The Athena Foundation, which has the status of Special Adviser to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), specializes in empowering teachers through advanced technology, and will be hosting an online event to discuss the use of technology for teaching students with disabilities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
The event will be led and moderated by Noa Tishbi - a writer, actress and film producer in Los Angeles, who will talk, among other things, about the importance of technology in human development and the education of the future generation.
Uri Ben-Ari, the foundation's president and founder, will review its vision and activities in the field of teaching in general, and in the field of special education in particular.
The Athena Foundation, established in 2006, has to date distributed digital toolboxes to about 28,000 teachers and kindergarten teachers in 172 local authorities across the country, who collectively teach around 650,000 students. This figure includes over 9,000 special education teachers, who teach about 72,000 students.
Each digital toolbox provided to the teacher includes a laptop or iPad (according to the various programs), 120 hours of instruction, a printer, a classroom projector, wireless Internet for the classroom and more. The advanced technology enables the quality of teaching and learning to improve. In the field of special education, these tools also serve to improve communication with the students.
"During the corona epidemic, the Athena Foundation continued its activities and distributed digital toolboxes to other teachers," Ben-Ari said. "The foundation's activities contributed greatly to the possibility of distance learning and continuing the school year despite the severe limitations resulting from the epidemic."
Yaffa Ben-David, Secretary-General of the Teachers' Union, will talk about special education in Israel and the contribution that advanced technology can give to the education system. Israel's special education system has about 270,000 students who receive special education services, about 11% of the entire education system. Some students are in schools that cater to their needs, while others are in regular schools but receive special education services on the side.
Additionally, Prof. Adina Shamir, Head of the PhD and Special Education Program at Bar-Ilan University's School of Education and Director of its Center for Technology for Students with Special Needs, will address preliminary findings of a study led by Dr. Sigal Eden, focusing on the use of technology during the coronavirus pandemic.The special education and regular education teams, who received digital toolboxes from the Athena Foundation, among other things, found that "special education teachers testified to a much higher percentage of the importance of getting a laptop or iPad for experience and familiarity with technological tools," Shamir said. "Teachers without laptops or with limited knowledge of technological operations found it difficult to integrate into the entire process of distance learning during the corona period."
The event will be held on June 18 at 5:00 p.m. Israel time.