Free consulting

In an effort to help move the field of Jewish education forward and train the next generation of Jewish educators, I am offering free consulting sessions via Google Hangouts.

Who am I?

I'm Russel. I build creative Jewish educational experiences. Sometimes these take the form of interactive tools and apps, but I'm just as likely and competent at whipping something up without a lick of technology. If you're really interested you can check out my bio, or my formal resume.

How does it work?

These sessions will be completely free-form. There is no curriculum, simply bring your questions and problems, and I will do my best to help you figure them out. I can't guarantee that I will always know the answer, but I'm pretty good at solving problems. At the very least, we'll have an interesting conversation and maybe we'll get you closer to a solution or find someone else to direct your questions to. A non-exhaustive list of some examples of things that we might cover in a session include:

• I built this tool or wrote this curriculum or have this interesting idea that I think might be useful, but I want to run it by someone else first. What do you think about it?
• I've been hearing a lot lately about: [blended learning/data analytics/BYOD/Digital Badges/Game based learning/some other hot educational technology trend] in Jewish education. What can you tell me about it?
• I think I want a Jewish educational app for my school/class. How do I get started?
• I'm getting pressure to introduce '21st century skills and tech' into my school, but I'm not sure we're ready for it yet. How can we make sure we go about it in a smart way?
• What are some effective models for teacher PD to get them up to speed on digital competencies?
• Other general Q&A about Jewish ed tech

Of course, I will do my best to work with you on whatever challenges you have. My goal is to help spread knowledge of how to integrate technology more effectively in Jewish education.

Interested?

If you would like a consulting session, please email me with the subject "Free Consulting Please!" and we will schedule a session. I'd like to limit the sessions to about a half hour, but I am flexible and will not cut you off abruptly. I am generally available in the evenings (after my kids are sleeping and I finish my work from my real job). I am based in St. Louis, which is in the same timezone as Chicago (CDT/UTC-5) (you can use everytimezone.com to find your time difference).

I look forward to helping and learning from you!