All good things come to an end

[audio mp3="http://web.macam.ac.il/~jhurvitz/english/traveling-broadens-one.mp3"][/audio] Seven full days of traveling, lectures, discussions, and more came to an end with a certificate ceremony. Each participant was called to the front of the room and was presented with a "diploma", and of course also with a handshake and a hug.

And though the tour at that point was officially over, we still had one more activity waiting for us. We taxied to Yaffo where we toured the town along with Sharona whom we'd been with in Jerusalem. This was our opportunity for one last group photo.

And to finish the day, and the tour, we ate dinner at Na LaGa'at where we learned a bit of sign language, and also saw the Luna Park performance. When we got back to the hotel it was time for one last hug and goodbye.

But we have no doubt that we'll find ways to maintain contact.

So, what happens at Mofet?

Our final session of the day focused on our host - the Mofet Institute. Dr. Sarah Ziv presented us with an overview of the Institute, and of its International Channel. She described a variety of projects, ranging from webinars via Elluminate, to the Online Academy, and projects undertaken with the cooperation of educational institutions in other countries.

We then met with Ami Salant who reported on the Information Center of the Institute and its mission. In the past "information services" focused on bringing more and more information to those who needed it. Today, however, when we're inundated with information, a central objective of those same services is to reduce the quantity of information and to match specific information to the specific needs of those being served.

Reuven Werber and Penny Barsimantov showed us the English language portals of the Institute that attempt to realize the vision that Ami described a few moments earlier. They invited us to conduct a few searches within the portals to help us learn how function, and also outlined the ways in which they hope to continue to improve them.

A vision, some tools ... and a reason to use them

Our second session of the day opened with a presentation from Sarit Kitzony from the Ministry of Education who described the ministry's vision for 21st Century "learning". Sarit told us about the portal the ministry has built in order to present teachers with materials that can help them prepare the lessons they teach, and reported on the infrastructure that it views as necessary for effective teaching and learning.

The next presentation took a step away from the school and the tools that can be used in it. Instead, Sarah Schrire described a research/learning project of hers in which a group of "readers" formed a wiki-based learning community to read poems by William Blake. Sarah's presentation reminded us that we seek to use digital tools not simply "because they're there", but because they can enhance our cultural horizons.

We returned to the schools with the presentation of Ruthy Salomon, but this "return" was with an emphasis on how the adoption of Moodle, and the tools for collaborative learning that it contains, can promote a different sort of learning that what we see in the schools today. Ruthy showed us a number of examples that convinced us that it really is possible to make a change in education.

After a short break we moved to a computer room one floor above for a face-to-face presentation from Miri Schonfeld, along with participation from afar via Elluminate from Asmaa Ganayem and Elaine Hoter. For many of us this was our first exposure to Elluminate and we enjoyed the opportunity to use a tool for synchronous digital communication.

But much more than the tool, we were deeply impressed by the project that Miri, Asmaa and Elaine described. If digital tools can truly be used effectively to bring together divergent social and ethnic groups, there's worth in them well beyond the ability to help students achieve better grades.

Learning from our participants

The last day of our Study Tour was devoted to a "mini-conference". Instead of traveling around the country, we spent the day at the Mofet Institute and heard presentations from some guests, from a number of departments at Mofet, and perhaps most important, from some of the participants of the tour who came from abroad.

We opened with a greeting from Dr. Michal Golan, the head of the Mofet Institute who not only greeted us, but also asked our participants to tell a bit about themselves.

Our first presentation was by Jay Hurvitz who tried to examine some of the ways in which digital technologies are changing education, but also tried to show that there's a rich history of expecting technology to change education.

We then heard from Jenny Wing Yee and Catherine Yanyan Lin from the Hong Kong Institute of Education who reported on their experience using e-portfolios in their work as English teachers. We learned from them that it's still too early to know just how effective a tool this is, and perhaps more to the point, whether their students are learning to use it effectively.

After that, Ariellah Rosenberg described and demonstrated a few of the digital tools that can help us develop our Personal/Professional learning networks. Ariellah encouraged us to try these tools, promising us that we'd discover that they truly can serve us in our work.

