education

Just in time for the New Year! At long last, we can share with the world a taste of the Tagged Tanakh (TT) prototype!

The JPS Technical Advisory Board and our Tech Team developed the Tagged Tanakh prototype from January-June of 2009. Core functionality like viewing the English version of the Jewish Bible, adding and viewing tags and remarks, as well as basic moderation and content aggregation are now operational.

“As more and more culture becomes digitized, more and more becomes controllable, as laws are being toughened at the behest of the big media groups. What’s at stake is our freedom—freedom to create, freedom to build, and ultimately, freedom to imagine.”

So says cultural environmentalist and thought leader, Lawrence Lessig in his book entitled Free Culture. Lessig is an integral part to the copyleft and creative commons movements–legal and social agendas bent on reviewing and renovating the copyright laws that companies like Disney have lobbied long and hard to put in place.

Free culture is succinctly described as one where all members are free to participate in its transmission and evolution, without artificial limits on who can participate or in what way. The free culture movement seeks to develop this culture by promoting four things:

Hot off the press is SRI International’s report on online education. I don’t think we could ask for better statistical evidence in our effort to bring the Tagged Tanakh to fruition.

You can get a pithy summary of and access to the full report at this New York Times article. A tip of the hat to Naomi Rosenblatt for cluing me in.

In previous JPSI posts we have questioned why more people don’t study or interact with the Bible, as well as why teens are especially disinterested. Many people ask us why we think making the Torah accessible and relevant to wider audiences is important, or even how we can accomplish this goal.

Our hope is that the Tagged Tanakh can be a new platform and playground for interpretation, insight, and community building. Critical to this process is transforming the words of Torah from analog to digital formats. We hope that by bringing the Tanakh to digital realms and incorporating the latest innovations in online communications, we can bring the Bible to where people actually are today.

What does an intern at JPS Interactive do? Unlike some of my previous jobs, i.e. Aerial Decoration Consultant (balloon arrangements) or Strategic Document Transportation Engineer (courier), it wasn’t always immediately clear.

Our goal at JPS Interactive is to create a positive and meaningful Torah study experience. We believe that if more people can access and interact with the seminal text of the Jewish people, our community will be stronger and more vibrant. As we put the finishing touches on the Tagged Tanakh prototype we inch closer to the next exciting stage of development–User Testing.

In essence, user testing is a process where volunteers use a product and communicate how they feel about it and any problems they might have encountered while using it. Through this process assumptions made during the design phrase are verified or discredited. The data gleaned from user testing then informs the next round of iteration and development.

The surviving pages of the world’s oldest Christian Bible, previously stored in four locations around the world for the last 150 years, have finally been reunited: digitally. The Codex Sinaiticus is now available online.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Orthodox Jewish learning website WebYeshiva offers rabbinic teachings via video web conferencing. The self described “Torah learning revolution” was founded in 2007, but has recently surfaced and gained attention.

So how do these two projects compare and contrast with the Tagged Tanakh (TT)?