Source: The Times of Israel
Students in southern Israel have been told to stay home during the Pillar of Defense Operation to avoid being hit by rockets fired from Gaza, but that doesn’t mean kids get don’t get to learn. Thanks to smart classroom technology implemented in the Negev in recent years, many students have been continuing classes at home, and in shelters.
The technology that enables kids in numerous schools throughout the south to continue their studies even while rockets are falling around them was funded and introduced by World ORT. Among the components of the ORT project is an innovative distance-learning program for kids in hospitals ORT’s Kadima Mada-Kav-Or program – and it’s the technology that powers that program that has enabled students in shelters to continue their studies. With the ORT- led initiative, 27 hospitals in Israel now have smart classroom distance learning programs, where some 100,000 kids annually get a laptop and are “plugged in” to what happens in the classroom.
What works in hospitals works in bomb shelters, too – so as hostilities broke out in the south, the organization started distributing laptops to schools for use by children who would not be attending class as usual.
The long-distance students “plug in” to a teacher’s remote computerized workstation, connected to an electronic whiteboard in a smart classroom, which allows students and teachers to interact, using computer programs that let students solve problems and communicate with teachers and other students. The students can study on-line with their classmates in other shelters, and with teachers in virtual classrooms – including at the World ORT YOUniversity technology excellence center in Kiryat Gat – all interacting on-line to continue their classwork.
See the entire article at The Times of Israel.