The Team

Dr. Elaine Hoter
Talpiot College of Education

Dr. Elaine Hoter has been a pioneer in online collaborative learning since 1995. She is a senior lecturer at Talpiot College in Holon, Israel where she co-wrote the master’s program for English as an International language. In 2001 she organized and led the first online international conference for teacher educators. She jointly established the Center for Technology Education and Social Diversity (TEC) in 2005. She headed the MOOC course given in three languages on intercultural education (introduction to multiculturalism and cultural diversity). Today she is in the forefront of developing innovative pedagogy in virtual worlds. Elaine has given lectures and workshops on every continent and is a Fulbright alumna.

Reina Reiner

Senior lecturer at Talpiot Academic College of Education in Holon, in disciplines related to teaching English as a second language. She jointly wrote the masters degree program at the college on “English as an international language”, now in its third year. She also lectures on education in a multicultural society at the TEC center. She has written three books: The Audacity of Holiness: Orthodox Jewish Women’s Theater in Israel (2007), which won a translation award from the Center for Research into Jewish Women at Brandeis University; the updated English version came out in 2011 as an online book published by Brandeis. In 2017 her third book keshenipagesh asaper hakol (when we meet I will tell everything) was published, on the letters of Reina De Vries-Spier (1945-1946). She received her doctorate from the Hebrew University, Department of Anthropology and Sociology. Her research and teaching interests are: education, multiculturalism, theater in education, creative teaching, English literature.

Dr. Ilan Nagar
Givat Washington College

Ilan Nagar’s PhD is in educational management and policy and he lecturers in the education department at Hemdat Hadarom College in Israel, he has been working in the field of integrating technology into teaching since 1991. Ilan is an instructor and facilitator in the Department of Education for online learning, and a trainer in continuing teacher education in a number of fields including initiatives and research, in teacher training colleges and at the Mofet Institute. He serves as techno-pedagogue for two MOOC courses. He is involved in research in the following fields: collaborative learning, online teaching and learning and multiculturalism.

Jeremy Finkelstein
Virtual World Development, Website and Database Development

Jeremy has been developing Virtual World environments for education since 2006 and developing websites since 2001. His Virtual World projects include: Israel Island, TEC Island (for TEC), Mega-Cities (for CET Israel), MOOC Island (for Talpiot College), Spaces (for CET Israel), Paramedic Training Simulations (for Magen David Adom), Ipcha Island (for Ipcha, Israel), Beit Berl Island (for Beit Berl College), Kadima Island and many others. He specializes in creating interactive environments designed to assist and further the educational process with fun and immersive content.