The Chairman of the Distance Teaching System Committee, Dr. Ali Faisal Almutairi, announced that the Committee which was formed by the President of Kuwait University in May 2020, has approved the training plan for the approved platform for distance education and virtual classes using the Microsoft Teams system, and for asynchronous using systems approved by colleges such as Blackboard or Moodle System (for Medicine and Engineering).
Dr. Almutairi noted that this plan will include training students and students with special needs, the academic staff, the supporting academic staff, and administrators in the departments and colleges to use the platforms approved by the committee in preparation to start the Distance Teaching in case the traditional study did not start on 9th, August, 2020 according to the university calendar that was approved by the University Council in its meeting No. (1/2020).
Dr. Almutairi mentioned that in addition to the different platforms training, participants will be trained in various assessment tools used in distance teaching for courses in general and for courses of a special nature and laboratories.
Adding that the plan will define a period for experimental launching before the actual start of the study and after the approval of the academic and legal regulations for the Distance Teaching System through formal channels - according to the academic schedule for the second semester so the academic staff and the supporting academic body can start making reviews of the previous scientific material and practice on tools of different evaluation, and after the launching phase, there will be a period to evaluate and to solve any problems or shortcomings in preparation for the actual launch according to the approved university calendar.
The Chairman of Distance Education Committee explained that the committee had received the initiatives of some colleges and its training plan in response to a previous letter from the committee to adopt the Teams system as a unified platform for distance education, and in coordination with the other colleges to begin the training plan for the academic body and the supporting academic body will also be trained to use systems approved by colleges to implement distance education such as the Blackboard system or the Moodle system (for medicine and engineering) in cooperation with the Office of the Vice President for Academic Support Services and colleges.
He added that the committee had organized, according to this plan, on 7th, June, 2020 in cooperation with the National Union of Kuwait University students, training workshops during this week on activating university email and using the Teams program, which was attended by more than 10,000 students in the first two days of its convening.
In the context of raising awareness about the use of these systems in education, the Committee, in cooperation with the Electronic Publishing Section of the University's Public Relations and Media Department, designed a page on the official Kuwait University website http://ku.edu.kw dedicated to educating the academic body, the supporting academic body and students to implement the education system, the page includes instructions for using the systems used in distance teaching in Arabic and English. In addition to short educational films for the functions of these systems in education and video footage of training workshops which is constantly updated.