Ji Calendar vs SmartHebrewFlashcards

Ji Calendar is a state-of-the-art, educationally rich, imaginative and enriching series of modules to teach everything that a child needs to know about the Jewish calendar. The app is divided into a classroom tool and an addictive game for students. Students can design their own 'space kid' who will accompany them on their entire journey through the Jewish Calendar. Note: This app will run best on iPad 3 and more devices EXPERIENCE Making this app cross-curricular, are simulations of the astronomy involved with days, months and years. Each simulation displays a window representing what you would see on earth, together with a working 3D model of the solar system, that students and teachers can manipulate to create certain circumstances. There are three modes for each simulation: PLAY – A free play mode that allows the user to manipulate the earth and moon freely to explain how days, months and years work. LEARN –A step-by-step mode that guides the learner from the general astronomical model down to the Jewish application, such as the moon being the basis for the Jewish months. QUESTS – Students have quests that can be answered by manipulating the 3D solar system models. JEWISH CALENDAR At the heart of the product is a calendar tool, which can be used as a classroom tool. Teachers are encouraged to use this tool every day, to discuss today, this month, and this year. The tool demonstrates clearly the overlay of the secular and Jewish calendars. If you have enabled your location settings on your device, then the time shown in the calendar for the zmanim, or times of the Jewish day, will be accurate for your location. TIME CHALLENGE Students will find this game addictive, while being immersed in travelling through time. Major concepts are reinforced, and earning ‘powerups’ involves completing quests in the simulations. Students will run through a Jewish day, learning zmanim, through the Jewish week, learning the connection between Creation and the days of the week culminating in Shabbat, through the month, connecting moon phases with the date in the lunar cycle, and through the year, connecting seasons with Jewish months in Israel. Ji Tap LESSONS on the Calendar The educational content is reinforced with highly interactive educational lessons, built by Ji experts, in Ji Tap. These games are accessible from within the app. RICH EDUCATOR GUIDE Ji Calendar is accompanied by comprehensive educator guides, with rich Jewish content to support the app. COLLABORATION "Ji Calendar" is produced by Jewish Interactive (Ji) and funded by The Center For Initiatives In Jewish Education (CIJE) and the Glatt Charitable Trust.

Smart Hebrew Flashcards is an app written by an experienced Sunday School Hebrew Teacher to make learning Hebrew more fun for all students. It’s great to use on-line – just share screen and just ask students to take turns guessing a flashcard. Smart Hebrew Flashcards is perfect for the prospective bar or bat mitzvah student and anyone who wants to easily improve their Hebrew reading and vocabulary. What’s great about it? You can learn common Hebrew words. It includes Hebrew prayers and holiday words that are hard to find in other apps -- and are much needed by Sunday School teachers preparing bar and bat mitzvah students! No setup required for Hebrew Teachers -- just ask students to install and you are off and running. Just finished testing for three years on a group of 4th graders that all are well into their Bar/Bat Mitzvah Prep now. The entire religious service makes more sense if one knows the Hebrew that is being spoken. This app teaches the words that form the foundation of many prayers, so it fosters a meaningful connection with previous generations. Kids love it so much that a group of 5th grade Sunday School students came to an extra class every Tuesday evening for six months to play the game and help develop it. “Smart Hebrew Flashcards” are “Smart” because the Progress screen shows exactly how students are doing on particular words, and perhaps more importantly, how much time they spend on a particular word. Teachers need to know that to plan what to focus on. Bar/Bat Mitzvah students get a head start by learning some Biblical Hebrew. The app is really a mitzvah – a good deed. The app will be free. How did it develop? During five years of teaching Hebrew, the App’s creator discovered that students LOVED flash cards more than any other part of the class. They worked well for students learning in a group or on their own. The class played a “game” by taking turns reading the words . During this past two years, the class couldn’t play a physical flashcard game, so the Sunday School teacher searched for suitable flashcard games online. But there were none that were both easy to use, and taught both Hebrew prayers and holiday words. He didn’t find a single app. So given that the Sunday School teacher is also a computer science professor, he created an app, and started teaching his Sunday School students online. The app has been used the last six months by a 5th grade class, with no extra setup by the teacher. The Director of Religious Education (who has come to numerous classes where the app has been used) says, “The Sunday School kids need to learn what the prayers and Jewish holiday words mean--and so do I! But there was nothing that suited our needs, so this one was developed. It’s been fun meeting every week to test the app. The kids don’t like to miss--and neither do I. For the last month, I have been practicing 6 days a week for 5-10 minutes, and I know a lot of words in the prayers and songs now. It’s revolutionized my whole experience of Jewish services. Oh, and it does teach a lot of other words too! I’m just a religious educator, so the prayers are what I care about most.” During the testing period, a class of 5th grade students have been relentless with software requirements. They know what an app should do, and they refused to play until the app was not only fun, but behaved as they thought it should. Their feedback has guided the entire development. Version 1 has been in the app store for a couple of years and over time it did not work on newer versions of IOS. All of that has been fixed and numerous features have been added. Enjoy and send us feedback at info@smarthebrewflashcards.com.