Social Media Effort to Support the Foundation’s Strategy

Two years ago, the foundation established an online community, under the brand name: “It’s Time for Education”. It has quickly become the most active Facebook education community in Israel with membership of 24,000 comprised of teachers, potential teaching candidates, and people interested in mathematics and science education. This unique platform allows the foundation to interact with its target audiences, to provide them with information about programs, and to facilitate direct discussion between them.

In 2014, we aimed to fine tune to the needs of potential teaching candidates. Using advanced Facebook tools and we targeted our materials to an audience aged 35-45 from the North and the Center of the country who work in hi-tech, industry and their circle of acquaintances. We also targeted people whose interests on Facebook are listed as mathematics and the sciences. Based on information garnered from focus groups, we adopted positive messages emphasizing personal stories of teachers.

In addition in 2014, in order to deepen the dialogue with and between the members, we decided to launch a community-based web magazine. The e-magazine allows for more details, discussion and examples, making it more accessible and tuned to the different audiences, searching to strike a balance between a professional and a popular message. It includes Op-Ed articles by teachers, interviews with teachers, and more. So far, the e-magazine has attracted over 1,000 permanent subscribers and hundreds of thousands of readers.

A further objective set for 2014 was to engage the online members in activity outside Facebook and the internet domain. The series ‘Teachers at the Bar’ was launched by WIZE, hosting 17 events to date; Israel’s first TEDx conference on mathematics and science teaching at the Weizmann institute was held in May this year; and a National Teacher’s Day was celebrated in schools and youth movements around the country for the second time. All of these events were inspired and encouraged by the online community. For example, as a result of these efforts, over 100 cities took part in the celebrations of the Teacher’s Day, members sent over 1000 thank you letters to teachers and there have been over 300 enquiries about career-changing to teaching.

In 2015 we aim to expand the reach of the e-magazine, to concentrate its efforts on explaining in simple yet serious terms what constitutes high quality teaching of mathematics and the sciences, and to encourage a dialogue around this theme. We will collaborate with the Teacher Residency Programs supported by the foundation and the Ministry in order to provide potential teaching candidates with up-to-date and relevant information. We will also develop a media strategy for the foundation, in which the social media effort will have a substantial role.

* The text above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors / Grant 150