CAJE Embraces New Media

When I used to think about CAJE, the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education, I used to think "establishment." At a December CAJE-sponsored event, Ariel Beery and I sat there in the audience, impressed with the caliber of the educators and leaders in the room, but kind of unimpressed with the content. The event led us to question what tomorrow's "Big Ideas" really were (especially since no one was jumping to fund my JSingleSpace NYC idea).

During our time there, we broke into smaller groups, in which we discovered that when CAJE was founded, the A used to stand for "alternatives," and that the founders of the group were viewed in their day as counterculturalists. One of the men in our group bemoaned the loss of that radical spirit and approach to transforming Jewish education. And some of the women in attendance asked, in a discussion of the Jewish future, where were the young voices? (Read my recap posts here and here.) Was CAJE prepared to recapture the spirit of its youth and become a little radical?

Well, I don't know if CAJE is as radical as it was once considered to be. But the changes to their website in preparation for their upcoming annual conference, CAJE 32, to be held in St. Louis, certainly seem edgy, especially when compared to (generalization alert) the tendency of Jewish organizations to resist change. The conference is titled "Engaging the 21st Century Learner," a good and forward-thinking title that other Jewish organizations would do well to emulate. (How many times can you title your conference "If You Will It, It Is No Dream?" I mean, really...)

And I happen to know that their upcoming issue of Jewish Education News, their journal of educational theory, practice and methodology, does focus on technology and education. But the website? The website takes this commitment to technology to a whole new level, including a WordPress blog, a YouTube channel for video (currently empty), Slideshare for downloading slide shows, a wiki for collecting documents and press releases about the conference, a Flickr account for showcasing photos, and an invitation-only social network. As someone who hasn't been invited to the social network and will not be attending the conference, I'm glad to know that I can audit the conference by accessing its highlights online.

This embrace of technology is good for all of us; it's not going away and can help us to do our jobs--whether it's Jewish education or something else--better. CAJE is incorporating the future into the present. And that's something worth watching.

Comments

[Ariel Beery]

KolHakavod! I'd love to know who led this change--they deserve a profile in PT!

[Peter Eckstein]

Hi.

I'm the CAJE 32 conference chair. My name is Peter Eckstein. This conference is rooted in the idea of alternatives. It's the point of the hole shebang...as in Conference for Alternatives in Jewish Education (CAJE). The visioning process of this conference focused on the paradigm of changing Jewish educators' frames of reference. If you notice, the theme of the conference is "Engaging 21st Century Jewish Learners". Not "teaching". Not "educating". It's "Engaging". The future of Judaism is a function of an interface between the contemporary understanding of traditional texts with virtual reality.....wikis, facebook, whatever. Call it Techno-Judaism.

Technology is a tool. Let's see where it take us in creating a Jewish future. I'm hoping that the conference will open doors for "Jewish Engagers" to a new dimension that will enable all of us to help build the foundations of a Jewish future.

That's the point, isn't it?

Peter

[Esther Kustanowitz]

Yes, Peter. That's the point. I agree completely--engagement is vital. And I'll write more about this over the next few days, but that interface between traditional text comprehension and comprehension of the tools of tech that help us achieve educational and social goals is sorely lacking among the attendees at this conference. They're here to learn, but their questions reveal that they need more basics before they can even ask the questions that these sessions are addressing. I'll definitely write more about this...

Thanks for coming by to post!