And of course our Study Tour can serve as the basis for the continued development of a personal/professional network, so it's certainly worth our while trying out these tools so that we can maintain contact.

Go north!

After our visit to the Saint Joseph school we had some time to see a bit of Nazareth. We entered the courtyard, and the first floor, of the Church of the Annunciation, and received explanations of what we were seeing from Arik Friedman, our guide. We continued on to the market where we took a bit of time to wander around and buy some trinkets to bring back home.

Our next stop was at the north of the Sea of Galilee, at Capernaum, where we took our daily group photo.

And then we viewed the village (or its ruins), along with Arik, our guide. Arik explained to us that the site is considered to be the home of John the Baptist, and we saw the different levels of excavations, and both of the towns that originally were there.

We continued on to Kibbutz Ein Gev where we had a tasty lunch, and to a spot in the lower Golan Heights where we were able to see how Israel looked to Syria before the Six Day War, and the way the Yarmukh river divides between the Golan and the Gilead, and between Jordan, Israel, and Syria.

By then we were quite exhausted from a long day, but we kept enough strength for one more stop before heading home - we parked at the Baptism site of Yardenit and took in the atmosphere.

Some of us even had the strength for a walk along Dizengoff in the late evening before going to sleep.

They must be doing something right

On our sixth day, Shabbat, we got in our minibus and headed north to Nazareth. There we visited the  St. Joseph Nuns High School, and stepped into a tenth grade computer science course. The students were actively at work on their projects - primarily Access-based databases which they designed. Almost as soon as we entered the classroom we were invited to wander around and speak with the students, which is (of course) precisely what we did.

We were very impressed with what we saw (and heard). The students did a very good job of explaining themselves, and were very rightly proud of their work which was rich both in the "computer science" backbone, but also, because each student built a site/database around an issue that interested him or her, in personal expression.

After wandering around the classroom for a while, we sat down for a group discussion in which our host (and the teacher), Walid Khalifa, asked some of the students to show us, and explain, their work.

They did this well, and in excellent English. There wasn't much collaborative use of the computer in this class, but we certainly got the impression that there was lots of learning, and the atmosphere was open and very pleasant.

We then moved to the teachers room where we held a short discussion with Walid and other teachers about what we'd seen.

They informed us that the school has a reputation as one of the best schools in the country, and we responded that from what we saw in our short visit that reputation seems to be very well earned.

New and Old, and lots of walking

Lunch was a special treat. Each of us got money for lunch and we were let off the bus at the Machaneh Yehuda market - early Friday afternoon! We were invited to buy whatever we wanted for lunch, but even more important, to wander the market and take in the sights and the smells (and the sounds) and to get a feel for the market. Truly, a sensual experience!

And after we ate, we drove to King David's grave (well, we won't argue with tradition) and then walked from there to various (and numerous) sights of the Old City. We visited the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (where we heard some monks making beautiful music) and wandered part of the market. There was a great deal to see ... and photograph.

We walked for over two and a half hours, and it was already getting late, and even a bit dark. But Jerusalem isn't only the Old City. So for our final stop of the day we drove to the Knesseth, where we learned about the "traditional" symbol of Judaism, the menorah.

Sharona described to us numerous points of interest on the bronze menorah by Beno Elkan, and in that way connected between the old and new - a fitting end to a full day.

How to teach, and not to teach, science

Though most of our day was devoted to sightseeing, that doesn't mean that we didn't focus, at least a bit, on education. Around mid-morning we visited the Bloomfield Science Museum, and there we met with Tami Yekhieli who described The Museum-College Project she developed in which student teachers from an Orthodox college in Jerusalem act as tour guides for children at the museum.

We learned from Tami that the project is a win-win situation - the college gains the ability to engender scientific knowledge among its students, and the Science Museum gets free, but supervised, guides, and also exposure to future science teachers (some of the students even get jobs at the museum). She placed the project in a theoretical framework developed by lee Shulman - it enriches scientific content knowledge, enriches general content knowledge,and helps develop a conceptual understanding of scientific concepts. When the student teachers prepare lessons for the museum they come into contact with approaches they weren't familiar with before, and they learn to be flexible. They also gain confidence in their ability to teach.

