From Sinai to Cyberspace, Pt. 1: Preparing to freeze.

I’m sitting in a pizza joint in Palm Beach International, waiting for my flight to the frozen tundra of southern New Jersey. Why would I, a 17 year resident of tropical Florida be braving the Arctic cold of the North East? What would have prompted me to purchased a down jacket – my first since the 1970s? There’s only one answer: looking for tomorrow, today.

I’m on my way to the Jewish Educators Assembly Conference, called “From Sinai to Cyberspace: Exploring the Impact of Technology on Jewish Education”. The Conservative movement (like the Reform next week) is embarking on a journey to investigate the interface between digital learning and Torah. We educators know that something must change. We also know that the process of re-visioning Jewish learning is well on its way. We are in the midst of learning how these Jetson-like tools can work for us today.

I plan on blogging the conference, sharing with you my thoughts, impressions, questions, and maybe even gossip and trivia, if anything pops up. I’ll also be tweeting my experiences at #jea59 (as well as #jed21). If you can’t be with me, freezing your tuches off, at least you can vicariously experiencing how today we take our steps, virtual and real, into the future.

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Peter Eckstein

Peter Eckstein began his career a Jewish educator in 1982 on Kibbutz Ketura, working with children of all ages and serving as the kibbutz Education Coordinator. In 1993 upon returning to the U.S. he became the Director of Education and Programming at Temple Israel in West Palm Beach. Currently he is the Director of Congregational Learning at Temple Beth David in Palm Beach Gardens. In addition, serves as the Technology Integration Educator for the Friedman Commission for Jewish Education.He was very active with the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education as programming co-chair, Shabbat chair and conference chair for several conferences. He has taught professional development for educators, Judaic adult education classes, and the Palm Beach County’s “Introduction to Judaism” course for those seeking to become part of the community. He is specializing in teaching educators how to integrate Education Technology into the Jewish classroom. He has also served on the faculty at URJ Camp Coleman as an informal Jewish educator.Peter is fascinated by how technology and experiential education will aid in the transmission of Jewish awareness to the next generations

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