learning will open here Saturday, two days before the official opening of 2nd International Conference on e-Learning and Distance Learning organized under the patronage of Ministry of Higher Education. Dr. Ahmad Turkistani, Chairman of the Media Committee, said 15 of the 24 workshops will be organized in English language and the rest in Arabic. The target participants that will attend the workshops are learners, teachers, and officials of higher education institutions, classroom practitioners involved in web designing, academic developers or those engaged in presenting courses using online technologies, lecturers, instructional designers and e-learning practitioners among others. The emphasis of the workshops will be on practical details such as uploading or creating activities, familiarizing the use of better e-learning materials, language training, and vocabulary development. Some of the workshop that will run for whole day will be on topics such as ‘Emerging Online Tools for Building Vocabulary and Reading Skills,' ‘Effectively Blending Face to Face with Online Learning Environments,' ‘Using Social Media and Web 2.0 Tools for Learning,' Developing Scenario Based e-Learning', ‘ePortfolio for Professionals,' among many others. Leading international experts and instructors on e-learning will address the workshops. They include personalities such as Dr. Peter Birks, who is an experienced administrator, educator and consultant with experience in a wide range of educational and business posts in the Middle East and Australia; Professor Geoffrey Crisp, Professor Crisp of University of Queensland and Ph.D in Chemistry at the Research School of Chemistry, Australian National University in 1981; Zaid Ali Alsagoff, who has ten years of hands-on experience with e-learning in higher education; Simon Fitzpatrick with over 20 years' experience of computer-assisted learning and e-learning projects in UK's health service. Others include Prof. Ron Oliver, Pro Vice Chancellor, Teaching and Learning at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia, Dr. Shirley Waterhouse, Senior Director of the Office of Academic Excellence and Innovation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU), the world's leading institution of higher education in aviation and aerospace, and Prof. Jan M. Pawlowski from Essen, Germany. He holds a Master's degree and doctorate in Business Information Systems. Instructors such as John Paul Loucky, Associate Professor at Seinan JoGakuin University in Japan where he has been teaching TESOL/EFL for about 20 years, and Mrs. Sachiko Loucky Tamanaha from Japan, an expert in teaching English to children and teenagers will also address the workshops. Dr. Abdullah M. Al-Megren said the Scientific Committee of the conference has received 415 scientific researches and work papers. However, the number of research papers to be presented during the conference are 70, he said. “A number of programs and research sessions presented by more than 80 researchers including 32 international researches and 50 local researches from different Saudi universities, education and information technology sectors will speak on the occasion,” he said. The workshops are intended to provide best teaching techniques and skills. Today, there are thousands of exciting learning tools to explore, but sadly most teachers do not have the time to explore all, or figure out which ones to use. The workshops will focus on essential learning tools that they can use to build an effective personal learning environment and network, which is also essential to become a better teacher and online facilitator. There will be a workshop on Internationalization of Open Educational Resources – adapting OER with an aim to learn, discuss and experiment how existing educational resources can be found, used and adapted when developing new courses or educational offers. Al-Megren stressed that Jimmy Wales, co-founder and promoter of Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia in the world, and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the worldwide web and director of the www Consortium will be among the experts who will present their experiences at the conference.
