The Future of Jewish Learning Is Here: How Digital Media Are Reshaping Jewish Education
March 14th, 2019
Among the many ways in which the internet has irreversibly changed our lives is how it has enabled access to information with unprecedented speed and ease. By changing how we engage with information, it has also changed how people relate to information and how they negotiate its various meanings. Social media have accelerated this process by creating new ways to connect people through sharing information. These changes have influenced our communities, our politics, our consumption patterns, how we spend our leisure time, and even our definitions of “friend” and “like.”
Learning online does not look exactly like learning in classrooms or schools, summer camps or seminaries. Nor should we expect it to. And yet, people are learning online, and this report makes the case for understanding online engagements as educational. The question it answers is, “How are people learning online?” Combining leading research about secular online learning and new data about Jewish online learning, The Future of Jewish Learning Is Here offers a substantive, richly illustrative, and intimately informed account of Jewish learning online. It accounts for when, where, and how it happens, what people are learning, and how they are engaging with information alone and in relation with others. Jewish educational online media enable learners to:
Jewish educational online media enable learners to:
- Connect with others around Jewish learning
- Access Jewish knowledge beyond Jewish institutions
- Learn in sync with the rhythms of the Jewish calendar
- Utilize different platforms for different ends
- Integrate online learning and offline practice
Together, these key findings represent a portrait of Jewish learning online, with the understanding that learning online is more diffuse, less coordinated, more generally self-directed than learning in schools and other formal settings. The Future of Jewish Learning Is Here: How Digital Media Are Reshaping Jewish Education offers insights into how and what people learn online, as part of a larger conversation about what Jewish education looks like in the 21st century.
The Future of Jewish Learning Is Here: How Digital Media Are Reshaping Jewish Education, March 2019
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Read a series of blogs in eJewishPhilanthropy on insights from the report:
- A Funder Approach to the (Seemingly) Limitless World of Online Learning, Josh Miller and Seth Linden, Jim Joseph Foundation
- Seek and You Shall Find, Eli Kannai, The AVI CHAI Foundation
- Hey Siri, Meredith Lewis, PJ Library
- A Bright Future for Jewish Education and Technology, Daniel Septimus, Sefaria
- Introducing the Future of Jewish Learning, Dr. Ari Kelman, Stanford University
Add comments and feedback on the report here: