Regaining Control of the Ship
Who Benefits from Online Courses?
Technology Assimilates Education
The ABC's of ASD
Press Release,
ALHOSN University announces winners of stand design contest for 2011-2012 exhibitions
ALHOSN University announces winners of stand design contest for 2011-2012 exhibitions
Best design to be used at Najah & GETEX
October 9, 2011
ALHOSN University, a leading Abu Dhabi-based university dedicated to high-quality and value-based education, has announced the winners of its annual ‘ALHOSN Exhibition Stand Competition’ which ran from mid-August to October 3, 2011. The best design will be used for all major events ALHOSN will participate in for the academic year 2011-2012, including Najah, a leading education training exhibition and career fair in the Middle East, and Gulf Education and Training Exhibition (GETEX), the largest education fair in the Middle East and Asia.
The contest was open to all ALHOSN students, who were challenged to design creative and modern display spaces to represent the university. Entries included the ALHOSN logo, audio visual presentations, a workstation, a display counter, and a brochure holder.
Rana Al Hussaini, the 1st Placer from the Architectural Engineering Department, won AED 2,000; Manal Constantin from the Interior Design Department was 1st runner-up and received AED 1,000; Adeelah Al Hassan from the Architectural Engineering Department was awarded AED 500 as 2nd runner-up.
“The 2010 winners of our stand design contest did an excellent job capturing the essence and values of ALHOSN in a unique and dynamic way. Competition was tighter this year as all of the previous awardees were from the Department of Architectural Engineering and so the other departments wanted to prove their designing skills as well. This is an excellent platform for us to showcase the talent, determination and creativity of our students to a regional and even global audience during the various exhibitions we attend each year,” said Dr. Raymond Tennant, Provost, ALHOSN University.
The ALHOSN University competition jury met on October 3, 2011, the deadline set for the submission of entries. The winners were named the following day at the Female Campus.
Named after Abu Dhabi’s historic ALHOSN Palace, ALHOSN University was founded in 2005 by the Abu Dhabi Holding Company in response to growing local demand for high-quality, value-based educational institutions. It currently offers 11 undergraduate and 7 graduate programs under the Faculties of Engineering and Applies Sciences, Business, and Arts and Social Sciences. ALHOSN accepts students of all nationalities and also accommodates youths with special needs. All its programs are accredited by the UAE Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.
Press Release,
GETEX Autumn 2011 will support efforts to diversify and strengthen the education infrastructure in the region
GETEX Autumn 2011 will support efforts to diversify and strengthen the education infrastructure in the region
IDEAS introduced to support UAE Ministry’s student-centric strategy for 2010 to 2020
October 5, 2011
GETEX Autumn, the Middle East and Asia's leading education, training and professional development event, has been positioned to complement the exponential growth of the Dubai’s education sector, which now has more than 40,000 university students currently enrolled in the emirate and at least 52 higher education institutions from just a few universities 10 years ago. GETEX Autumn will be presenting multiple options of graduate and postgraduate degrees from leading academic institutions around the world, as the event has been strategically timed to assist students looking to enrol for courses starting early 2012.
GETEX Autumn 2011 will hold its first leg at the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Centre from October 26 to 28, while the concluding leg will be held at the Gulf Hotel in Manama, Bahrain from October 31 to November 1. This year’s edition will focus on distinct areas of higher education, targeting a much wider range of students and young working adults who are keen to explore their study options or looking for specialized courses to keep abreast with the growing competition in the global job market.
Anselm Godinho, Managing Director, International Conferences & Exhibitions (IC&E), organisers of the event, said: "GETEX Autumn 2011 provides an excellent platform to help higher secondary and undergraduate students explore their options for further studies or training. We are particularly excited to have launched the IDEAS forum this year. IDEAS which stands for ‘Innovation, Design & Engineering Arena’ is an active display of Occupational Education achievements intended to motivate aspiring Students into vocational trades.”
A diverse option of postgraduate courses that are now in great demand in the Arab World will be on offer at GETEX, including popular programs in engineering, medicine, HR, marketing & communications, humanities, natural resources, business, finance, research, accounting, languages and management. The more popular occupational course preferences such as architecture and interior design, aviation, fashion, graphic design, hospitality, photography, teaching and technical programs will also be available at GETEX Autumn.
Web Resources,
History
This is the ultimate website for all Social Studies teachers. Add something extra to your class with videos, games and fun ways to explain your lesson. Imagine how much more captivating lessons in history can become with a video in the background illustrating the pivotal moments!
Web Resources,
Kids National Geographic
The Kids National Geographic website offers tons of videos, games and other fun ways to show your students what goes on around the planet. Awaiting your kids just a mouse click away is a world of discovery, exploration and wonder. Now you never have to regret that you can’t show your students something you saw on the National Geographic channel, because it’s all here, and geared for kids!
