PLENARY SPEAKERS

Plenary Speakers' Biographies	Plenary Speakers' Abstracts

Plenary Speakers' Biographies

Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan
Her Majesty, with inspired leadership, is encouraging many new educational initiatives throughout Jordan.

Examples of these initiatives can be found on Her Majesty's official Web site http://www.queenrania.jo/.

Phillip L. Clay, Chancellor, MIT
Professor Clay is the Chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Professor of City Planning. As Chancellor, he has oversight responsibility for graduate and undergraduate education, student life, and student services. He is also responsible for strategic planning and oversight of the Institute's large-scale international partnerships. Professor Clay is widely known for his work in U.S. housing policy and community-based development and has been involved in several studies that received national attention.

Visit http://web.mit.edu/chancellor/.

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Jesús del Alamo, Professor of Electrical Engineering, MIT
Dr. Alamo is engaged in exploring the technology and pedagogy of online laboratories ("iLabs" or "WebLabs"). He believes that properly engineered, online laboratories are endowed with unique scaling characteristics: round the clock usage is possible from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. Dr. del Alamo predicts that in the near future, iLabs will spawn communities of learners that will share not just the labs but also their educational content. Recently he helped to successfully implement iLabs in various emerging countries, including three countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. His current research interests are on future microelectronics technologies for communications and data processing.

Visit http://icampus.mit.edu/ilabs/.

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Bakary Diallo, Acting Rector, African Virtual University (AVU)
Dr. Diallo was recently named Acting Rector at AVU where he has worked since 2005. Prior to assuming this position, he was the Program Manager of Academic Programs, a position that involved him in all areas of university operations. Before coming to AVU, Dr. Diallo was a member of the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa in Canada and also served as coordinator of the Faculty Training Program for the use of ICT in teaching and learning activities. Dr. Diallo's latest research focuses on the use of ICT in higher educational institutions.

Visit http://www.avu.org/.

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Carlos A. Garcia, Higher Education Division Manager, Universal Knowledge Solutions (UKS), Dubai
At UKS, Mr. Garcia manages university relations and coordinates research activities in emerging e-learning techniques. With over twenty-five years of experience in application of advanced technologies in industry and academia, he has worked with many universities in the US, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Mr. Garcia is actively involved in projects that include the definition of academic strategies for client universities, design and implementation of virtual and blended models of education delivery, faculty training in course redesign and implementation of digital content management strategies. He also coordinates the UKS e-learning research collaboration with the Politechnical University of Bucharest. During previous work at IBM, Mr. Garcia developed the “Academic Center of Excellence Initiative”, an innovative approach for the gradual introduction of advanced e-learning technologies into university teaching models. Mr. Garcia was a leading member of a team that advised the Egyptian government on a plan to modernize higher education through the use of advanced elearning technologies. He is also a research advisor to the Project Management Institute (PMI).

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Zina Karam, Partner, ALPHA Creative
Ms. Karam has played a pivotal role in Alpha Creative since its incorporation in 2005. She was the mastermind behind the system for the research and development that positioned ALPHA creative as one of the leading e-learning and eProduction solution providers locally and regionally. She also played an instrumental role in applying new methods for combining technology and educational methodology to present the best yet simplest solutions for eLearning that are localized for Jordan and the region. Over the years Ms. Karam has polished her skills in various fields like corporate and marketing strategy, performance management, time management and problem solving.

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Robert B. Kozma, Independent Consultant
Dr. Kozma is a world-renown leader in the areas of: ICT policy that links education reform to economic and social development; international educational technology research; the evaluation of large-scale technology-based education reform; and the use of technology to improve learning, particularly the learning of science. He works with multi-national, national, and non-governmental policy makers and corporations in developed and developing countries to create policies and resources that reduce the digital divide between developed and developing countries, increase the impact of ICT on education reform, economic and social development, and advance the UN Millennium Development Goals. Dr. Kozma has recently conducted an extensive study of technology-enabled educational reform in the Middle East.

Visit http://robertkozma.com/.

