The (EdTech) Revolution Starts from Below

To make learning meaningful, to bridge the gap between outside school and inside, to integrate the world of games into the school, to create an active learning environment for research-based learning, to connect students with the real world through technology – these are some of the challenges that MindCET’s Fellows have set themselves for the coming year.

Itzik, Shai, Keren, Inbar, Yami, Judy, Tomer, Yossi, Elad, Naomi and Rachel – or, in short, the MindCET Fellows, are educators who have been selected to run EdTech enterprises within the education system. In a unique program, combining theory and practice in pedagogy and technology, these teachers will take part in the development of EdTech initiatives. The teachers participating in the program will take part in training on a number of topics, such as: innovation processes, product-building methodologies, business models, familiarity with the entrepreneurial market in education, and more. The participants in the program will develop an innovative EdTech project, with professional support from leading pedagogic and technology specialists, with the aim of implementing these initiatives in schools next year.

Over the course of the current school year, these educators will meet every Tuesday, in Tel Aviv and Yeruham in alternate weeks, for training and collaborative work on their initiatives. In addition, the teachers will participate in two two-day-long marathons, to be devoted to thinking and development, with the participation of educators and technology experts; these will take place in our Yeruham facility.

In the program, which commenced about tow months ago, the teachers, for the first time, encounter the world of start-ups and those who make start-ups happen, and learn how to turn an idea into a product, how to define their target audience, and so on. The discourse between the teachers and entrepreneurs, between the values-oriented language of education and the business-oriented language of entrepreneurship, leads to interesting, fertile connections between the two worlds.

We at MindCET believe that teachers, involved in day-to-day educational work, making extensive use of technology, moved by an entrepreneurial spirit, and who believe in their own ability to bring about change in wider circles, are the recipe for an EdTech revolution that starts from the grass roots.