The Real Gymnasium holds the Acton every year to crack down on topics and questions that are on the agenda. This year, the Acton engaged in online learning. In five-day discussions with students from India, China and Hong Kong, interesting insights emerged: pop-up questions that qualify for a score, augmented reality experiments and even virtual prizes.
Corona or not Corona, a tradition to be preserved. The Real Gymnasium held its annual acton this week, and in the spirit of the period it took place in the format of Zoom and Vickathon, an innovative and unique platform for managing a multi-participant event. The high school students hosted students and mates from Eastern countries: India, China and Hong Kong.
Every year, the Acton deals with the subject and questions that are on the agenda and related to the world of education. Against this background, International Brainstorming addressed the question: “How can distance learning be improved”.
There is much talk about the sharp transition of the education system from frontal learning to distance learning and the difficulties that accompany both students and teaching staff. Students talked about the many hours in front of the screen, the self-discipline that has to be taught in prolonged sitting at home, the eyes that get tired from the flickering of the screen and more.
Participants worked in mixed teams and came up with creative and innovative ideas for ventures in order to solve distance learning issues. During the event, participants heard fascinating lectures and received advice from Indian and Israeli mentors who helped them advance the ideas.
At the end of the event, the pitch-style ideas of the entrepreneurs were presented, the audience favorites were chosen and the judges selected the winning ventures according to different criteria.
First place went to a mixed group of students from the Real Gymnasium and School of Excellence in India, who worked on a venture called “Smart Trigger”. The project dealt with a virtual robot (artificial intelligence) that operates on software that encourages interactive and interesting online learning.
Other ideas that emerged during the hackathon are transferring practice of the material in a variety of classic questions and answers but also through games. Questions pop up during the lesson that qualify for a score and even winning virtual prizes. In addition, the students came up with an idea to develop an application that allows them to experience experiments using AR technology (augmented reality).
Mayor Raz Kinstlich opened the five-day hackathon, saying:
“If there is one thing we have learned in the last year it is that the education system must be flexible and accessible to everyone. Education is not a luxury but a foundation for social equality. It is our responsibility, mayors, to do everything possible to adapt the education system to the same reality.” “I hope that the international brainstorming we will be conducting here will lead to new and interesting insights from which we will be able to make the most of it and share knowledge and conclusions with other countries.”
10th grade student, Tamar Azran:
“There was great communication between us and the students from India. It was a week full of varied experiences as we met at different times of the day to finish the development of the project. Everyone joined the effort and working in a mixed group raised the motivation and performance to very high levels.”
Amelia, a student from China, described her initial concern about the hackathon:
“I heard that the students from Israel are opinionated and very active in the discussion, so I was afraid to voice my opinion, but during the discussion, I realized how friendly they are and connected very much to my ideas. I am proud of our joint products and look forward to joint projects with them.”
The director of the Real Gymnasium, Iris Ron, said:
“We experienced an exciting, special and groundbreaking event – a meeting of cultures that gave rise to entrepreneurial, creative and innovative thinking, which was the culmination of a process that focused on improving the learning experience in distance learning.
Deputy Mayor Liel Ibn Zohar, who holds the education portfolio:
“This year’s event was special because it took place in a way that the students wanted to improve, that is, through shared learning and cross-border, the students knew better what might improve the next ink. The students had a great experience and a fascinating encounter with students their age from different countries. For exemplary management of the Acton. “