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Patricio López del Puerto, President, The Virtual University, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
In 1989, before many universities had even considered the idea of distance learning, Patricio López del Puerto helped to launch the Virtual University at Tecnologica de Monterrey in Mexico. The mission of the Virtual University is "to deliver first class education to new educational environments and to people in remote locations." Dr. López del Puerto's proudest achievement has been creation of 1200 community learning centers in both Mexico and the U.S.--places where the poorest people in the most isolated locations can log onto the Internet, discover the outside world and obtain an education.

See his earlier MIT LINC lecture on MIT World: http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/214/.

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Naveed Malik, Rector, Virtual University of Pakistan, Lahore, Pakistan
Dr. Malik, a leader of E-Learning in Pakistan and a strong supporter of MIT LINC, is heading the PANdora project, a project supported by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to develop a model for distance education that can be used in various Asian countries. This initiative includes nine collaborative projects that are being conducted by teams in 12 countries of the Pan Asia Networking (PAN) region. Dr. Malik, the project coordinator, is responsible for overall coordination and administration of these nine simultaneous sub-projects.

Visit http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-92674-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html and http://www.vu.edu.pk/.

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Frank Mayadas, Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
At Sloan, Dr. Mayadas has directed the Foundation's program in Anytime, Anyplace Learning since late 1992, and devised the projects and partnerships with a wide range of academic institutions that have made this one of the Foundations most successful programs. Today, the resulting Sloan Consortium, or Sloan C, has over 800 institutions as members, and its academic institutional members offer approximately 800 full degree and certificate programs available to learners worldwide. In recognition of his work in Anytime, Anyplace Learning , Dr. Mayadas has been invited to keynote many conferences and to testify before Congress.

Visit http://www.sloan.org/bios/mayadas.shtml and http://www.sloan-c.org/.

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Raul Medina-Mora, Chairman and CEO, Vision Mexico
Dr. Medina-Mora has worked as an advisor to the Ministries of Education and Social Development and the office of the President of Mexico during several administrations, with a focus on social development through education. He led the team that designed the structure ("the how to") for the Enciclomedia Project, the largest educational project in the history of Mexico, where 168,000 classrooms for 5th and 6th grades have been transformed into "interactive classrooms" with a new, innovative pedagogical approach to elementary education. Dr. Medina-Mora is also the Scientific Director for the National Science and Engineering Fairs for High School Students, where innovative scientific projects are presented and evaluated as a means to promote the education in science and engineering in pre-college schools.

Visit http://www.enciclomedia.edu.mx/english.htm

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Adonis Nasr, Chief Executive Officer, Academia Management Solutions International, Dubai
Adonis Nasr received his M.S Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Czech Institute of Technology. After that, he worked in Electrocom in Dubai as an engineer and technical manager for four years. Mr Nasr joined the family-managed schools as a teacher of physics in 1993. In 1998, he established the second branch of Al Mawakeb School in Barsha, supervising the project from engineering board through building completion. For ten years, he served as Vice President at Al Mawakeb Schools. In 2006, he established Academia Management Solutions International (AMSI) under a Board of Director mandate as Chief Executive.

Visit http://www.amsi.ae/site_en/

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Atta-ur-Rahman, Federal Minister/Chairman, Higher Education Commission, Pakistan
Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, Federal Minister and Chairman of the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan, is known internationally for his contributions to science and scientific research having 611 research publications, 93 books, 59 chapters in books and 15 patents. He is especially recognized for his expertise in organic and natural product chemistry and is the Fellow of Royal Society (London), UNESCO Science Prize winner and the recipient of four civil awards granted by the Government of Pakistan.

Visit http://www.hec.gov.pk/htmls/chairman/main.htm

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Sean Rowland, President, Hibernia College, Dublin, Ireland
Dr. Sean Rowland is the founder and President of Hibernia College in Dublin, Ireland.. Hibernia College is an online, third-level educational institution designed to meet the growing demand for flexible, lifelong learning that is not prohibited by location or time. Educational institutions worldwide are increasingly pressured to offer their programs to broader populations in a flexible and innovative manner. Hibernia College has brought together global leaders in technology development and curriculum design to offer a high quality e-learning solution focused on academic excellence, high standards and most importantly, the student. The web-enabled institution now offers degree level programs to a variety of niche markets. His colleagues from MIT, Harvard University, Oxford University and a number of Irish Institutions, have helped through collaboration, to position Hibernia College at the forefront of the e-learning community. Dr Rowland is the former Director and Founder of the Irish Institute at Boston College and currently serves as President of the Harvard Club of Ireland.

