Main page of the web site

Time: Academic year 2006/2007

Event: The Design of a unique educational website

Place: College of Arts and Applied Sciences

Never ending creativity and uniqueness, a river of bright thoughts that are materialized from the young souls of Dhofar University students. The talents of a number of students doing their Teaching Diploma in Information Education unfold as the end of the academic year, and it is astounding to see what they are able to do in their field of study, considering that they’ve studied for one year.

Dr. Hussein Yaghi, Dean of the College of Arts and Applied Sciences, designed this course that required the design of a website containing the Omani Informatics Curriculum at all school grades. The course objective is to prepare exemplary lessons through the internet which covers a variety of exercises for all school years, from the first grade to the twelfth grade. The International network was chosen as a means to apply these lessons, because the best way to teach Informatics is through applying it in IT rather than learning it from books.
Dr. Yaghi said “If you want to be effective in teaching Informatics, then you have to show your students samples of your own work”. He added that the best and most modern way to use technology is to use Internet Technology and that you can’t learn driving a car by riding a bicycle

The students were able to complete the requirements of the course successfully by each designing a website on a chosen subject in Informatics, then combining the websites together to form a main website. They also published their website in the Education Department section of the Dhofar University website.
This step is one of the many attempts to enhance the level of education and learning in Dhofar University. There has been a qualitative transformation in the methods of teaching some of the subjects through concentration on applying educational projects as a means of learning. The teaching diploma program requires students to apply their knowledge and create projects and the methods of teaching in schools. Thanks to the Ministry of Education for allowing the students to practice in the public schools in the area. Each section of the website contains lesson objectives, an explanatory presentation, exercises and even a test that a learner can take online. Following is the link of their work: http://www.du.edu.om/CAASWebsite/DepartmentsPages/Education/EDUC514-PROJECT/index.htm

“These students have done excellent work,” added Dr. Yaghi “and they have proven that they are able to not only learn the best techniques, but to also design and apply high quality  websites which is a good example to the ability of the Omani students if they are given the encouragement, the guidance and the chance.”

The Idea of the Website

One of the students, Tufool Saeed Shammas said that the idea of the website was to simplify the learning process in an easy technical way which allows the student to absorb and practice the course content. She added that she and her class mates made additions and adjustments to the lessons that were in the school textbooks that are available in other programs that are suitable for students. An electronic exam was added to at each lesson as a way of testing the comprehension of the students who make use of the online lessons and the scores are also given so students can find and correct their errors.

Nada Mohammad Al Yafai said that the website is a humble attempt to develop the curriculum of Informatics in the Sultanate in a way that helps the students understand the lessons through direct application. This was done through reformatting the information appropriately from the books to the website and adjusting it to comply with the ideas and standards of modern Informatics.

As for Nawal Abdullah Al Rawas, she said that the website was the idea of Dr. Yaghi. She said, “He felt that we were capable of applying his ideas, and his encouragement and confidence in our abilities had the greatest impact on how the website turned out. As for the division of the website”, she explained, “it has a home page where all the subjects of the curriculum are displayed and in the center of the page is HM Sultan Qaboos’s speech about education. On the right of the page there is a link to the Google search engine and right under it is a calculator that we designed.” Nawal added, “We all worked hard to establish a website which contains all the details of the curriculum at all levels to make it easier for the students to get to the information quickly”.

The Importance of this Curriculum for Students of Informatics:

Iman bint Awadh Al Yafai, one of the designers of the website said that the designing of the calculator enhanced her creative skills and accuracy, and allowed her to learn more modern software techniques. She added that the course was important for teaching the students how computers work and stimulate their creativity.

Fatma Ahmed Al Rawas said that the importance of this course was learning about the concept of combining technology with school subjects, since technology is related to all  educational fields in use at the present. She said that another important aspect of the course was the designing of educational websites.  

Reem Saeed Al Ghassani added that the students worked as a team under the supervision of Dr. Yaghi. She said, “Even though it was hard trying to balance between our studies and working on the website, we managed to do it”.

The students agreed that Dhofar University gave them an excellent chance to express themselves in their work. This website really shows what they are able to accomplish.  The students are so thankful, not only for the chance given to them by Dhofar University to complete this kind of project, but for the help of teachers who never stopped encouraging them to continue being creative.