Incorporating new technology, however, has presented some challenges as well. Osnat Aharoni, the teaching assistant for the course, said that the specific nature of Hebrew has presented unique technical problems. The application has to grapple with two languages read in opposite directions—Hebrew from right to left, and English from left to right—and a system of diacritical marks.

“It creates an extra ten-fold level of difficulty for the technical team,” Aharoni said, crediting Kevin Guiney and Bill Barthelmy from the Academic Technology Group for all their hard work.

Eventually, Aharony said she hopes to use animation for her study materials.

“Having animations pop out as students read in Hebrew—that’s my fantasy,” she said. “For now, we are learning as we go along and improving how we can better present the work for the students.”

Aharoni added that the students in the class, who range from undergraduates to graduate students from MIT and Harvard, have become as much a part of the development team as the teachers and the IT team.

“They are helping to debug the program throughout the course,” she said.

Aharony, who is in her 40th year of teaching, said the education scene has changed completely since she came to Harvard in 1996. Back then, Aharony recalls having to make copies of tapes so that her students can listen to Israeli music and individually calling them when she needed to make an announcement after class. Now, everything is posted immediately on the course iSite.