But it wasn't all theory. What's the point in a Science Museum of you can't press buttons, or do some experiments! So, we played a bit with liquid nitrogen, saw how dry ice can expand a balloon, saw how air pressure can cause water to boil at a lower temperature, and more.

We didn't have enough time to push all the buttons, but even if it's only for  a short visit, science museums are always a treat!

Viewing Jerusalem

It's impossible to visit Jerusalem, even on a tour devoted to ICT in education, and not tour the city. And that being the case, it made perfect sense that when we got up in Jerusalem on Friday, the fifth day of our study tour, we started out with a glimpse of the city. Along with our tour guide, Sharona, we drove up to the Mount of Olives, and as we listened to an overview of the ancient history of Jerusalem, we gazed out toward the Temple Mount and other sites, and got a taste for what we'd see throughout the day.

And we also took the day's group photo, getting some of our "guests" into the photo as well.

A bit of HiTech without a direct connection to education

At the end of our long day we stopped at the R&D department of HaZera, connected to Limagrain, the second largest seed company in the world. There we met with Hanne and Yossi who informed us that the company's mission is to be a leading hybrid vegetable seed company. Hanne gave us an overview of the company and described to us the role ICT plays in the company. This role includes storing information, DNA sequencing, tag profiling, being able to check whether a trait is inherited or from the environment, and more.

We learned about the breeding of tomatoes on the vine, and seedless watermelons, and more. Much of this is achieved by DNA markers that permit marker assisted selection. Most of us probably didn't understand just what all this means, but it was certainly interesting to learn that the successful selection of plants via nucleotype composition is the result of many thousands of experiments. It sort of makes you think that maybe education, with considerably less focused experimentation, is still (and perhaps happily) far from being a true science. But of course we knew all along that it's really an art.

Multi-cultural and Student-centered again ... but that's okay

Our next stop of the day was the Kaye College of Education in Beer-Sheva. As was to be expected, we heard introductory remarks (if we didn't already know, we know now that that's unavoidable). But as things warmed up Merav Assaf spoke with fervor about how it's possible to use ICT to promote more student-centered pedagogy. She showed us, for example, how a course that didn't have a "textbook" built one. The students in the course prepared movies via their smartphones, uploaded them to YouTube, and then constructed a blog in which the students were able to discuss the films and the issues raised in them. In addition she showed us an example of the "Know-Mobile" project in the town of Hura (where we didn't visit) and similar towns, of how the availability of laptops in the schools caused mothers in the community, some of whom had never been outside of their towns, curious about computers and the internet.

We also met with the President of the college, Lea Kosminsky, who described the special role that the college plays in its larger community of the Negev, and heard from Annette Kahan who spoke about the catalog of educational web sites that she's been building for the past decade, and showed us that her modest project gets many thousands of hits, including from the Arab world.

And though we were pressed for time, we took a moment for a group photo ... in which at least most of us are visible.

Hey! Real Kids!!!

We'd planned to visit two schools today, and in the end only got to one. That was very disappointing, but at least when we got to the one that we did get to instead of hearing about what happens there we had a chance to actually see it happening. One of the teachers gave us an overview of the school and its philosophy, and then we toured the school in two groups, each led by two students who not only showed us around, but also told us about their studies, and about the ways that their studies are focused around what should best be described as project based learning. After a few days of listening to explanations, it was a special treat to actually see students in their "natural" setting, and to hear from them how they study.

Perhaps most impressive to us was the fact that although we expressly wanted to focus on ICT, what we learned from the students was how naturally computers and the internet were integrated into their studies, so that ultimately, we didn't feel that we were focusing on ICT. And quite frankly, that's the way it should be. This is also what we learned when we spoke with Ido Argaman, the principal, and with Tali, a teacher at the school.

Today we still speak about "how to integrate" the computers and the internet into education. But we'll know that they've truly been integrated when we won't even have to speak about that any more.

