Abstract

In Saudi Arabia, gender-segregation is a known issue within Higher Education that often deprives female tutors from providing online learning and MOOCs. As well as students may not be getting the benefit of their experience and teaching. The purpose of this study is to develop an Avatar tool to represent a female tutor in a MOOC course with the aim of alleviating the issues of gender-segregated society in online learning. This project will undertake and analyse a case study concerning the experience of female teaching a MOOC course on ‘Rwaq’ the first Saudi Arabian platform. The literature on gender-segregation and Education technology is reviewed. As an example, gender-segregated in Higher Education & online learning in SA, Virtual Learning Environments, Avatar technology in HE and finally the adoption of Avatar tool in MOOCs platform in SA are examined. One of the objectives of the study is to develop a social interaction environment with learners in online learning within MOOCs.

Citation

Adham, R., Lundqvist, K. & Parslow, P. (2016). The Use of Avatars in Gender Segregated Online Learning within MOOCs in Saudi Arabia. In Proceedings of Global Learn-Global Conference on Learning and Technology (pp. 86-93). Limerick, Ireland: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved May 29, 2023 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/172713/.

© 2016 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)