Visit http://www.hiberniacollege.net/

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Mohamed-Nabil Sabry, French University of Egypt
Dr. Sabry is currently director of the Center for R&D and International Cooperation at the French University of Egypt as well as the newly created Center for Continuing Education and Distance Learning. His main research interest is in thermal issues in electronic systems, for which he received the Harvey Rosten Award in 2003. Dr. Sabry is also a recognized leader in the area of Open Educational Resources (OERs) and has been an invited speaker at many UNESCO organized meetings about E-Learning.

Visit http://www.ufe-eg.org/.

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Honorio Silva, Vice President, Pfizer Inc., New York
Dr. Silva M.D. is Vice President of Science and Medical Professional Development and Science and Medical Advocacy at Pfizer Inc. of New York . His professional career has focused on fostering clinical research and medical education in the emerging world. He is principal lecturer in the online, trilingual distance learning medical education program, "Good Clinical Practices." He also led the development of Promedicum and Kathedra, web-based portals for medical information and education in Latin America.

Visit http://hstelearning.mit.edu/gcp/eng/home.html.

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Dr. Khaled Toukan, Minister of Education, Higher Education and Scientific Research, Jordan
Dr. Toukan has been the Minister of Education for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan since 2000. He previously served as Minister of Higher Education (2001-2002) and President of Al-Balqa Applied University (1997-2001).  Dr. Toukan's academic career includes the positions of Acting Dean of Faculty of Engineering & Technology and Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Jordan, Research Scientist at Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe, and Associate Research Scientist at the University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia. Dr.Toukan is a Member of the International High Level EFA Group, a member of H.M. King Abdullah II Economic Consultative Council, Acting Director of SESAME, and the Jordan representative to SESAME Council and Vice -Chairman. Dr Toukan's awards include the UNESCO Ghandi Medal of Peace, (2003), the Royal Grand Gordon of Alkukab Al-Urduni, (2003), the Theos, J, Thompson Fellowship (1980-81) in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at M.I.T., and the Duetscher Akademischer Austauschdienst.

Jack M. Wilson, President of the University of Massachusetts system
Dr. Wilson was formerly the founding CEO of UmassOnline and is nationally and internationally recognized for his leadership in the technology-enabled reform of higher education programs. Prior to being at UMass, he was at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where he was the J. Erik Jonsson '22 Distinguished Professor of Physics, Engineering Science, Information Technology, and Management, and the Co-director of the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship. A well-known entrepreneur and distance educator, Dr. Wilson was a co-founder, President, and Chairman of LearnLinc Corporation (now Mentergy), a supplier of software systems for corporate trainin g to Fortune 1000 Corporations.

Visit http://www.jackmwilson.com/.

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Plenary Speakers' Abstracts

“Moving Beyond the Conventional: Educating New Leaders for Transformation and Development.”
Phillip Clay, Chancellor, MIT
Globalization aided by technology is stimulating political and economic change in the world's nations at increasing rates. In poorer countries, the task of educating the next generation of leaders is an increasingly urgent task if these countries are to alleviate poverty and obtain the fruits of development. The focus will be on the transformative power of education. The presentation will outline some of the challenges, offer perspectives about how these might be addressed, and identify roles for international research universities.

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“MIT iLabs: Laboratories Without Frontiers”
Jesús del Alamo, Professor of Electrical Engineering, MIT
While laboratory experiments constitute a crucial component of science and engineering education, many schools and universities are reducing their use because labs are complex to manage and maintain. Additionally, labs are not easily shared among different institutions. The MIT iLab Project attempts to address this situation by developing a software toolkit to support Internet accessible laboratories (iLabs) and promote their sharing among universities. The ultimate goal is to establish a worldwide economy of shareable labs to enhance science and engineering education in a broad range of disciplines.

