Mind Soup

Interview with Leila Khauli Hanna, a pioneer in social media adoption in the Lebanese classroom Leila Khauli Hanna is a full time Instructor of Marketing Management at AUB’s Sulaiman S. Olayan School of Business since the year 2000.  She holds a Masters of Business Administration with a specialization in Marketing and Econometrics from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Ms. Hanna has taught courses at the Undergraduate and Graduate level in the fields of Marketing and Economics in the US, Lebanon, and France.  She has introduced and coordinated several highly specialized and cutting edge courses at the school and was nominated three times for the teaching excellence award at AUB. Her research interest lies in the Creative Industry of Lebanon and the Digital Transformation of businesses in the region.  Ms. Hanna was the first to introduce full-fledged social media integration into her courses in Lebanon. Her students use these tools to com...

Two weeks ago, I was attending the Arabnet Digital Summit and I insisted to attend the sessions about Education to understand more about the view of professionals and educators towards the use of technology in education. Needless to say, I was disappointed with what most of them had to say. The speakers still had a traditional approach to education, a Web 1.0 approach as I like to call it. They only cared about using technology to push material to their students rather than stimulate and encourage them to learn. They were promoting 20-year-old technologies such as Blackboard and Moodle (which are basically sites that host the lectures and are traditionally structured to minimize interaction). Some were bragging that they  have implemented these programs in their schools and universities as if it was the most advanced technology and will bring great benefit to their students. Others were promoting them because they sell these programs for millions of dollars to Arab educa...