E-ducation without Borders was held this year in Abu Dhabi between Saturday Feb 19 and Monday Feb 21.  It is organized and held every two years.  Its aim is to “bring together the youth of the world to share ideas, discuss initiatives, analyze problems, engage in debate, and listen to the views and arguments of each other to promote quality in education”.

The chair of the organizing and executive committee, Dr. Tayeb Kamali, announced that there are 1,000 delegates from more than 70 countries who came to participate in this conference and to “discuss issues and mutual interests relating to education and technology.”  He addressed the youth as forming a “knowledge community that builds bridges between cultures, nations, religions, and races”.

The 2005 conference is the third “E-ducation Without Borders” conference that is held on a biennial basis in Abu Dhabi, UAE.  The conference is designed to be a “platform for discussions and focus groups that initiate dialogue concentrating on the theories, development, and applications of e-learning.”

Students meet to share ideas, discuss initiatives, analyze problems, and to become the future leaders of the world.  The conference features a range of activities for students and their mentors including “presentation of papers, debates, demonstrations of e-learning materials and programs, networking opportunities with international education.”

The four main objectives of this conference can be summarized in the following:

1. enable student delegates to critically analyze and develop understanding of the conference theme, which is “E-learning Through the Eyes of the World: Responsible Development and Desired Role”.
2. promote pro-active approach to life-long learning.
3. provide an opportunity for intellectual experience and exchange.
4. profile the UAE and HCT as supplier of high quality education with concern to their role in the global community.

Students joined the conference from many countries and universities.  As for Lebanon, delegates from American University of Beirut (4 students) and from American University of Technology (1 student) attended the workshops and presentations that were delivered.  In addition, there were representatives at the student affairs administration level from AUB, LAU, and (Mr Edgard Rizk, Director of Student Affairs accompanied the student).

Again, this is an another time where is participating in a conference related to technology at the international level.  On the other hand, this is the second time participates in conferences at the student level (the first time was in Cairo several months ago where 2 students from the student councils participated in the International Student Alliance conference). 

Most of the papers that were delivered focused on developing the learning/teaching process using the various recent developments in technology.  Many suggested establishing a center/source for development of electronic education for instructors.  This could be realized by

(1)     establishing a portal on the network where information and data can be shared.

(2)     training instructors on the “electronic education” and its advantages

(3)     unifying the instructors under using a portal.

(4)     keeping moving forward on developing new technology at the educational level.

Using the “electronic education” offers a great opportunity to those students who live far away from the physical location of their centers of study.  Such system aims at sending recent and updated information to students from their respective faculty.  Faculty in return should be well trained to provide electronically as much data and information as possible.  Other papers in this respect tried to prove that using this system of educational learning is a toll much more effective than the regular class lectures.

has taken part in this forum out of its policy to encourage the development of education-integrated technology and to promote students’ exposure to global issues.