Middle-schoolers create app to help students in crisis
A group of Jerusalem middle-schoolers is working to create an application that helps students navigate the difficulties of school life. After winning a national education-tech competition and participating in one of the largest psychology conferences in Israel, the team is ready to take the project to the next level despite setbacks caused by the coronavirus crisis.
“Our goal is to change the education system by making sure that every student is seen and heard,” Itay, 14, told The Jerusalem Post.
About six months ago, Itay, Jarrad, Maya, Oria, Amit, Tommy and their teacher, Hadassa Shoorba, at the Givat Ram Ort Middle School in Jerusalem started to work on a project to participate in “Datathon,” a contest to present new ideas in the education sector. It is promoted by several organizations, including the Jerusalem Municipality and the Bloomfield Science Museum, and is open to entrepreneurs, schools, individuals and groups.
“Connectort” won first prize, beating 65 other contestants.
The ninth-graders wanted to create an app to support teachers and school counselors monitoring students’ well-being and mental health. The students would be asked to fill out questionnaires in a dedicated app, and their answers could give teachers and counselors the opportunity for a psychological evaluation to identify those who might need support, they told the Post.
Large schools welcome hundreds of new students every year, and it takes a long time for the staff to get to know them and intervene if they need help. The tool they are working on would make a big difference in addressing this challenge, the middle-schoolers said.
“Our idea could help, especially at the time of transitioning to a new school, like between elementary and middle school,” Maya said.
“On a personal level, I think an opportunity like this would have helped me face social difficulties better and faster,” Oria added.
Developing an app is the right tool because it would allow students to access the questionnaire at any time and in any place, the students said. They have been consulting with many experts in different fields to better understand the right course of action.
The Datathon victory was supposed to secure enough funding for the project to kick off the development phase. But the coronavirus crisis put that on hold. As a result, the group is actively looking for investors. Specialists in educational psychology invited them to participate in a major conference to present their idea.
“We believe in our project 100%” Itay said. “We want to innovate in the education field, which for us as young people is so important, the most important thing.”
The goal now, as pointed out by their teacher, is to create a pilot to carry out in their school, possibly at the beginning of the next school year.
“As a teacher, it has been amazing to see how within a week, the pupils learned what I had been trying to teach for two years – how to think about the future, how to pursue dreams and to have dreams in general,” Shoorba told the Post. “Thanks to this project, I discovered energies in these children that I don’t think could have emerged in any other way.”
The students and their initiative also received the praise of Givat Ram Ort Middle School principal Michal Dalal.