MINDBLITZ – When startups, culture and education meet

For MINDBLITZ, the final event for the MindCET Fellows program, we wanted to do something that reflected the spirit of MindCET – constantly striving to think creatively and innovatively about the way in which we learn in a technological environment and as part of web culture.

The MINDBLITZ experience is seen as a journey – through experiencing different types of learning in an unmediated way, with each participant thinking about his or her own personal learning profile, created using a special web application (and it’s not too late to go in and define your own profile!), developed specially for the event. By using the application, each participant positions himself – during the course of the event – on seven axes related to learning style.

The event was opened by illustrator Hanoch Piven, who recounted his own personal story as a learner and artist (and marathon runner…), and who constructed his own learning profile using the application.

Following that, the participants took part in two hours of MINDBLITZ – four half-hour workshops of learning of a different type, from among the following: Ido Keinan lectured on crowd-sourced works of art; Yossi Preminger ran a workshop to try out Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset; Mushon Zer-Aviv and Galia Ofri presented the “Illustrated Wikipedia” project; Jonathan Shiffer lectured on wearable computing, including a live trial of Google Glass; the graduates of MindCET’s Garage presented their startups and allowed the participants to try the new technologies coming from MindCET; Gila Kamhi and her team from Intel presented a new 3D camera technology for experiential learning, and Ofer Tiber from CET discussed the way in which CET is making use of that kind of technology; artist/lecturer Daniel Landau demonstrated, using a technology that he developed, how we can place ourselves into someone else’s identity; while Amiel Shapiro from Interlude showed us how to tell a non-linear story, and how interactive video can be used for learning.

Following the workshops, we analyzed the data from the application, with the help of a specialist panel of artists, educators and hi-tech entrepreneurs.

The event ended with presentation of the MindCET Fellows’ projects for 2014:

Keren Elimelech presented The Islands, a virtual reality laboratory for learning Civics.

Yossi Shwartz presented Hevruta, a platform for finding a matriculation study partner online.

Yami Weiss and Inbar Yannai presented Haderech LeYeda (The Road to Knowledge), a platform for creating meaningful, experiential lesson plans in a minimum of time.

Jody Weinstein presented ClassRelax, an application to help teacher and student motivation and focus through meditation, in keeping with the atmosphere in the class.

Naomi Sharoni presented Makoreh?, a scavenger hunt game in the library, using smartphones.

Rachel Erlich demonstrated Moreh.Derech, a tool allowing students and teachers to view, evaluate and discuss learning processes.

Tomer Baratz presented Lirot Olam, a project that he worked on this year with Elad Hefetz – a platform that connects inspiring specialists and classes in Israel by means of conference calls.

And the girls from Midreshiat Amit Kamah Yeruham presented Loozi, a time management application for students, developed this year as part of the Youth Entrepreneurship Program in Yeruham.

The event may have ended, but the work is only just beginning – the teachers, who this year became startup entrepreneurs, and the projects, which ripened from ideas into products, are now reaching the most important stage with the commencement of the coming school year – implementation and evaluation within the schools themselves. We wish them all success, and look forward to seeing them at the next MINDBLITZ.