{"id":3510,"date":"2013-04-24T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2013-04-24T14:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewsingreen.com\/?p=3510"},"modified":"2014-06-12T18:17:14","modified_gmt":"2014-06-13T00:17:14","slug":"jconnect-jewish-education-for-young-adults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/2013\/04\/jconnect-jewish-education-for-young-adults\/","title":{"rendered":"JconnecT &#8211; Jewish Education for Teens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As a parent of young children, I am well aware of the challenges of finding quality Jewish education options for them as we bounce from duty station to duty station. While it&#8217;s not impossible to provide them with a consistent education, it can certainly be quite difficult &#8211; especially in more remote or &#8220;less Jewish&#8221; posts.<\/p>\n<p>Distance learning is nothing new, but it is becoming more and more of an option to fill this gap in Jewish education for kids. I&#8217;ve written about education options for kids in the past, but most of these revolve around <a title=\"Bar Mitzvah Tutoring For Military Families\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jewsingreen.com\/2011\/10\/bar-mitzvah-tutoring-for-military-families\/\">bar\/bat mitzvah prep<\/a>. If you want something beyond that, or something that can continue to engage your teenage kids past the age of 13, there is a great option in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jconnectlearning.com\" target=\"_blank\">JconnecT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I was actually first referred to <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/jconnect\" target=\"_blank\">JconnecT<\/a> through a fellow Jewish Marine whose son is participating in the program. They have been very happy with the curriculum and their son is enjoying the program tremendously.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jconnectlearning.com\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3513\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jewsingreen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/IMG00320-20110731-1435-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"IMG00320-20110731-1435\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/IMG00320-20110731-1435-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/IMG00320-20110731-1435-600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/IMG00320-20110731-1435-466x350.jpg 466w, https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/IMG00320-20110731-1435.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>JconnecT<\/a> is an online supplemental Hebrew school for grades 6-12 that uses technology to provide opportunities for both Jewish <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">education<\/span> <em><strong>and<\/strong><\/em> Jewish <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">socialization<\/span>. They offer two dynamic, live, weekly study sessions with an experienced teacher in Jerusalem via a web-based platform that provides full audio and video conferencing for guaranteed small groups.<\/p>\n<p>Some current sessions include: <em>Jewish Choices: Then and Now<\/em> , <em>Hip Hop Hebraics<\/em>, and <em>Contemporary Jewish Issues<\/em>. The online instruction is also supplemented by two optional Shabbatons held in Memphis, TN.<\/p>\n<p>As a former Sunday School teacher myself, one thing that really stood out to me about the program is that it appears to do a great job engaging teens both socially and academically. At this age it almost seems like you have to &#8220;trick&#8221; kids into learning. The curriculum at <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/jconnect\" target=\"_blank\">JconnecT<\/a> looks like it does a good job of making the learning fun and focusing on topics that interest teens. See the video below for a brief intro:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TD_CHcFHNDM?rel=0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Also, a significant focus of the program is to provide a forum for the students to interact with one another. This is a real need for Jewish kids of servicemembers who may not have a real pool of Jewish kids to socialize and interact with. Having a set of classmates that they can meet with online (and in person at the Shabbatons) is a huge asset for kids in these situations. The nature of the classes (and who takes them) also presents a unique atmosphere for the students. A testimonial from one of their students says it all:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;there&#8217;s lots of companionship, everybody&#8217;s participating and learning from each other. You can&#8217;t get that in many places. In face to face classes, you could be scared to say things &#8216;oh, he said that, and he&#8217;s not that cool.&#8217; But when you&#8217;re on the computer, you can say things that you usually don&#8217;t say. Sometimes that&#8217;s bad, but in this case, it&#8217;s good.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The school has 2 regular sessions, 32 weeks a year, from Sept-May, excluding Jewish and American holidays.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Session 1: 10-10:45am CST: Subjects: Hip Hop Hebraics OR Jewish Choices: Then and Now (TBA)<\/li>\n<li><em id=\"__mceDel\">Session 2: 11-11:45am CST: Subject: Contemporary Jewish Issues<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em id=\"__mceDel\">Shabbatons in Memphis, Fall and Spring. Cost: Free. Pay for your transportation only.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>They also have a few &#8220;asynchronous&#8221; or self-paced programs for those who can&#8217;t fit in to their regular sessions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To show interested parties what JconnecT is really like, they are providing a free trial to join a JconnecT lesson.<\/strong> You can join in any Sunday from 11-11:45CST, until May 19. Their only requirement is that you test your connection prior to the lesson.<\/p>\n<p>The normal cost is $450 per class for the year (both classes for the year would be $900). However, <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">JconnecT has agreed to offer a military discount to JIG readers<\/span>.<\/strong> If you mention that you found out about the program through JIG, <strong>you will receive 10% off.<\/strong> If you have a group of 6 or more students that want to sign up, they will <strong>double that to 20% off<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Note: If you have a group of 5 or more students that want a specific time other than the standard Sunday morning offering, JconnecT can arrange for a time that works better for your group.<\/p>\n<p>For full details on the program, including faculty information, curriculum, and an online application, visit their website at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jconnectlearning.com\" target=\"_blank\">jconnectlearning.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a parent of young children, I am well aware of the challenges of finding quality Jewish education options for them as we bounce from duty station to duty station. While it&#8217;s not impossible to provide them with a consistent education, it can certainly be quite difficult &#8211; especially in more remote or &#8220;less Jewish&#8221; posts. Distance learning is nothing [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[139,113,80],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2024-05-22 17:31:14","action":"Draft","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3510"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jewsingreen.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}