RIYADH: The Saudi youth will be the target of 2nd International Conference on e-Learning slated to open in Riyadh from Feb. 21, an official of the National Center for e-Learning and Distance Learning said Tuesday. Dr. Abdullah M. Al-Megren, general manager, said in an exclusive interview with the Saudi Gazette the Center was engaged in developing a theme for the conference that could address the issue of learning process in Saudi Arabia. “In fact, we worked bottom up and top down in creating this motto,” Al-Megren said, referring to the conference theme, “Unique learning for next generation.” The center has invited at least 38 prominent international speakers who are experts in the field education. “We are trying to send a message to educators and people that the center wants to come up with unique learning process. Our emphasis on the process of learning is inclusive that involves instructors, lectures, educators, faculty members, students and parents,” he said. He said the center has done studies that suggested a high percentage of Saudi youth have adopted to the use of high-tech IT gadgets that includes the recently introduced iPad, laptops and smart mobile phones. “The Saudi youths are using these gadgets from comforts of their homes or while spending time outside,” he said. Keeping the growing trend in mind, the center has instructed the speakers, researchers and others attending the conference to focus their works on the given theme, he said. Among the prominent speakers in the occasion are Jimmy Donal Wales, founder of Wikipedia, and Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee, the inventor of worldwide web. Berners-Lee is a British engineer and computer scientist and MIT professor, who is credited with inventing the World Wide Web. Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur and a cofounder and promoter of Wikipedia, a free web-based collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. A large number of Saudi students will also be attending the conference, Al-Megren said. He said the center has been working with a number of university students on ways to improve the process of learning by employing digital technologies. “We hope that some of the students with whom we have been working with will come up with some ideas and present the prototypes of their works in the exhibition that runs on the sidelines of the conference,” he said. He said Saudi Arabia ranks top in the number of the country's youth engaged in social networking sites that include twitter. The Saudi youths are spending lots of their time on Internet or by engaging themselves in the social networking sites. “My message to all educators and others in the field of education that we want to come up with a unique learning (process) and we emphasize on learning that's taking place not only in the educational institutions but also includes platforms such as Internet, the use of YouTube and social networking sites among others,” he said. The idea behind “Unique learning for next generation” is to enhance the ability of young users on how to grasp the piece of information, analyze and utilize in a systematic and productive manners, he said.
