HCT-Dubai Media Students Use Social Media To Promote 2nd Annual Mobile Learning Conference

The Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) – Dubai Women’s College (DWC) Media and Corporate Communications students have become fully engaged with the social media platforms of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to promote the college’s Mobile Learning Conference (MLC), to be held on April 10, 2014..

The students’ work comes within their social media course this term and is keeping with HCT’s reputation for being a pioneer in the teaching of social media subjects.

Dr. Saoud Al Mulla, Director of the Higher Colleges of Technology in Dubai said, "The HCT-Dubai students have taken a leading role in the promotion of this conference through the different social media platforms, along with high professional and educational morals which make them an example in the use of social media platforms to serve social and educational issues and events."

The HCT is keen to apply the “Learning by Doing” philosophy in its courses, and that’s why students use social media platforms to apply what they have studied during the term, as well as mastering writing forms for each platform. An example was a 140-character tweet written by a group of students to promote the conference on "Twitter ". Another group wrote a promotional paragraph and added a link to the conference website via " LinkedIn ". The last group used images, a video and a simple paragraph on "Facebook” to promote the conference. These specific writing criteria for each social media platform helped to develop the students’ skills in this area and make them more aware of the particularity of each social site.

The students said this project provided an opportunity to develop their skills and increase their ability, not to mention motivating their creative thinking in different ways because each social network has its particularity which should not be generalized.

In turn, Sharifa Hajjat, e-learning Coordinator at Dubai Women’s College, founder of the e-learning Arab Academy and a key speaker in the Mobile Learning Conference, said this idea activates the students by positive and fruitful interactions in the use of social networks to promote knowledge and creativity. It also establishes the principles and ideas of good citizenship and social responsibility.

The second annual Mobile Learning Conference will be held on April 10, 2014 at The Higher Colleges of Technology-Dubai Men’s College. The conference addresses a number of topics, including mobile learning, huge data, learning by practice, open educational resources, technology education in the Arabic language and the concept of a "Flipped classroom". Conference workshops will focus on the practical and direct application of the mobile learning tools. After the conclusion of the conference an electronic bulletin that contains summaries and documentation of the contents of the conference through the multimedia will be distributed.

The conference will focus on what makes innovative, effective and engaging teaching/training and how mobile learning enables these qualities. This conference will follow HCT’s “Learning by Doing” philosophy and all workshops will aim to be hands on.

There will be a large presence from vendors from the mobile and IT industry. Educational administrators and purchasing agents will have the opportunity to meet with the vendors during the conference. All four of the keynote speakers have been selected for their expertise in mobile learning but also their reputation for providing engaging and dynamic presentations.

Emirate:  Dubai

Date: Jan 27, 2014

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