When I think of ‘Israeli Innovation’ here are some of the associations I make:
What I don’t think of is… hair conditioner.
I did pretty well though for 10 shekel. Product of the year!
Came across this post from TechCrunch and thought it was only fair to share, considering my thoughts on Israeli education a few days ago:
Israel’s Time To Know Aims To Revolutionize The Classroom
This is the story of Time To Know
, an enigmatic Israeli startup that has somehow managed to remain under the radar of Israel’s tightly knit startup scene…
…The basic thesis Time To Know is operating under is that today’s current classroom is following a teaching paradigm designed in the industrial age, i.e., a teacher standing in front of a class, a blackboard on the wall and students at their desks. Think of it this way… Imagine time warping a teacher from the 1800’s and implanting her in a classroom in 2010. She could basically hit the ground running with little to no adjustment in teaching style. Quite scary when you think about it.
And what TimeToKnow is about:
Time To Know’s breakthrough solution, created for one-to-one computing classrooms, includes an interactive core curriculum aligned to your state’s standards and a powerful digital teaching platform with robust teaching and learning tools.
Time to Know’s proven solution empowers students toward greater achievement and deeper learning.
Whether the idea can be successful is a healthy debate… But what we all have to admit is technology geared towards more effective teaching, learning, education - that’s a good start. Now that’s the kind of thing I would have expected.
Are my expectations too high? Not for the private sector.
Go hi tech!
Lately it seems like so much of old school life is stopping by to visit; I blame the gosh-darn social networks on the inter-thing.
It hit me yesterday that I’m at the stage in life where at any point, I can bump into a kid I was a camp counselor for, 12 years later when they are no longer 4 years old and they are strewn across a Facebook profile littered with txt speak.
Yikes. Old much?
Or I get tagged in photos so old they must have been scanned into the computer because there were no consumer digital cameras in the mid-90s. Standing around with a couple of high school sophomore boy friends on some Brooklyn street.
Then of course, there is getting friend requests from high school classmates I never would have remembered existed if I never went back and skimmed my yearbook (where is that thing, anyway?).
It sure is nice to have it all out there, stopping occasionally for a cyber tap on the shoulder instead of crashing into me at a high school reunion.
A friend sent me Gdumb and so inspired me to play around a little bit with the Google suggestions-as-you-type feature. I explored the big three topics an Israeli Jewish blogger such as myself might feel connected to:
Image 1: Israel
I know I’m American, and I know that makes me a candidate for being dumb about geography, but I also haughtingly enjoy pointing out that I was a snotty Poli Sci major in ‘uni’. Which is why I can chuckle as I smoke my pipe by the fire while looking at this:
Europe, eh? Then why are our EasyJet flights so expensive?
Image 2: Jews
I have some non-Jewish friends who would probably agree about all of the above. I have even more Jewish friends who would.
Alanis, sum that up for me: “I’m liberal, but hated… I’m successful, but cheap… I’m rich but I’m circumcised, baaaaby…”
Image 3: Aliyah
Ok, I said Israel and Jews, so… Finally, the ego-driven portion of this experiment:
No kidding, over one million results for ‘aliyah israel blog’? There are that many of us “I made aliyah, let me tell you my story whether you like it or not, hey wait, where are you going, I said I’m special because I picked up my Western life and moved to the Middle East” bloggers?
Stam.
Aww. Google Israel got all cute and created an election day logo for the search engine’s Israeli homepage:
Of course, that’s nothing like how our Israeli kalpi (polling) stations actually look; we get a blue tray of paper ballots behind a giant blue oak tag (à la 8th grade science project) and cardboard blue boxes to stick the blue envelopes in. But hey, it’s better than dangling-chads behind curtains I suppose.
The little button on the second ‘g’ reads: בחירות, which means elections in Hebrew.
Here’s the article in Haaretz (where I actually saw it first; shows how much I actually use search engines):
And now, for something new and different.
So… here in Israel, we are more computers than people. And I know I was a bit snobbish when I wrote about the Israeli elections campaigns using internet tech and themes from their American counterparts. But this actually tops all that for real:
The Israeli Consulate has its own Twitter account and will be fielding Q&A today from 1pm-3pm Eastern Standard Time. The consulate also has two blogs, Israel Politik and IsRealli, as well as a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, and MySpace profile.
I suppose it’s logical; Israel is a country that needs more PR than most others. But it might also be nice to have seen the American government hold Q&A sessions on Twitter or sending down-to-earth updates on blog posts or YouTube videos.
Anyway, if you want to know more about the Twitter event, here’s the consulate’s blog post about it:
Tomorrow, 30 December, from 1-3PM EST, David Saranga, Consul of Media and Public Affairs in New York, will answer your questions about the situation in Israel and Gaza in a “Citizens’ Press Conference.”
You can submit your question by directing it to our Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com/IsraelConsulate . We will do our best to answer through Twitter. If an answer requires more than the 140 character limit, we will respond on Twitter with a link to an answer posted in this blog.
We hope you will be able to join us–tell your friends!!
I hope it turns out worthwhile.
Fun stat: Israel has more computers per person than any other country, according to The Economist. Yes, I am surprised, despite knowing that Israelis are very into technology and hi tech is a major industry here. It may be a country of technology, but at times it feels five years behind. That said, they never asked what kinds of computers we own…
A friend sent me the photo below, taken in the parking lot of where we work in the Gan HaTechnologi, Jerusalem. That’s the Technology Park, where a lot of Jerusalem start ups are based.
"I wish my wife was this dirty"
Yeah, I’ll bet you do, Gan Hatechnologi start up geek.