DigitalJLearning looks ahead to 2019

Happy New Year!

2018 was quite a year for DigitalJLearning, one full of changes, shifts, and many new and exciting opportunities and challenges to take on. We will look very different in 2019, and we wanted to reach out to fill you all in on what’s new.

To begin with, our brand got a little makeover. While we’ve been going by the name DigitalJLearning Network for 5 years, we decided it was time for a new, simpler, style. We are now officially DigitalJLearning, or DigitalJ for short. With that came the spiffy new logo you see at the top of the page. (Fun fact, our new logo was designed via competition on a site called 99designs we highly recommend to anyone looking for a new image to go with their awesome work.)

We also look a bit different ourselves. Last spring saw the retirement of our former Director Gary Hartstein, who started this program and built it out to a national EdTech adventure over the course of 5 years. He’s currently enjoying the mountains of Colorado and can be found on Facebook if you miss him. This summer, our rockstar social media maven, Yonah Kirschner, moved to a new position as the program officer at The Covenant Foundation where she is furthering her skills and helping improve the world of Jewish education.

With these changes, our team is now as follows:

Tatyana Dvorkin, Director, DigitalJLearning

Tatyana now leads the department after three years of fantastic work as DigitalJ’s associate director. She will now be focused on finding new opportunities for technology in Jewish education outside the day school field, such as in congregational learning, and growing DigitalJ’s existing work both in the New York area and nationally. She still works on the ground with educators as well, largely with our JBlend Boston program. The New York office based workshops she ran before are now in the capable hands of our new educational technology consultant.

Monica Brandwein, Educational Technology Consultant

Monica has over ten years of education experience in both formal and informal education settings. She comes to us from Ramaz Lower School where she worked as the educational technology specialist. Prior to that work she was a kindergarten teacher, did EdTech at HAFTR, and worked at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Monica earned her Master’s degree from Bank Street College of Education in Museum Education and an Elementary Education certification. She brings with her a wealth of knowledge on meaningfully using EdTech in the classroom. She’s presented two stellar workshops for us so far, one on AR and VR and another on unplugged coding projects. We are excited about her upcoming workshop Is This Thing Working? In her next workshop she will teach about the SAMR Model and Bloom’s Taxonomy and help participants organize a digital library based on these learning models. If you’ve enjoyed our workshops over the last few years, join us on January 29th, meet Monica, and learn about what else she’s got in store for spring.

Gabriel Weinstein, Project Manager, Digital Content and Communications

Of course nobody would ever know about our work if not for our social media and marketing teams, and that’s where Gabriel comes in. He is an award-winning journalist who has reported stories from Capitol Hill, India and the snow-capped peaks of Northern New Mexico. As a Jewish educator, Gabriel has also taught college students and adults. In his role for DigitalJ he puts together our publicity materials including emails like this one, newsletters, and our website (which is also getting a makeover). He also writes great pieces for our blog, including our Educator Spotlight series and runs our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

 Thanks for reading, and welcome to a new year! We wish you all health, happiness, and learning. If you want to know what we’re up to, please check out The Jewish Education Project’s events page.

Tatyana Dvorkin is Director, DigitalJLearning for The Jewish Education Project.