Force Majeure

Some things are beyond are control ... like traffic jams. Our first (and hopefully only) major problem of this tour took place this morning, and it was a BIG one. After making very good time heading south from Tel Aviv toward the Negev and traffic suddenly stopped. It was a few moments later that we learned that about ten kilometers ahead of us, a bit before our planned turnoff, a truck had overturned. There was basically nothing we could do beyond inching along VERY slowly, calling and being called from the school we were supposed to visit at the Beduoin town of Hura. We already had a tight schedule for the day, and a setback such as this made it considerably tighter.

Some of us made the best of a terrible situation by getting some much needed sleep, while others took the time for some enjoyable, and heated, discussion (about education and ICT, of course).

After inching along for little more than a kilometer we reached a road block that turned us around toward where we'd come. We lost about an hour and a half that way, and by that time, when we got back to an alternative route, it was also packed. We luckily knew of yet another route, but by the time we got to it, and beyond the closed road, school was already letting out in Hura, and it was with great disappointment, and many apologies, that our only possibility was to move on to our next stop.

So, things were beyond our control, but it was still a major loss on our part.

Not just education

What good is a study tour, even about such a fascinating subject as ICT in education in Israel, if there's not time for some pleasant sightseeing and hiking? Of course that's a rhetorical question - the obvious answer is that it's not very good at all, and we have no intention whatsoever of having such a tour.

After leaving the Technion we traveled to the center of town where we met our guide for a few hours, Kobi Fleischman. Kobi told us a bit about the history of Haifa, focusing on its ethnic make-up. First, we drove up to Stella Maris.

From there we hiked down to the cave of Elijah the Prophet, forgetting for a while that we were still in one of Israel's major cities, since for much of the hike we felt that we were out in the wild (though our digital devices were never far from us).

We also viewed the city from one of its highest points, and then explored the German Quarter with numerous fascinating stories that brought its history to life. Our last stop in the city was a dairy restaurant where to our continuous surprise, the food kept coming and coming until there was very little we could do during the ride back home beyond falling asleep.

True, we should have been discussing all we'd seen and done (educationally, at least) that day, or perhaps we should have done that when we got back to the hotel around 22:30. But ... quite frankly, all we could think about was getting to sleep, since we knew quite well that we had a long and eventful day ahead of us starting early the next morning.

There might be a pattern here!

From the University of Haifa we continued to the other high education institution of Haifa - the Technion. There, after a pleasant lunch (we ate a great deal today, but that's another story) we met with Dr. Miri Bark from the Department of Education in Technology and Science. Miri emphasized that the use of technology in the department, and the courses she and others are involved with, is toward active, collaborative, and student centered learning.

These are objectives that even after only two days of our tour seem to be common to just about everyone we've met. (If someone actually thinks that we should be using ICT simply to help kids get better grades on international exams - a not too outrageous possibility - they're certainly not saying this out loud.) Miri gave us a number of examples of how the principles she discussed are actually being implemented. These are impressive and good to learn about, though (have we already noted that it's been two days?) we already have the feeling we've heard much of this before.

After Miri's presentation we met for a very short period of time with Ariella Levenberg who described to us some of the ways that ICT is being implemented in in-service professional development programs.

Because we were on a tight schedule, we barely had a chance to get a taste of the things she described, nor to take part in the discussion that Ariella initiated, asking us to tell her about whether our countries have similar programs and how they're implemented.

Our last stop at the Technion was at the Visitors' Center where we were told a bit about the campus and its history, and saw (at least part of) a short film about the Technion ... and got around to taking our (hopefully daily) group photo.

 

Change - both societal and personal

Our day started at the University of Haifa with a lecture from Prof. Sheizaf Rafaeli who gave us a broad overview of the ways in which digital technologies are affecting our lives. Of course by today most of us are familiar with much of what's said about the internet - including the many cliches that may have a grain of truth, but don't really help us achieve an in depth understanding of how things are truly different today, and will continue to be even more different tomorrow. Sheizaf helped us get some perspective on these changes, and in doing so, also helped us see how all of this will affect schooling and learning.

Mostly we heard a lecture, but Sheizaf invited us to ask questions, and also to engage him in discussion. Even though it was short, it was quite intense, and all of us felt that this hour contributed significantly to our understanding of the broader picture.

