, 2015,	2973
#8to18 Yr Olds Use Media Constantly: Why You Shoul... Nov 8, 2015,	2691
A Nicer Way to Put Together Reading or Resource Li... Nov 11, 2015,	2640
Bullies: Let’s Do More Than Ignore Nov 1, 2015,	1946

Does Tech Mean the End of Teaching As We Know It?

There’s been a lot of discussion in my learning networks lately warning of the horrors of students learning from screens and relegating teachers to the status of robot babysitters. Here’s one such snippet from the Stop Common Core blog.

==For a while teachers will be on the sidelines to coach kids through the modules, check the data dashboards, and sign off on community projects. But over time, taxpayers will start to think “maybe we don’t really need actual school buildings or teachers anymore.” “It’s so much easier to just have learning hubs with mentors who don’t have tenure or pension benefits and are paid through grants.”

“Who wants to shoulder a property tax increase for new roofs or boilers?” “Surely we can recoup some funding by selling off our aging buildings to condo developers.” And so slowly that people don’t even realize what is taking place, schools, as real physical entities, will be dissolved. Schools will have become diffused within the community, the exact opposite of an anchor.

So if you hear people start talking about “any time, anywhere, any pace learning,” pause. Do you want to outsource your child’s education to uncertified partners or computer modules? ==

I’m an educator....and none of this sounds terrifying or disturbing to me. The above author asks parents if they want to outsource their child’s education to uncertified partners and computer modules.  What’s really wrong with that? Industry experts and peers who share interests provide a wonderful way to learn, if it’s chosen by young people who enjoy the content and the method. Textbooks are often no competition for interactive learning that could take place online.  The question is this: Does technology really mean the end of teaching as we know it? I hope so.