BREAKING TRADITIONAL
LEARNING BARRIERS
BY NIDAL ABOU ZAKI
While the traditional brick-and-mortar school has been the backbone of learning for many years, the advent of technology and the rise of the internet in the Arab world have been redefining the regional educational system. Online education, also known as distance learning, is the offshoot of an increasing technologically-empowered civilization.
The classroom setting has been an integral part of the society, offering a place of comfort and familiarity purely dedicated to knowledge. For many, the face to face interaction with the instructor and lively discussions among classmates serve as a crucial part of the learning process.
However, this system emphasizes strict adherence to a fixed curriculum, with students having to go with the pace of the entire class instead of having the flexibility to learn at his or her own comfort. Furthermore, this model may produce unmotivated students who find the materials distant, as the method is based on the completion of specific tasks laid out by the teacher.
Online education supports a personalized structure that focuses on the ‘how’ and not just the ‘what’ of learning. This paradigm utilizes the wealth of information on the web, encouraging the student to research and collect information that is current, relevant and enriching the learning process through materials in a variety of formats.
The online learning trend is gaining traction in the Arab world, offering itself as a revolutionary enhancement to the limitations of traditional education. With the number of internet users in the Arab region expected to rise to 197 million users by 2017 and the internet penetration rate expected to jump from 32 per cent in 2012 to over 51 per cent in 2017 , the integration of technology and education is inevitable.
The future of online education is brighter than ever, with statistics showing that its popularity is continuously increasing; e-Learning has in fact become a USD 56.2 billion industry. In the Middle East, self-paced e-Learning's growth rate has been at 8.2 per cent per annum since 2014, with revenues expected to reach USD 560.7 million by 2016. There is an estimated 46 per cent of college students taking courses via the internet worldwide, with roughly half of all classes expected to be online by 2019. In the corporate arena, e-Learning is considered as the second most valuable training method and saves business cost by at least 50 per cent while cutting down instruction time by 60 per cent. As of now, over 41.7 per cent of Fortune 500 companies use a variation of educational technology to instruct employees .
Despite the revolutionary nature of online learning, it still has integral components comparable to those in traditional education and which offer similar advantages. Aside from the presentation of ideas, group discussions, lecture series and all other forms of conveying information, the curriculum can also be specially designed and organized linearly to suit the needs of students in the Arab world. With this in mind, there are also certain notable points that can only be seen in e-Learning, such as round-the-clock unrestricted responses, easier access to information, safer interaction, lower costs, and greater flexibility for the student. Lastly, e-Learning is also eco-friendly, requiring less travelling, CFC and Carbon Foot Print.
Nidal Abou Zaki is the Founder and Managing Director of Orient Planet, one of the fastest
growing business & marketing consultancies in the Middle East, providing high quality
strategic consultancy services.
66 | TRAINING MAGAZINE MIDDLE EAST Q3 2015
Learning Technology