From the classroom where we met with Sheizaf it was only a short walk to the Laboratory for Innovations in Rehabilitation Technologies of Prof. Tamar Weiss. At the lab we met with Tamar, though only via technology. We drove from Tel Aviv to Haifa, and she had driven that morning from Haifa to Tel Aviv for an important meeting, so we met via Skype.

In our hour with Tamar we watched excitedly as she demonstrated how "virtual reality" simulations can effectively aid rehabilitation, and also how some of her tools stimulate children on the autism spectrum to cooperate in play. This wasn't the classroom, which is perhaps the main focus of our tour, but though Tamar told us about simulations, the effects were highly tangible, and all of us left her small office convinced we'd witnessed an incredibly impressive demonstration.

Training ... and (a bit of) Discovery

Our last stop of the day was in Rishon Le'Tzion at Scientific Educational Systems - a small, privately owned company that focuses on developing training systems, clickers, sensors, and, perhaps what was most interesting to our group, learning environments that permit young children to explore and to construct their own understandings about a wide assortment of subjects.

It had been a long day (with lots of food!) and we were getting tired, but it was very interesting to us to see how within one company there was a department that dealt with building materials designed for highly structured training, and another that attempted to construct environments for an open-ended examination of a child's environment.

Promoting Science - both inside and outside the classroom

Our next stop was the Davidson Institute of Science Education, part of the Weizmann Institute of Science. There we met with a number of members of both the science and the mathematics teams - teams that develop programs for the classroom, but also for pupils (and adults) that seek to enhance their scientific knowledge.

We learned about programs like "ask an expert" that put pupils in contact with scientists who help them understand what's behind many physical phenomena that they experience in a regular day.

Not everything is hi-tech (though nobody ever said it was). At the end of our visit we spent much too little time in the Clore Garden of Science where we had a chance to have some hands-on experience with waves and gyroscopes, and even a bit of sound.

And when we arrived at Davidson we took a moment for a group photo:

Of course we're smiling - even if it was a very hot day, it was enlightening and enjoyable - including enjoyable to be together.

Developing educational technologies

Our day continued with a visit to the Center for Educational Technology in Tel Aviv. There we met with Guy Levi who gave us an extensive review of many (but still not all) of the products the Center produces. We saw examples of "Learning Objects" that simulate physical phenomenon, and also of digital books that permit teachers to add materials and promote collaborative learning.

A number of the products Guy described raised important educational questions - are there really advantages to simulations over experiencing the "real thing", particularly when dealing with the natural world? Do pupils really learn from these simulations? And beyond these ... what are our expectations when we speak about education and learning?

Of course we didn't find any answers ... yet. And quite honestly, we don't expect to, even by the end of our tour.

From Correspondence Course to Digital Learning

Our second day started with a visit to the Open University of Israel. After a short review of its history Tami Neuthal spoke with us about Shoham - The Center for Technology in Distance Educaation.

We learned about how digital technologies, including digital books, are changing the ways teachers at the Open U teach, and communicate with their students. We learned about the numerous changes these books have taken in only a short time.

But the Open U doesn't only use books. We also visited their video lab.

At the lab we viewed a classroom from which a lecturer can be broadcast to four other locations, and also some small labs where synchronous lessons can be conducted without an "in person" class. Clearly, distance education has come a long way.

Getting acquainted ... and food for thought, and stomach

Almost precisely on schedule, we arrived, ready to meet everyone (both from the tour and our hosts from Israel as well) and get underway. And how do we start? By congregating, of course.

So, we all introduced ourselves (sorry, no photo) and proceeded to the culinary part of the evening. Judging at least from this first taste, though we can't yet say how nourishing the educational side of our tour is going to be, it's certainly going to be a treat to our mouths and stomachs.

And then it was time for our opening lecture. Hanan Yaniv spoke with us about "Digital Pedagogy" - about how the tools that are at the disposal of today's pupils compel us to undertake a dynamic style of learning - Project Based Learning.

We concluded the evening with the feeling that though we've convened to learn about ICT in education in Israel our real focus will be how we can learn today ... as well it should.