The Team – Mooc Island

Dr. Elaine Hoter

Scholar and Innovator in Educational Technology

Dr. Elaine Hoter has pioneered collaborative online pedagogy since 1995 and serves as a senior lecturer at Talpiot College in Holon. In 2001, she implemented the inaugural International Teachers Conference, later co-founding the TEC Center (Technology, Education, and Cultural Diversity) in 2005.

For eleven years, Dr. Hoter facilitated an award-winning course bridging hearing and Deaf communities, demonstrating technology’s efficacy in transcending communication barriers. She currently leads the development of virtual learning environments and wrote and serves as project leader the EDX Advanced Spoken English course.

A Fulbright scholar with an international reputation, Dr. Hoter has presented her research through lectures and workshops across all continents.

Dr. Ilan Nagar

Givat Washington

Techno-pedagogue of the course: Dr. 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 is involved in research in the following fields: collaborative learning, online teaching and learning and multiculturalism.

Dr. Noa Shapira

CET – Center for Educational Technology

Dr. Noa Shapira completed her PhD at the Faculty of Education, Technologies in Education Program, Haifa University. The PhD was entitled “Fostering intergroup empathy in an online learning environment.” Between 2015 and 2018, she was a member of the Learning in a Networked Society (LINKS) Israeli Center of Research Excellence (I-CORE).

She is now the head of the Department of Education and Community and a lecturer at Kinneret College on the Sea of Galilee. She teaches courses such as lifelong Learning, Development of training programs, Culture and multiculturalism, Research Methods in Social Sciences, Social-Emotional skills in education seminar, and more.
She was also a team leader in the Centre for Educational Technology (CET) and was responsible for developing online resources and professional development programs for teachers on topics such as racism, human rights, and coexistence in Israel. She is also the facilitator of these professional development programs. Noa is one of the developers of the MOOC course Introduction to Multiculturalism.

Dr. Manal Yazbak Abu Ahmad

Sachnin College of Education

Joint head of Course in Arabic and member of the English and Hebrew team: Manal is a senior lecturer and pedagogical counsellor in the English department at Sakhnin College. She is active in the TEC Center and manager of project ACCESS, instigated by the American Embassy. She is a supervisor for multicultural strategic teaching. Since 2010, she has taught an online course that deals with multiculturalism and conflict resolution between Arab and Jewish students. and an inter-college TEC course “Journey between cultures by means of English literature”. Dr. Yazbak Abu Ahmad attended the postdoctoral program at University of Michigan, Ann Arbour, and together teaches a joint online course “Global Understanding”. She is also a member of a TEMPUS project and two ERASMUS projects. Dr. Yazbak Abu Ahmad is a Fulbright scholar.

Dr. Eman Nahas

Arab College of Education Haifa

Joint head of the Arabic Course and member of the Hebrew team: : Dr. Nahas is vice principal and dean of academic affairs at the Arab College of Education in Haifa. Previously she was head of the department of education and academic coordinator at the college, she is also a pedagogic counsellor in special needs education. She completed her doctoral studies at Tel Aviv University on the intergenerational transmission of collective memory, and her postdoctorate at the Mofet Institute was on multiculturalism in teacher training colleges.

Dr. Reina Rutlinger-Reiner

Talpiot College of Education

Co-writer of the English course and member of the Hebrew team: Dr. Rutlinger -Reiner is a 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 fourth 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.

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.

Contributing Writers

Dr. Olgan Goldstein

Kaye College of Education

Member of the Hebrew team: Dr. Goldstein is a senior lecturer in advanced studies on the course for headteachers, and head of the second degree program in “Education in the age of information technology” at Kaye Academic College of Education in Beersheva. Her research fields are: integrating information technology in education and teacher training, social network research, internalization in higher education, evaluation of teacher training programs, integration of project based learning in teaching, and processes by which innovations are disseminated in educational institutions. Between 2007 and 2015 she led a research group focusing on evaluating implementation of the national program for adapting colleges to the needs of education in the twenty-first century.

Dr. Miri Shonfeld

Kibbutzim College of Education

Member of the Hebrew team: Dr. Shonfeld is head of the TEC Center at the Mofet Institute and lecturer in the second degree program in technology in education at the Kibbutz Seminar. She researches and teaches in the following fields: collaborative learning, online teaching and learning, virtual worlds, and education for multiculturalism.

Dr. Abir Watted

Alqasami College of Education

Member of the Hebrew team: Dr. Watted is a lecturer and researcher at Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education, head of the Center for MOOC Development, and advisor to the college president on the advancement of women. Her PhD is from the faculty of science and technology education at the Technion. During her studies she worked as a teaching assistant on the first MOOC to be developed at the Technion, on nanotechnology and nanosensors. Dr. Watted’s research focuses on: learning in MOOC environments, project-based learning (PBL), learning based on laboratory research, motivation in science learning, and innovative thought.

Dr. Amal Abu Saad

Kaye College of Education

Member of the Hebrew team: Dr. Amal Abu Saad is head of the training program for kindergarten teachers in the Bedouin sector, and member of the team for first year studies at Kaye Academic College of Education at Beersheva. She received her PhD from Ben Gurion University of the Negev in the interdisciplinary department of medicine and science teaching. Her doctorate was on research into teaching on heredity and genetics, relating to marriage between close relatives and genetic diseases in the Bedouin community.

Dr. Naomi Josefsburg

Kibbutzim College of Education

Member of the Hebrew team: Dr. Josefsburg is lecturer in political philosophy and philosophy of education at the Kibbutz Seminar College (retired).

Anat Regev Ladani

Ohalo College of Education

Member of the Hebrew team: Anat is a pedagogical counselor, lecturer and internship adviser at Ohalo Academic College of Education. She was previously coordinator of pedagogical counseling, and of the excellence program, and advisor on continuing education for teachers in centers for the development of teaching personnel. Manager of the course for teaching training coordinators for school trips, in the framework of the national program for excellence at academic colleges for teacher training. Areas of interest and teaching: teacher training-didactics, measurement and evaluation in education, Land of Israel studies, education for democracy, gifted students.