Head of School Blog Post

At CESJDS, our approach to educational technology is rooted in a clear and forward-thinking philosophy: our students are not just consumers of content—they are independent, ethical creators who use technology to explore ideas, express themselves, and connect with the wider world. In a world where technological tools evolve at an unprecedented pace, our goal is to equip students not only with the right tools but also with the adaptability and confidence needed to engage with tomorrow’s innovations.

Our educational technology program works toward being fundamentally student-centered. Whether a student is in Gurim or twelfth grade, we plan to cultivate digital fluency that is active rather than passive. This means teaching students to “show what they know” through multimedia presentations, interactive discussions, and creative projects. It means emphasizing process over product—using technology not only to demonstrate what they've learned, but also to articulate how they got there. These practices are central to building independent learners who are capable of self-reflection, collaboration, and innovation. 

We also believe that education should prepare students for the future they will live in, not the past we remember. As such, we guide our students to wield the tools they’ll use in higher education, the workplace, and civic life—from collaborative platforms like Google Education and Canva to AI tools that support creativity and efficiency. We push ourselves as educators to continually re-examine lessons and units that may have once worked without technology and ask how those same lessons might be deepened through digital integration. The goal is never to use tech for tech’s sake, but to enrich engagement, amplify student agency, and connect with audiences beyond the classroom walls. There are also times when we put technology to the side to reach our learning goals.

A growing body of research supports this approach and emphasizes that learning is enhanced and personalized when technology is used to support student-centered learning and higher-order thinking—precisely the goal we have at CESJDS.

In our classrooms, some examples of this approach are powerful and visible every day. In the Lower School, students use platforms like Seesaw and Canva to create interactive portfolios, voice-record their thinking while solving math problems, or create digital illustrations to reflect their understanding of core Jewish texts. They use AI-powered tools like Quizlet for vocabulary review and apps like Dreambox or IXL for personalized practice in math and language arts.

Our Middle School students continue this trajectory of creative, adaptive learning. In Talmud class, they record themselves reading Aramaic, building fluency and confidence. In Sixth-grade Toshba/rabbinic text classes, students have built VR environments to demonstrate their understanding of Mishnaic law. In English, the platform wewillwrite.com turns some writing lessons into a social game, where anonymity fosters creative risk-taking and feedback is continuous. Eighth-grade TaNaKH/Bible students produce movie trailers for the Book of Samuel—melding literary analysis with visual storytelling.

In the High School, we see even more sophisticated applications. A Hebrew teacher built a customized AI bot for students to practice language skills in conversation. In Spanish, students record and respond to videos analyzing art, deepening both their language and cultural understanding. Across subjects, tools like Flip, immersive readers, and assistive technologies make learning collaborative and individualized.

Most importantly, our use of educational technology is grounded in a commitment to digital citizenship. Through a partnership between classroom teachers, school counselors, and our instructional technology team, students are learning to navigate the online world ethically and responsibly. We use platforms like GoGuardian to help students stay focused and teachers to provide timely support during lessons when we use technology and digital content.

Our overall CESJDS educational philosophy includes empowering students to be creators, collaborators, and changemakers. Educational technology helps us do that—not by replacing outstanding teaching, but by enriching it. As our students use tools to explore, build, and connect, they are gaining far more than technical skill—they are gaining agency, adaptability, and a sense of ownership over their own learning. 

There is still much work to be done and the examples above are just that. Our faculty are becoming more practiced at when and how to best use educational technology to advance our Portrait of CESJDS Graduate outcome goals. We continue to provide professional development for our outstanding teachers in this area and we have a team of instructional technology specialists who work daily to support and collaborate with teachers as they experiment with ed tech tools and platforms.

We’re excited to continue pushing forward, staying rooted in our core Jewish values while embracing the opportunities that educational technology makes possible. That’s why we say CESJDS is where Tradition Meets Innovation.

*Part 1 of 2 blogs on educational technology in schools