Written by Shoshi Yaari, HHAI Parent.

 

At the end of December 2016, our own Mr. Voskoboynik had the incredible opportunity to attend and present at the Yad Vashem International Conference for Jewish Education in Jerusalem. Over 200 Jewish day school principals and educators from more than 30 countries came together for this four-day conference. This is the largest and most prestigious gathering of Jewish educators, and this year's theme was "The Shoah and Jewish Identity: Challenges in Jewish Education."

 

The conference featured many renowned speakers, testimonials from Holocaust survivors, and educator workshops for elementary through high school grades. Mr. Voskoboynik was one of the presenters of these workshops that highlighted the multidisciplinary approaches to teaching about the Holocaust through art, films, and technology. Mr. Voskoboynik presented a workshop titled “Using Technology – Unique Programs in the Jewish World to Ensure the Legacy of the Shoah.”

 

His presentation was based on our middle school students' “Family Tree” and “Virtual Trip to Eastern Europe” projects. He also demonstrated some of the latest techniques, such as virtual reality (with Google Cardboard) and augmented reality (Aurasma app). Everyone was very impressed by our students' use of these and other techniques in their projects. ​

The day after the presentation, Mr. Voskoboynik was interviewed by the Yad Vashem Press:

To further complement his workshops, Mr. Voskoboynik visited the Rambam School, HHAI's partner school in Akko (through Partnership2Gether Western Galilee), where he spent some time in a classroom demonstrating the app Google Street View, which allows the student to access a 360-degree street view of almost any location and create their own photospheres. The Rambam School also received a gift from us of four virtual reality Google Cardboard viewers that students assembled and used to  create their own virtual reality scenes.

 

Mr. Voskoboynik also gave a lecture at the Western Galilee college in Akko for local technology coordinators on using various tech tools in classroom instruction.

 

​​After a bit of touring and meeting up with family, Mr. Voskoboynik took a beautiful 360-degree photo of the Kotel and Western Wall Plaza to share with his HHAI students.  Click here​ to see this photo!