Transforming Education in the Gulf Region

Khalid Alshahrani has a PhD in e-learning from Monash University and MA in TESOL Studies from the University of Queensland, Australia. As an Assistant Professor, he has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses - including at the Saudi Naval Academy and Hamdan Bin Mohamed Smart University (HBMSU) in the Gulf region - related to e-learning and language teaching since 2003, both face-to-face and online. He is currently leading the National Academic Talent Development Program (NATDP) at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. His current research interest lies in the new and emerging technologies and how it plays out with the existing practices and norms of teaching and learning. Dr Alshahrani has published a number of book chapters and articles and actively participates in local and international conferences.Mohamed Ally is Professor in the Centre for Distance Education and Researcher in the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute (TEKRI) at Athabasca University in Canada. He was Director of the Centre of Distance Education and Director of the School of Computing and Information Systems at Athabasca University. Dr Ally obtained his PhD from the University of Alberta, Canada. His current areas of research include mobile learning, e-learning, distance education, problem-based learning and use of emerging learning technologies in education and training.