Seward Incorporated

Gregory Sales and Hilal O. Al-Siyabi Awarded Best Presentation at Forum on e-Learning Excellence in the Middle East

Award won for presentation on teacher training and capacity-building project

Minneapolis, Minnesota, February 3, 2009 - Gregory Sales (President and CEO, Seward Inc.) and Hilal O. Al-Siyabi (Head of Communications, Al Zubair Corporation, Oman) won the Best Presentation Award at the Forum on e-Learning Excellence in the Middle East for their presentation, "Oman’s Online Teacher Training Project: A Case Study." They were presented the award at the gala dinner for the 2nd Annual Forum, which took place on January 26-29, 2009 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Forum featured speakers, discussion, and workshops for educators, researchers, and e-learning professionals from around the world.

 The presentation focused on the cooperative efforts of the U.S. Department of State’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and the Omani Ministry of Education (MOE). Oman’s Online Teacher Training Project involved a 17-month pilot project of the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of e-learning to train grade-11 teachers of math, science, and English. One fundamental goal of the project was to build capacity within Oman’s MOE for future online training. The presentation described the goals and outcomes of this international partnership, and valuable lessons that were learned through this challenging project.

Sales and Al-Siyabi's presentation was chosen by the Forum's judges because of its originality and potential to have a significant impact on the field of e-learning. They also stated that the quality of the presentation (e.g., clarity, layout, design) was very high. Additionally, Sales and Al-Siyabi delivered a dynamic talk and effectively communicated the presentation's concepts.

Sales presented two additional papers at the Forum: “Building Capacity for Oman’s Online Teacher Training” (with Fathiya Al-Rahbi) and "Preparing Teachers to Teach Online." Both presentations were well-received by the Forum's audience.

Slide presentations are available from Greg Sales' SlideShare page.