The iLab Project at MIT has already developed several iLabs for instruction, being shared by more than 5500 students from universities in four continents. The iLab toolkit is based on cross vendor web services technology and is freely available under an open source license.

This presentation will describe the MIT iLab architecture as well as a number of labs implemented under this architecture. It will discuss the use of some of these labs at MIT and around the world and pedagogical lessons that have been learned. It will also present MIT’s experience with iLabs in Sub-Sahara Africa as a proxy for issues of relevance to the use of iLabs in developing countries. Live demonstration of one or more of MITs iLabs will be carried out.

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“The African Virtual University: Working with 27 Countries, across Boundaries and Language Barriers in Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone Africa”
Bakary Diallo, Acting Rector, African Virtual University
The African Virtual University (AVU) is an Inter-Governmental Organization that has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya and a regional office in Dakar, Senegal. The AVU is working with the widest Tertiary Education Institutions e-learning network in Sub- Saharan Africa. Our Mission is to facilitate the use of effective Open Distance and eLearning (ODeL) Methodologies.

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“Moodle: Creating Sustainable Educational Communities with Open Source Software”
Martin Dougiamas, Creator of Moodle
Moodle is a course management system that has become popular around the world with over 30,000 sites in 190 countries, used by over 1.6 million teachers to teach in 70 languages. A thriving community of over 250,000 users discusses the software on moodle.org. These usage numbers show Moodle has become a mainstream tool for online education.

At the center of all this is a piece of software, over a million lines of code distributed for free under the GPL open source license. This
license provides the freedom not only to use the software, but to modify it and bend it and experiment with it in different configurations and environments.

The software itself is, however, only a small part of the reason Moodle has become successful. In this presentation will talk about the philosophies, processes and economics needed to run an open source project of this size, particularly with regard to long term stability and sustainability.

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“Experience Implementing a Blended Model of Education at Amman Al-Ahliyya University (AAU)
Carlos A. Garcia, Universal Knowledge Solutions, UAE
AAU, as a leading educational institution in Jordan and the Middle East, is fully committed to educational excellence and wants to make sure that the latest methodologies and technologies are used to enhance its educational model. The university has decided to implement a long-term educational strategy based on the use of modern pedagogical techniques supported by an effective technology deployment. A constructivist educational model is being implemented at AAU, a model that favors education over teaching with the main emphasis on the student and not on the teacher. This model leverages the Internet technology in support of a mixed mode of delivery.

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 "The Power of the Internet for Learning... Moving from Promise to Practice"
Zina Karam, Partner, ALPHA Creative
Alpha Creative has realized the need to supplement or extend the K-12 traditional textbooks with top-quality, highly interactive electronic content, thus creating modern, integrated teaching and learning methods. For this reason, the company is positioning itself with the major K-12 school, university and even corporate entities in the educational and non-educational sector that are in need of delivering comprehensive, high quality eLessons and eCourses. These lessons are built on the Alpha Creative methodology by combining the best practices and pedagogies in the learning world with the latest technology based on Internet solutions. Currently Alpha Creative is launching a pilot project with one of the major k-12 schools in Jordan.   The aim of this project is to deliver eLessons for the 8 th grade as phase one and then to start delivering all the needed eLessons and eCourses to all grades in the school. This pilot project will be the core for Alpha Creative to create a success story that other schools and educational sectors in Jordan and the region can follow and benefit from.

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“ICT, Education Reform and Economic Development”
Robert B. Kozma, Independent Consultant
Dr. Kozma will discuss the ways in which the use of ICT in conjunction with education reform can support social and economic development. He will present a framework for analyzing coordinated policies in ICT, pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, teacher training, and school organization. He will provide illustrative examples of how countries are implementing policies that promote these changes and discuss implications for education reform in the Middle East.

