As promised in yesterday's post, the Omani Society for Educational Technology Conference continues, and questions are answered.
Undoubtedly the presentation that struck me most yesterday was that of Dr Paul Kim, Chief Technology Officer at Stanford University's School of Education. Today saw a closer look into existing m-learning projects similar to those proposed in Oman, under the title Evolution in the 21st Century Education Ecosystem. Dr Kim framed the presentation with the analogy of evolution. Any living organism, he argued, evolves. It therefore follows that anything that does not evolve, is not alive. The argument is for evolution through experience - and the experiences shown in the slides were inspiring. Stanford's POMI 2020 project has brought m-learning to underserved communities around the world, and some staggering results have been reported. As to yesterday's proposal for a pilot project in Oman, more information can be found at http://cleanslate.stanford.edu, or simply watch the video below, from the project website. It will be very interesting to see how Oman uses this opportunity at such a fortuitous time.
Update: I forgot to mention that the coolest innovation from the program, to my mind, was the use of bicycle-powered generators to charge mobile devices in areas without electricity. A winner for education, health, the environment, transportation and that all-important element of motivation: FUN.
Update: I forgot to mention that the coolest innovation from the program, to my mind, was the use of bicycle-powered generators to charge mobile devices in areas without electricity. A winner for education, health, the environment, transportation and that all-important element of motivation: FUN.
The second keynote presentation was by Dr. Mourad Diouri of Glasgow University UK/Morocco. An award-winning pioneer in e-learning for Arabic as a Foreign Language education, Dr. Diouri shared his recent experiences of teaching Arabic using social media. Although the presentation was in Arabic and left me linguistically in the dust, I understood enough to see the that social media tools that have become my close friends were well-received by his international students. His project can be found at the e-Arabic Teachers Portal.
Among the concurrent sessions, two deserve special mention. The first was by Rengarajan Veerasamy and Waseem Anwar of the Arab Open University's Muscat branch. As the first university to truly integrate blended learning from the core in the Arab World, this is a pioneering institution. It is also worth mentioning that they are backed by the Open University UK, a world leader in distance, online and blended learning. Yet they report serious challenges with regard to developing learner independence and retaining students in an environment where a culture of formal education is still being established. The presenters, who were kind enough to humour me with a chat, agreed that being a pioneer requires building a new way, and this will be demanding.
The other presentation that really related to my own concerns was by Dr. Fawzieh Al-Makkawi, Training Manager at NTC Eduware in Lebanon. This warm and engaging speaker shared her experience with the challenges of motivating teachers to use ICT - something I am all too familiar with. She substantiated her point with compelling interdisciplinary research, including a table on managing complex change (left) based on Thousand and Villa (1995), which really spoke to me. I could gladly have listened to her for far longer.Image: Thousand and Villa's (1995) Elements of managing Complex Change. http://centre4.core-ed.net
Overall, it was a great turnout considering this is a public holiday. In a context where the field of educational technology is still so new, and so many participants in the conference truly are being exposed to concepts for the first time, it isn't surprising that many presentations are going over rudimentary information. In fact, it is to be expected at this stage. The question is how effectively those attending this event will carry the message to bring ed tech in Oman to a higher level. I do look forward to dramatic developments in ICT in Oman by the time of OSET's next conference in 2012.
