A New Approach to Classroom Computers

Israeli startup Time To Know is out to revolutionize education by offering schools a new digital teaching platform and interactive curriculum. The company’s ambitious goal: to radically change the way teachers and students interact.

Founded in 2004 and located in a cheerfully painted former girls college in Jaffa, Time To Know has raised million in funding spearheaded by Shmuel Meitar, a co-founder of customer care and billing software giant Amdocs (DOX). The company has won contracts with schools in Israel, the state of Texas, and New York City, and counts 350 employees around the world.

The flaws in today’s “chalk and talk” educational system, which has remained pretty much unchanged for the last century, are widely recognized. But attempts to fix it by bolting on computers and connectivity have so far had only limited success—partly due to a lack of relevant educational content and software tools, says Dovi Weiss, Time To Know’s Chief Pedagogical Officer and a co-founder of the company. “What is needed is a holistic approach,” he says.

Enter Time To Know’s Web-based software, which forms the basis for a suite of tools ranging from course planning and classroom management to group collaboration and student assessment. At the core is a collection of interactive curriculum in math and language arts (reading, writing and comprehension), as well as English as a second or foreign language. Thanks to its real-time nature, Time To Know gives teachers immediate feedback on which students in the classroom are succeeding or falling behind. “What we are building is a partnership between teachers and technology,” says Weiss.