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“Role of Distance Education in Opening Opportunities in Developing Countries”
Patricio López del Puerto, President, The Virtual University, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico
Tecnológico de Monterrey is a private institution with 33 campuses, 92,446 students and 8,178 faculty members. It has a Virtual University offering programs to students in 17 countries that was created to deliver first class education to new educational environments and to people in remote locations. Currently, the Virtual University provides education to more than 85,000 students who are enrolled in a variety of graduate programs and undergraduate courses and continuing education training programs. In addition, in order to promote the internationalization of students, the Virtual University has the support of the Tecnológico de Monterrey's liaison offices located in strategic cities around the globe and also has signed agreements with foreign universities to offer joint and dual degree programs.

A student of the Virtual University has a very active role in the learning process and is fully responsible for his or her own learning. However, this does not mean that he or she is alone. The student receives assistance and support from professors, tutors, academic counselors and student support services. To make this kind of education possible, we need to guarantee the quality of the educational programs, the instructional design and course production, the course delivery using a technological platform and the tutoring and evaluation.

This presentation describes the need of implementing online educational programs to reach students in remote areas or students that do not have the time or resources to attend a traditional course. It also describes the experience of Tecnológico de Monterrey in designing and delivering high quality distance education programs in Latin America.

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“Education in Your Bag: Technology Put it There!”
Naveed Malik, Rector, Virtual University of Pakistan, Lahore, Pakistan
The best investment that developing countries can make towards their future is in tertiary education. A properly educated workforce provides the maximum economic returns and hence has the best potential for bringing about positive change. The major issues facing the provision of tertiary education in developing countries are those of access and cost. In addition, vibrant economies require opportunities for lifelong education and training as well as non-formal education for specific segments of society.

Taking the Virtual University of Pakistan as a case study, this paper aims to present the potential of modern information and communication technologies to provide the required services while overcoming the above-mentioned obstacles. The various design, delivery and pedagogical decisions that were taken for the initial cohorts are critically analyzed, especially with respect to student performance and with a view to distilling best practices out of this rich experience.

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“Online Education: Worldwide and Moving Quickly”
Frank Mayadas, Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Fifteen years ago, online learning was a set of scattered ideas and experiments. Today it is a force in the education field, one that is enabling high quality education access for many millions and growing rapidly. New institutions are initiating this form of education, and those that started a few years ago are expanding and scaling up their programs. The expanding community of practitioners---faculty, instructional designers and administrators—is creating an expanding pool of knowledge about this new way of delivering education. New conferences, publications and workshops are being devised to allow sharing of this knowledge.

This talk will summarize the state of online education and its derivative, blended education. It will report on the latest results from the Annual Survey of Online Education sponsored by the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), the range of disciplines represented in online degrees, examples of how online learning is impacting people and specific industry workforces. It will also report on the various mechanisms of sharing information that are available and on inter-institutional academic partnerships that now exist.

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“Enciclomedia: The World’s Largest Interactive Classroom Project”
Raul Medina-Mora, Chairman and CEO, Vision Mexico
Enciclomedia is a development platform for interactive classrooms that allows the digitalization of all kinds of educational materials and the flexible incorporation of multi-media resources and learning objects. Enciclomedia brings textbooks "alive" through hyperlinks to these rich resources. It is a new pedagogical model creating a learning community of teachers and students in the classroom, and provides a leverage of educational technology to bring forth a new learning paradigm: a focus shift from technology to learning.

The Enciclomedia Program in México covers all classrooms of 5th and 6th grade of all public primary schools in México (students of 10 to 12 years old). A total of 168,000 classrooms have been implemented. Approximately 4.5 million students and 200,000 teachers are benefiting from Enciclomedia. An additional 2.2 million students will be benefited every year as they enter 5th grade. Mexican President Vicente Fox' declaration became the driver and for the project "every child, every classroom, every school in the country".

In this conference, we will show Enciclomedia in Action so that the audience can get a good sense of how this new paradigm of learning happens in the classroom. We will then discuss the objectives, results, scope, challenges, critical success factors and the future development of Enciclomedia as well as its applications and use in other countries.

