We'd like to welcome you to what we hope will be three days of professional growth and intellectual stimulus, where we'll learn from each other as well as network - making connections with colleagues from all parts of the globe. We have been working on this idea of bringing teacher educators together in a virtual conference for three years now. Our ideas found a sympathetic ear in Lea Shagrir, who was then the Head of the Mofet Institute. An academic committee was set up to put together a proposal for the plan of such a conference. We got together a wonderful group of committed teacher educators to work with us: Batia, Miri, Olzan, Zzippi, and Ziva, each from a different teacher education institution in Israel and each from a different discipline. Together and with wonderful teamwork, over the last 2 years, we have been putting the plan into practice.
	We wanted to ensure a high caliber of academic material, an outstanding group of guest lecturers and also have a strong social component to give everyone the feeling that however far away you are physically, you will feel that you are here with us in Israel. Do take advantage of all the virtual tourism we offer in Israel in the Time Out section of our site, and spend time "schmoozing" in the Falafel Bar. In between the live "Meet the Speaker" sessions (called Join us!), don't forget to go into the Forums and take part in discussions with our moderators. We have put sessions on around the clock to accommodate our participants from all corners of the globe so you can be pretty sure there will be people around all the time. In fact, we have over 600 participants from every continent and over 200 presentations.
We are pretty sure there will be technical hitches during the conference; it wouldn't be a real virtual conference without them :-). But we hope you'll be understanding, and not take it personally should you get "kicked out" of a session - just come back!
Please go to the Updates Board to see what's happening at any particular moment and take part in our daily brain teasers. There are prizes for correct answers and there will be lotteries throughout the three days of the conference.
There is also a Leave a Message Board for you to leave a note for a colleague and friend, make suggestions and leave messages for conference participants. In fact, as you can see, a lot of work has gone into making our conference site a friendly environment to be in.
Actually, there are two conferences going on side by side: one in Hebrew and one in English, where the presentations in each conference are different. All of you are invited to both conferences!
For our participants from abroad, should you see something that looks like unidentifiable characters, it is probably Hebrew. If you don't have Hebrew fonts on your computer, these characters will look somewhat strange but in fact, the way they look on your computer does not even resemble what Hebrew looks like.
At this early stage, as we are beginning the conference, we would like to thank the people who put their hearts and souls into getting this conference ready: first and foremost to our virtual conference team; to Dr. Avi Ma'apil, Head of the Mofet Institute; to Vered Navon, our wonderfully talented graphic artist; to Kobi Snir and Ilan Ben-Shimon, the leaders of the technology team, and to all the rest of the hard-working people here at the Mofet Institute, from the programmers to the administrative staff to the secretaries to the maintenance workers.
At this early stage, as we are beginning the conference, we would like to thank the people who put their hearts and souls into getting this conference ready: first and foremost to our virtual conference team; to Dr. Avi Ma'apil, Head of the Mofet Institute; to Vered Navon, our wonderfully talented graphic artist; to Kobi Snir and Ilan Ben-Shimon, the leaders of the technology team, and to all the rest of the hard-working people here at the Mofet Institute, from the programmers to the administrative staff to the secretaries to the maintenance workers.
We wish them and all of us, energy to get through these three action-filled days and nights. Just a reminder: although the conference officially runs for three days, the site will be open for you after the conference to see archives and read and download papers, posters, etc.
Remember, the more you participate, the better the conference will be!
And so, we declare this conference officially opened! On Feb. 12, at 13:00 GMT (15:00 Israel time), you will be receiving by email the link to the first English keynote speaker's articles.
Our first keynote speaker is Prof Ken Zeichner and the 2 papers you will be receiving are entitled:
1) Teacher Research as a Professional Development Activity for P-12 Educators 2) Action Research and the Preparation of Reflective Practitioners   During the Professional Practicum
You will be able to meet Prof. Zeichner in our chat room at 16.00 GMT (18:00 Israel time) and there will also be an ongoing forum with him throughout the conference. We suggest that you go to the Conference Schedule where you can see all the times of the synchronous sessions.
Keep in mind! Wherever you are in the conference, we're lurking right behind you!
Have a wonderful three days!
Jean and Elaine	Co-Conveners
Batia, Miri, Olzan, Ziva, Zzippi	Virtual Conference Team