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While social media increasingly permeate the world of education, Jewish teachers at the second annual Conference On Synagogue Education (COSE) in Metuchen expressed that Twitter, Facebook, and Skype cannot be considered replacements for the connections formed in the classroom.

Delivering the keynote address Jan. 9 at Congregation Neve Shalom, Joel Lurie Grishaver, co-owner of the Los Angeles-Based educational Judaica publisher Torah Aura Productions, said media reports these days indicate that "the latest thing in Jewish education is 10 minutes of Skype a week followed by five minutes of video games."

However, a "kehila kedosha," or holy community, is built in real classrooms through the relationships students have with teachers and with each other, Grishaver said. Leading a session titled "Finding a Place in your School for Teens," Hazzan Sheldon Levin, Neve Shalom's education director, agreed with Grishaver that "Skype may not be the best way of educating our kids" because sitting alone in front of your computer at 9 p.m. is not the "intense and wonderful experience" that learning with fellow children in person can be.

"I don't think that's going to work for most teens I know," Levin said of teaching through Skype.

The COSE conference, sponsored by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism's (USCJ) Mid-Atlantic District, drew 95 educators, up from 70 at last year's inaugural event. The Mid-Atlantic District, formed in January, is headquartered in Edison and consists of 108 USCJ member synagogues that were formerly part of the umbrella organization's New Jersey and Mid-Atlantic regions. Michelle Rich, the district's associate director, told The Jewish State that COSE was launched last year to provide an alternative professional development conference for teachers in light of the collapse of the Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education (CAJE), but that this year's conference had a different feel because of the whirlwind of changes at USCJ. The new Mid-Atlantic district -- besides for containing all of New Jersey -- extends as far north as Scranton, Penn., and as far south as Wilmington, Del., meaning that COSE brought together educators from a wider geographic area.

"Our district spreads now and people have come [to the conference] because there is a need and there is not enough training available for them," Rich said.

In his session, Levin acknowledged that perhaps Skype is a better educational resource in small and isolated Jewish communities, because students would be enabled to interact with peers from other areas. In that sense, online chat rooms "could be an exciting thing for the future," Levin said.

Participants in the session agreed with Levin that social media isn't a replacement for socialization in the classroom, but said that technology can be used to at least enhance classroom relationships after in-person instruction has already taken place. Regarding Facebook, Levin he doesn't accept any friends under the age of 18 because "there's a real awkwardness between adults and teens," and he doesn't need to see what his students do on Saturday nights or who they are dating. Instead, Levin said Facebook is more appropriate for him as a tool to publicize synagogue and school events.

Joshua Mason-Barkin, Torah Aura's director of school services, said in a session titled "Exciting Holidays" that to teach Jewish holidays effectively, "you need to know what is going on in the other classes" to avoid repetition; teachers should ask their schools the question "How are you doing Pesach this year, because I want to make sure I don't do it the same way," he said.

Teachers should remember that when it comes to Jewish holidays, they should convey to students that "we are celebrating them even when we are not celebrating them," Mason-Barkin said. He said holidays are "rooted in our natural existence whether we are doing them or not," because you experience rebirth in the spring regardless of whether you celebrate Passover, and your year will always start around Rosh Hashanah because "summer's over, back to work."

Besides for explaining the "Why?" of what we do on holidays, teachers shouldn't forget to point out the "How?" because students need to learn things like to how to lead a Passover seder if they are to lead meaningful Jewish lives, Mason-Barkin said.

"A great service we can do for our students is to give them the skills to do," he said.

Idie Benjamin, nursery school director of Temple Israel Center in White Plains, N.Y., also focused on holidays in her session, "Getting Beyond the '2 C's' (Crafts and Cooking) For Early Childhood." Benjamin said that teachers should think of Purim as "a total assault on the senses," having props ready for students to build on. On Passover, teachers usually tell students that the Jewish people ate matzah because there wasn't enough time for bread to rise, but unless students make bread at home, they have no idea what that concept means, Benjamin said. Therefore, she said, baking bread in class is a much better way to teach what matzah is.

Grishaver, in a session titled "Real Siddur Teaching," emphasized that it's OK for students to make mistakes when they read prayers as long as they are able to sing along with their congregations and understand the meaning of the Hebrew words.

"The bottom line is if I get something wrong in the V'ahavta [portion of the Shema prayer] but can sing it with the congregation, I'm doing what I need to do to be part of a prayer community," Grishaver said.

Dr. Shoshana Silberman, an education consultant at the Auerbach Central Agency for Jewish Education in Philadelphia, taught the use of engaging activities to help students acquire skills and values. One method she proposed was "practice rehearsal pairs," which entails a presenter and checker. With putting on tefillin, students can perform alternating steps of the wrapping process and check each other's work, she said. A session participant suggested a presenter and checker method of using the lulav and etrog, with one student performing the ritual shaking and the other saying the blessing.

Rabbi Gerald Zelizer, spiritual leader of Neve Shalom, focused on the difference between disputes for the sake of heaven (leshem shamayim) and those that aren't in a d'var Torah before Grishaver's keynote. In any institution, "there are disputes, there are differences of opinion," Zelizer said, and in synagogues and schools there can be "legitimate differences of opinion in the sake of heaven."

Reviewing a dispute in the Talmud between Reish Lakish and Rabbi Yochanan, in which Rabbi Yochanan said "When I stated a law, the son of Lakisha used to raise 24 objections, to which I have 24 answers, which consequently led to a fuller comprehension of the law," Zelizer said that when discussing what Judaism means and how halakha functions in the classroom, disputes are acceptable when they make both parties "understand the religion even better."

Zelizer also brought up a passage from Tractate Erubin which explained that the students of Hillel didn't understand halakha better than the students of Shammai, but the halakhic ruling always went in favor of Hillel's students because they "were kindly and modest, they studied their own rulings and those of Beth Shammai, and were even so humble as to mention the actions of Beth Shammai before theirs."

"When there are disputes in a school or synagogue, it's not just the arguments that make it for the sake of heaven, but the manner," Zelizer said.