Replace an antiquated system of tape or CD distribution for Bar or Bat Mitzvah students with mp3's and pdf files on a Wiki

1. BUILD A FREE WEBSITE
FOR YOUR B’NEI MITZVAH STUDENTS
presented by Erik Contzius
Make Tech Better, Inc.

2. THE PAST

3. THE TORAH
JUST CHANT IT

4. Long Play Records
Groovy

5. Cassette Tapes
Anyone have a pencil?

6. Compact Discs
(or shiny beverage coasters)

7. THE PRESENT

8. Compact Discs
For those loathe to enter the 21st century

9. MP3 Audio
Brought to you by the Moving Picture Experts Group

10. THE CHALLENGE

11. THE CHALLENGE
CD’s get lost or broken
CD’s aren’t green
It’s time consuming to manage & e-mail students MP3’s
E-mails get lost, as do MP3’s

12. THE SOLUTION

13. THE SOLUTION
Dropbox or other “Cloud Storage” Solutions
But, those Dropbox links are still e-mailed to
students... e-mails which can still be “lost.”

14. THE BETTER SOLUTION

15. A WEBSITE

16. A WEBSITE
As long as the internet is up and the website is up, the
material is always accessible
As a result, no more excuses! No more “lost” recordings
A centralized place for all things B’nei Mitzvah related
A “Green” solution
Set It and Forget It (there’s only one Torah)

17. WEBSITE FRAMEWORKS

18. WHAT IS A “FRAMEWORK?”
Websites are built on a language: HyperText Markup
Language (HTML)
Browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.) interpret
the language into what you see as a “Website”
There are many ways to frame the language into
something

19. WHAT IS A “FRAMEWORK?”
Hebrew is a language
It can be framed in prose, as the Torah
It can be framed as commentary, as the Talmud
It can be framed in a song or a poem

20. WHAT IS A “FRAMEWORK?”
HTML is a language
It can be framed in “prose” as a simple text page
It can be framed as a searchable “blog”
It can be framed as a “portfolio” of photos and videos
It can be framed as a dynamic, searchable database

21. WHAT IS A “FRAMEWORK?”
Prose: Text Page
Blog: blogger, WordPress, tumblr
Portfolio: flickr, YouTube
Searchable Dynamic Database: Wiki

22. WHAT IS A “WIKI?”
From “Wikipedia”: A wiki is usually a web application,
which allows people to add, modify, or delete content in a
collaboration with others. Text is usually written using a
simplified markup language (HTML) or a rich-text editor.
While a wiki is a type of content management system, it
differs from a blog or most other such systems in that the
content is created without any defined owner or leader,
and wikis have little implicit structure, allowing structure
to emerge according to the needs of the users.

23. WHAT IS A “WIKI?”
Ward Cunningham, the
developer of the first wiki
software, WikiWikiWeb,
originally described it as “the
simplest online database that
could possibly work.” “Wiki”
is a Hawaiian word meaning
“fast” or “quick.”

24. WHY USE A WIKI?
Super easy to use
Many students are familiar with how it works because
of the popularity of Wikipedia
The framework is free
There are hosting services which offer free Wiki space

25. WHY USE A WIKI?
NB: The use of a wiki for our purposes is not how it
was originally intended
Wiki’s were intended to be shared, crowdsourced
information, communally edited for content
We will be creating a closed Wiki (only you will be
creating and editing content)
Its functionality is not predicated on others being
members, just others having access

26. LET’S LOOK AT A FUNCTIONAL WIKI

27. tinrtorah.wikispaces.com

28. List all parshiyot per sefer

29. Open pdf files and audio files
from browser or download

32. LET’S GO LIVE TO THE WIKI
AND MAKE ONE OF OUR OWN