Saudi Universities and Colleges Extol the Virtues of E-Learning
20 Jun 2008 in Education
Alaa Al-Mizyen is our Youth Ambassador from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She is currently a student at Dar Al-Hekma College where she is majoring in banking and finance.
Long gone are the days when students would sit through countless hours of lectures, enduring the screeching sounds of a dying piece of chalk on an over-ridden blackboard, all the while attempting to grasp the nuts and bolts of Calculus. Fast forward to the 21st century and this scene is nothing but a cliché, a prospect that would have us all sighing bitter-sweetly while exhaling, “Ah…the good old days.” Truth is, the learning experience has transformed immensely in the past few years due to incessant technological advances. Today’s modern-day classroom tends to be void of blackboards and instead dominated by a virtual whiteboard, dubbed the smartboard, connected to a computer and overhead projector. An instructor within the classroom isn’t quite mandatory as students can instantly hold a videoconference with their professor while he or she is in another room, building, or on an entirely different continent. Unfamiliar with such a scenario? Well then, you have yet to hop on board the world’s latest technology-meets-education bandwagon, more commonly known as the rise of e-learning. As a college student I have to say that experimenting with e-learning has proven to be beneficial. I use online programs such as Opera and WebCT to download presentations, check my attendance, submit assignments, as well as remain in contact with my peers and instructors when I’m at home or outside the kingdom. But what I am really looking forward to are the e-books to be provided by ELC in the future. Saudi Arabia’s recently adopted e-learning initiative has received great praise and I am looking forward to its expansion and development.
However, with the entire planet marketing e-learning as the best thing since sliced bread, I do tend to question the much debated ‘technological literacy’ factor that comes hand in hand with the constant implementation of technology in our modern-day learning systems. Is literacy no longer subject to reading and writing but to a background in information technology as well? Education is still but a commodity, a privilege that a great majority of the world cannot manage and considering that applying technology to learning will increase the cost of education, I wonder about the imbalance of opportunities thus will create. Will the implementing of e-learning create an even greater gap between those whom are educated and those who are not?
One thing is for sure, the usual class culprit is surely thrilled that he or she will no longer have to worry about staying after hours to dust the chalkboard erasers but instead look forward to spending extra hours in e-detention, I suppose?
