Under the patronage of dean of engineering; Dr. Mohamed Bin Saed Alkahtani, and in collaboration with the deanship of Information technology and distance education in the university; a workshop titled “Fundamentals of Managing eLearning using Blackboard” was concluded. It was held in the auditorium of college of engineering on 20th of January 2016; with the attendance of; vice dean, dean assistants, head of academic departments and number of faculty members. The workshop targeted all faculty members in college of engineering through its incentive agenda to highlight benefits of the university’s eLearning system; which was based on the world standard Blackboard LMS. The workshop tackled the basic steps needed to be followed by faculty members to start rely on blended eLearning model. It highlighted also how to maximize interaction between students and faculty member by employing Elearning strategies and tools for communication, interaction, content share, e-assessment that are available to faculty inside the safe environment of blackboard. These tools include, forums, announcements, assessments and assignments and reporting of student performance.
And to conclude the workshop; Dr. Mohamed Bin Saed Al Kahtani, Dean of engineering, emphasized on adapting eLearning strategies and advised faculty members to best utilize the self-training materials to be enabled into deployment of the available tools and services of eLearning systems. He also highlighted the need to select the tools and services that match the needs of teaching academic courses in a manner that address the needs of students. The dean directed faculty members to start enrollment into training courses provided and organized by the deanship of IT&DL, presented by eLearning trainers from selected faculty members with eLearning high competence. The faculty members were encouraged to adapt eLearning systems and to enrich the academic communication experience of engineering students using it’s world standard modern tools provided by PSAU’s IT&DL.
