Learning occurs not through passively waiting for knowledge to seep into the head, but through the use of active and efficient task strategies! Though learning often appears to occur automatically, it actually requires special kinds of goal-directed activity. Educational research shows that students who actively organize and rehearse material perform better on tasks than students who do not. When learning does not occur, it is generally not because of a memory deficit, but because of a failure to actively engage in the task. Noted educational psychologist Joseph Torgesen concludes, “the better learners controlled the rate of presentation of stimuli in order to rehearse them in small groups. On the other hand, those who learned less well did not try to structure the material so that it could be more easily learned....Brighter students did better on the task primarily because of their use of effective task strategies.”
DigitalTorah® Software is designed to present the material to the student in the most efficient way and to maximize the students active attention toward the learning process. DigitalTorah® Software designer, Sy Balsen, has worked as an educational psychologist for close to thirty years. He has worked extensively with learning disabled adolescents. The software is based on his experience knowing what works to enhance learning and what does not.
Some competing programs may have more "bells and whistles," but our experience has shown that they serve as distractions so we have left them off. Other programs use computerized voices, but we have also learned that they are not as effective as a real human voice.
Providing Hebrew expertise for the software is seasoned educator Fred Rheingold. He has thirty years of experience teaching Hebrew and tutoring young people and adults for their Bar and Bat Mitzvah. Our program comes as close as possible to having a seasoned educator at your side!