Local News,
Qatar determined to maintain high standards of education
Qatar’s Minister of Education and Higher Education Saad Ibrahim has stressed that the country’s “Qatarization” drive would have no negative impact on the quality of education at independent schools. Relevant officials have been instructed to implement the nationalization campaign as a gradual process and ensure that the system suffers from no ill effects. The minister also said the Supreme Education Council was seeking to attract nationals to join the teaching profession by making the field one of the more appealing professions in the country. The SEC currently assesses teachers’ skills through three different licenses. This system allows educators sufficient opportunity to reach the desired professional development and augment their skills.
Web Resources,
Teacher Net
Teacher Net UK includes resources geared mostly for teachers and their profession. Research educational issues, different lesson plans, and even entire school issues.
I Ave an idea ,
Miss...a virus ate my iPad
I have a confession: I’m one of those people who resist embracing new technologies as long as possible. In fact, to the dismay of this magazine’s publisher, I can’t connect to Twitter, and Facebook gives me the creeps – I just don’t want people prying into my affairs! And while I spend several hours a day on the Web, surfing for news on a variety of topics as well as tutorials for everything from engine overhauls to 3d modeling, I’ve always cherished books, and I have kept every book I ever bought, and in pristine condition.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not averse to technology in itself. In fact I make as much use of it as the next guy – heck, I have two laptops, three desktops, more external hard drives than a Mac store, a dozen flash drives, a Playstation 2, a Playstation 3, a blue ray player, and more software and games than I know what to do with. Of course in the end, I always give in and accept new devices just so I don’t become obsolete along with my VHS player and my Atari, but always under protest.
My beef is that if something works just fine, why replace it with something that may be problematic? For example, take books. There’s something to be said about them: Between those covers lie whole other worlds and lives which make us forget our own concerns – albeit for a brief period. Seeing them lined up on a shelf is like looking at private doorways to the worlds of Azimov, the thoughts of Nietzsche, and tragedies of Shakespeare. Day or night, they are at arm’s reach. I treasure my books, and have kept every book I ever bought, including my school and university books, all in pristine condition, and all ready to divulge their wealth of knowledge whenever needed.
Then came along devices such as the iPad, which do for books what the iPod did for CDs – they can literally become entire self-contained libraries. Every book you ever owned can now become digitized and readily accessible at the touch of a key.
So what’s the problem with that? Simple: You can still read Shakespeare if you accidentally drop the book, but I wonder if the same can be said for the much-trumpeted digital reader. Better yet, at least you can read a book during the day amid a power outage – a regular occurrence in our corner of the world – and by candlelight at night. But iPad runs on batteries you say? How are you going to charge your “book” if there’s no power? And how often will you need to replace the batteries when there is power? I own laptops, and I know those batteries don’t last very long.
I can already envision students panicking because they can’t review their lessons due to a power cut, or because their hi-tech self-contained library with cutting edge processing power won’t work because they dropped it. And when they lose a book, they lose just one book. With iPad, they lose the whole enchilada: Math, Physics, Chemistry, English Arabic, French, and maybe even the agenda.
Of course they can always claim a virus ate their book…
Editorial,
Resistance is Futile
A couple of decades ago, we saw science fiction films and television series which made us consider what it would be like to live in the future. Those movieswere replete with live video conferencing, electronic data pads, nanites and wireless communication devices, and we imagined what it would be like to live in such a time.
Yet far too often we forget that everything around us represents a process of evolution. Our cars replaced the wagon, which itself replaced the horse. Buildings started out as houses, and those replaced cabins, which were an upgrade on huts, or even caves.
Progress has a habit of creeping up on us unnoticed, and before we know it, what we consider the norm is altered to something altogether different. Just consider the journey of recorded films from reels all the way to Blue Ray, how many stages did it pass through? And didn’t each stage – VHS, Laser Disc, Video CD, DVD – become the “norm” for a certain period?
Those changes sometimes come in gradual steps, and sometimes in spectacular leaps. It has been centuries since the printing press replaced handwritten scrolls, which replaced writing on leather, papyrus, even carved tablets. And today, with the advent of technologies such as Kindle and the iPad, we could very well be seeing the dawn of a new era, one where books are obsolete and everything you ever wanted to read could be found on the hard drive of a small tablet, much like the aforementioned data pads. Video conferencing is now not only viable, but used regularly by schools, universities and a myriad of other professions across the globe. Nanites, albeit a more primitive version than their fictitious counterparts, have already been tested. We’ve even explored the surface of Mars with probes.
Perhaps we may not yet be at the stage where a drastic change is imminent, but developments indicate it’s not too far off. Take the example of major books publishers which are already signing deals for software to adapt their material to digital readers: the key players in the industry are preparing themselves for the inevitable, and it’s time for the rest of us to follow suit.
The truth is, the future we imagined is here, and its implications to education will be tremendous. So what you have to ask yourself is the following: Will you resist the unstoppable locomotive of change rushing down the tracks, or will you hop on board and be a part of the next era in learning?
Talks we like on TED,
Scott Kim takes apart the art of puzzles
We post this talk in tribute to the late Martin Gardner
