e-Lex 2011 - 4th Conference on e-Learning Excellence in the Middle East

On behalf of the eLearning Conference Organizing Team, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the 4th Annual Conference on e-Learning Excellence in the Middle East, that will be held this year in the context of the Hamdan Bin Mohammed e-University Annual Congress 2011, in Dubai, under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and President of HBMeU .
The theme of the 2010 e-Learning Conference, In Search of New Paradigms for re-Engineering Education, reflects one fundamental question on the agenda of XXIst century educators, stakeholders and governments, facing the exponential increase of demand for access to quality education at reasonable cost.
The historian of science Thomas Kuhn gave paradigm its contemporary meaning when he adopted the word to refer to the set of practices that define a scientific discipline at any particular period of time:

what is to be observed and scrutinized;
the kind of questions that are supposed to be asked and probed for answers in relation to this subject;
how these questions are to be structured;
how the results of scientific investigations should be interpreted;
how is an experiment to be conducted, and what conceptual tools are available to conduct the experiment.
Why should we need new paradigms to define education in the XXIst century?

Certainly because of the demographic explosion of generations in demand for quality education.

And because the advent of technologies is changing the deal by breaking what Sir John Daniel calls an iron triangle: “Open education broke open the iron triangle of access, cost and quality that had constrained education throughout history and had created the insidious assumption, still prevalent today, that in education you cannot have quality without exclusivity.”

New tools are available, allowing to revisit concepts regarded immutable.

Adding an “e” in front of learning makes it possible to shift priorities from T&L to L&T. Teaching becomes what it should always be: the support needed to make learning effective. In this regard, e-Learning opens the door to creative spaces where learning, innovation and work can be integrated for the sake of knowledge advancement.

However, using information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance education needs more than traditional forms of learning and process development. In the quest for high-quality, wide-access, reasonable-cost education, ICTs have a major role to play as the mediating artifacts of emerging networked educational systems supporting Open Distance Learning (ODL), Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) and other emerging kinds of blended learning, able to increase access while ensuring quality at a reasonable cost.
The excellent conference program of the 4th Annual Conference on e-Learning Excellence in the Middle East 2011 is a result of the efforts of many individuals who are contributing their time and expertise leading up to the event. On behalf of the organizing committee, I would like to thank all team members for their hard work. On a personal note, I would also like to thank our colleagues of the technical committee for their support, advices and camaraderie. We invite you to take an active role in this forum by presenting your work, participating in the discussions, or simply honoring us with your presence. We wish you a fruitful and enjoyable time at the 2011 Conference on e-Learning Excellence in the Middle-East.
Prof Alain Senteni,
4th eLearning Conference Chair
Dean of the School of e-Education
Hamdan Bin Mohammed e-University