Georgetown Faculty Takes Part in the Google for Education Qatar Summit

With technology and digital tools spilling over into vital areas of social development, such as education, there is an ever-growing need for teachers to upgrade their digital abilities to support 21st century learning.

The 2017 AppsEvents Qatar Summit Featuring Google for Education was an effective learning event to support educators, classroom teachers, school leaders, and school IT staff to learn about Google applications that can help them deliver better teaching, monitor students’ performance, design and administer exams, and give feedback.

This two-day conference in Education City, which took place on March 11-12, included concurrent sessions designed to train teachers on the practical and pedagogical uses of education tools. The conference focused on issues such as types of mobile learning, the Google Suite for Education, teaching and learning with combined technologies, and creating interactive videos and lessons. 

Hany Fazza, an Arabic language instructor at Georgetown University in Qatar, delivered a workshop on creating interactive videos with Google and interactive lessons with iPads in Arabic, attended by about 20 teachers. He says the conference continues to expand, reaching out to more teachers everywhere.

“Past conferences were limited to international school teachers who spoke good English, now even Arabic speaking teachers from public schools may attend and benefit from the technology,” Fazza said, wishing to see more teachers attending in the future: “I look forward to seeing more faculty members from various universities in Qatar and the Gulf countries, as well as teachers of technical and vocational institutes.”

The event was notable not only because Qatar is the only country in the Middle East to host this conference for the third consecutive year, but also because most lectures and workshops were conducted in Arabic this year. This opens the door to all Arabic speaking teachers working in Qatar, regardless of their linguistic abilities, to make use of the applications.

Dozens of educators attended the conference with the aim of continuing to develop their expertise. Practicing mentors, certified trainers, and other leaders in the Google for Education community led the workshops.