Israel’s academic community was forced to reorganize at nearly a moment’s notice for a massive pivot to online learning. In this process, MEITAL played a vital role in supporting higher education institutions. This has included deploying technological support for institutions, closing license agreements for synchronized systems for 25 higher educational institutions, including ZOOM licenses for more than 22,000 lecturers, online transcription and accessibility solutions, online testing and storage systems for asynchronous viewing.
In addition, MEITAL’s website (in Hebrew) serves as an important resource with extensive, up-to-date information that received thousands of visits. The site also presented digital tools, articles, videos, teaching models, pedagogy best practices for distance learning and more. Alongside this, MEITAL moderates a professional WhatsApp group and maintains an active Facebook page with some 1,400 views per day.
In the techno-pedagogical area, MEITAL delivered nine multi-participant online learning sessions for tech teams and academic lecturers. These sessions dealt with key issues, with a mindset on the future, and identified key needs of higher education institutions as we move beyond the crisis.