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"AMSI's Advanced Classrooms: Emphasizing the Human Aspect"
Adonis Nasr, Chief Executive Officer, Academia Management Solutions International, Dubai
The integration of ICT into the standard classroom is still a luxury restricted to schools which can afford it. Institutions of learning have various missions and mandates of operation, but ultimately share a common dynamic. They all want to provide the best learning environment.

The change to accommodate the power of the computer technologies, in all its abundance into the standard classroom, is therefore necessary, and as is usual in all matters confirmed it is only matter of time.

AMSI's experiences in implementation at its schools over the last 6 years brought a new realization: Innovative solutions should not be applied with traditional mindsets, for the integration of technology is only an additional tool of delivery.

In the turbulent dynamics of change, one question arose as the most essential and in its timeless simplicity the most necessary:   how to continue to motivate and ignite student curiosity in a data abundant environment, and how to increase the challenge on their intellect to explore their potential?

“ICT for Education in Developing Countries: Both Feasible and Crucial”
Mohamed-Nabil Sabry, French University of Egypt
As humanity enters the knowledge society era, developing countries may have no hope for sustainable development unless they massively increase their educational resources. The general lack of resources in these countries creates a vicious circle reproducing under development that can only be broken by revolutionary policies based on modern educational technology. Is that feasible? Yes, from the cost point of view, if we adopt the correct approach. We still have to face obstacles other than just cost. Each country or region may have its own solution; some propositions as well as some examples will be presented.

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“Quality Assurance in E-Learning: The Pharmaceutical Medicine Graduate Program: A Case Study”
Honorio Silva, Vice President, Pfizer Inc., New York, U.S. and Sean Rowland, President, Hibernia College, Dublin, Ireland
Pharmaceutical Medicine (PM) has been developed as a biomedical discipline for the discovery, development, evaluation, registration, monitoring and medical marketing of medicines for the benefits of patients and community health. As a post-graduate medical discipline, PM has a recognized international syllabus, conventional graduate programs, its own research methodologies and embraces new technologies and regulations.

Pfizer and Hibernia College have worked together in the development of an internationally accredited, blended e-learning program. Hibernia College is an internationally accredited 3rd level e-learning institution. Two annual consecutive cohorts of Pfizer students representing 25 countries have been enrolled. A number of initiatives to ensure quality were developed at the time of curriculum planning, accreditation, faculty selection, technology and student’s selection. Quality control determinations were also conducted regularly during the 24-month program. Metrics for performance and satisfaction have met the expectations. This is a unique example of collaboration between the private and the academic sectors in bringing value for graduate education.

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"Overview of Jordan's Initiatives"
Dr. Khaled Toukan, Minister of Education, Higher Education and Scientific Research, Jordan
Under the Education Reform for Knowledge Economy Program (2003-2008) and the closely aligned Jordan Education Initiative, the Ministry of Education has embarked on and journeyed through a comprehensive program of education reform over the past four years. A central focus of innovation and change has been the transformation of programs and practices in schools and classrooms. The extensive curriculum renewal program has increasingly targeted the development of relevant and appropriate learning resources to support the new curriculum. Not the least of these targets is the development and implementation of e-learning resources for teaching and learning that can be utilized within a blended approach with textual and other materials. As expectations of what teachers do to teach, facilitate and assess student learning are changing, emphasis has been placed on the training of teachers in the delivery of the new curriculum and new learning resources and teaching methodologies and strategies.

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“UMassOnline, the Catalyst for Change at the Public Research University”
Jack Wilson, President, University of Massachusetts system
Since it's founding in 2001, UMassOnline has been a catalyst for change at the University of Massachusetts. UMassOnline has more than fulfilled the founders’ dream of providing a university education to students who cannot actually be in residence at the university. Now serving over 26,000 enrollments and earning over $28 million per year for the University, UMassOnline has change the way the University serves the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the world. But beyond that direct impact, the success of UMassOnline has changed the way professors teach, students learn, and the way the community thinks about the university, and the revenues earned have even provided funding that indirectly leads to greater investments in financial aid, new professors, and other resources to serve even the traditional student.

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