Unlike the stereotype for many her age, 17-year-old Julia Straus isn't a Facebook junkie, though that's not to say she doesn't use it.

While she logs on to the social networking site to follow friends and "fan pages," Straus primarily navigates the site for the purposes of her youth group, MaLTY, at Main Line Reform Temple (where her father, David, is the senior rabbi). Facebook helps keep current members updated on group business, as well as connect with prospective ones.

"In the last couple years, we decided it's easier to contact people through Facebook than just to call them," said Straus, "because if you don't really know them, there's something less awkward on Facebook."

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With technology evolving at the speed of light, and everyone looking to benefit from the latest, greatest hardware and software, keeping up can be challenging for educators, administrators, and school districts themselves. To help, THE Journal spoke with a handful of technology experts and came up with a short list of top tech trends you'll want to watch in the new year. Here they are:

1. eBooks Will Continue to Proliferate 2. Netbook Functionality Will Grow
3. More Teachers Will Use Interactive Whiteboards 4. Personal Devices Will Infiltrate the Classroom 5. Technology Will Enable Tailored Curricula
Read the full article at www.thejournal.com.

31 innovative ideas to transform the Jewish future from Daniel Sieradski, posted over the course of 31 days, beginning January 1, 2010. Read Daniel's ideas on his tumblr blog at http://31days.tumblr.com/.

With their headphones and iPod Touch machines on, Beatrice Azanza's 20 third grade students were geared up for an afternoon of reading and math.

Textbooks haven't gone away in her class, but high-tech gadgets like the iPod Touch are making Azanza's teaching life at Oswalt Academy a little easier.

After a lesson on addition and subtraction, Azanza's students can get on the iPod Touch, launch the Basic Math application, and test how quickly they can solve a set of problems. The fun, Azanza said, is endless.

"The students are really excited to use them," Azanza said. "You can just see their brains working. They are very motivated."

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First-grader Thomas Tsangaropoulos stands before a laptop during his Spanish class at Lake Parsippany School, smiles broadly into its tiny webcam and waves.

"Hola," he says to the image of a young girl appearing on the computer and on a large screen in the front of the Parsippany classroom. "Me llamo Thomas."

Across town, first-grader Mariah Colon peers into a laptop at Troy Hills School and waves.

"Hola. Buenos días," she says.

Remember when technology in schools meant computer labs and internet connections? New Jersey teachers and students are slowly but increasingly using the tools of Web 2.0 — the so-called second generation of the web that includes creative, collaborative, shared content.

Students are writing on wiki pages, blogging about their classroom activities, recording audio files for band practice, videoconferencing with people around the globe and chatting online about literature.

For a generation that has embraced a joystick and a mouse since they were toddlers, these technologies can help them learn how to be creative, how to communicate and how to work together, said Lisa Thumann, a senior specialist in technology education at Rutgers University’s Center for Mathematics, Science and Computer Education.

Continue reading at www.nj.com.