My career in learning/education started in the Israeli army. I was the commander of the Unmanned Drone School as an officer in the eighties. For the last 18 years I have been employed as CIO in the academic area. For 14 years I managed the biggest ISP (Internet Service Provider) for education in Israel – "Mofet institute". The Institute is a part of the Ministry of Education providing all IT aspects to 25 colleges in Israel. Those services include: Internet access, cloud computing, managed security (firewalls, antivirus, WAF and more) via centralized management, dozens of E-learning applications like Moodle, blackboard collaborate, Aleph (Exlibris) and many more. We served about 70,000 students using a single-sign-on infrastructure based on Microsoft platforms. For the last two years I have been the CIO of the biggest college in Israel – The college of management with a business cycle of 60 million dollars in a year. The IT department consists of 3 departments: Applications, Infrastructure and E-learning.
The IT department consists 3 departments: applications, infrastructure and e-learning. We are focusing on international collaboration between academic institutions based on technological solutions: a combined academic degree from both New York University and The College of management, The Erasmus project for collaborative academic courses with European universities and more. The IT department is based on the best technologies and experts in all IT areas to keep leading in Israel. We were the first to establish a video platform that combines all videos in a centralized system with automation providing the infrastructure for collaboration between lecturers and institutions. It is based on the solution provided by the Kaltura Company used by leading institutions (Harvard, Cornell, MIT and more). The academy is changing every day and we are keeping relevant with current studies, exploring technologies and converging all components to synergy.
My belief is that the key for technology in education is based on enabling natural and personalized learning. It means non-linear learning as far as possible, collaborative learning which is based on exploring and problem based learning. On the other hand the whole platform should supply the teachers with tools based on BI and AI to manage the learning processes. Every learner has their own learning pattern and skills and teaching should be tailored as much as possible to the individual. Teachers provided with appropriate training and good IT infrastructure are a necessary requirements for imparting relevant skills and knowledge to the graduate.
Ilan Ben Shimon
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