Category: News

This week, we launched a new course designed to introduce Engineering. It explores the fundamentals of how engineering is undertaken and looks at the role of engineers and their involvement in engineering around the world.

Learners get the chance to hear from some world-famous engineers and creative people and pursue their own design projects.

The course covers a wide variety of areas with an engineering emphasis from drones, artificial intelligence, 5G telecoms, mechanics and robots for healthcare.

See more here: https://www.futurelearn.com/principles-of-engineering

We were delighted to see our Introduction to Business Management course has been selected by the Department for Education as part of their Skills Toolkit offering. Skills Toolkit is a set of courses put together to help people within the UK who are out of work or looking to change careers to upskill or reskill. Our Introduction to Business Management course is free and covers essential topics such as: common business concepts, tools and terminology; management of money, people and information; how to communicate professionally in business contexts; and how to assess leadership and management style. 

One of our MOOCs Entrepreneurship: From Business Idea to Action, which is delivered through our FutureLearn platform, has been selected to be part of their Grow stronger with the Google campaign. 

This is a 4-week course, designed by King’s Online and King’s Business School for refugees, displaced people and the communities supporting them in the MENA (Middle East and Northern Africa) region. This course uses case studies of local businesses and entrepreneurship in the MENA region and aims to teach students key business skills such as:

• How to develop an enterprise from idea generation to action plan.
• How to build and pitch an idea
• How to write a vision statement
• How to put plans into action, thinking in the long term.

You can find out more here.

The fourth year of the Certificate Program began on October 4, 2020. Sixty (60) students have enrolled in the Program.

Delivered at AABU, instructors teach the students English Language, Basic Mathematics, Fundamentals of IT, and Web Design and Development in Term One. The teaching is delivered through blended learning, with the classroom based teaching being complemented by online resources and tools. In fact, 30% of each course is delivered through GoogleClassrooms.

The second semester will start in February, and includes Professional Skills and Ethics, Database Management Systems, Computer Systems and Networks, and PHP Programming.

All of our teaching is supplemented with robust student support including academic guidance, key skills workshops and psycho-social support.

Due to COVID-19, the Jordanian government has decided that teaching will be online for undergraduate courses, except labs and hands-on activities. Therefore, we decided to teach English Language Skills and Basic Mathematics online. The Fundamentals of IT and Web Design and Development are taught 50% on-campus and 50% online. For these courses, we have two groups and two study hubs, there are 30 students per group, and because half of each group attend in-person, at most 15 students are present in each of the study hubs at the same time. This provides enough physical distance between individuals. This method of delivery is subject to change according to status of the COVID-19 pandemic and Jordanian regulations.

At AABU, Google Classroom has been used within the certificate program courses to streamline the process of file, content and assignment sharing between instructors, King’s Online and students. The classroom connects students to curated digital resources. This basic learner management system (LMS) can be used for delivering blended teaching by making resources available to students before or after a class. A simple tool such as Google Classroom can open new modes of self-driven and facilitated learning. 

Mohamed Almaany of AABU, who is part of the PADILEIA management team, organized a training workshop on Google Classroom as a learning management system to the certificate program instructors at AABU. The workshop was held on 18^th October 2020, and the topics covered included: how to create a Google Classroom; how to join a classroom; how to add topics to classroom; how to add assignments; how to issue questions and announcements to students, how to connect to Google forms and communicate with class students. The training was very valuable, and all the trainees enjoyed it, and appreciated attending this training workshop.

We recently launched a new series of Digital Skills courses designed to make students’ life, work and study easier.

From email and messaging to social media, students will discover digital tools for communicating and searching, and explore the creative possibilities offered by digital technology.

The materials include why and how to stay safe online, how to find trustworthy content, and the importance of how others perceive somebody’s online presence.

Students will also learn critical skills to help with employability, such as how to use the internet to search and apply for jobs, and explore how online communities can help them in a variety of situations.

See more here: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/digital-skills

We were delighted to be featured in the Connected Learning Crisis Consortium (CLCC) 2019 Yearbook. We discuss our process and approach to blended learning and the learning design process, as well as lessons learned on the PADILIEA project. You can read more on pages 71-72 here.