Education in this era should prepare students for both their personal and career challenges. Today's student centered learning approaches, taking advantage of the developments in technology; cater to unique individual differences of learners. New technological developments enable learners to make learning smart, seamless as well as personalized. Smart education shouldn't be confused with smart device education. An architect of smart education incorporates a smart pedagogy of differentiated instructions which either can be individual or mass based.
Discarding a collection of rigid pre-set competencies, education should prepare students to be critical thinkers who can compete with given opportunities to make their personal dreams come true. In this regard, educators should be well equipped with the 21st century skills and their application in teaching-learning. Keeping this in mind, a sharing of ideas, experiences and skills in the field of smart education is advisable.
In this context, Ibra College of Technology organizes “Smart Education & Technology Symposium (SETS) on 27th March, 2018 with a view to create a platform to share the best practices in four themes. The main themes of the symposium are (1) best practices in student centered learning, (2) paradigm shift in management practices, (3) optimizing the IT infrastructure and (4) innovative and emerging technologies in renewable energy and water management. Twenty research papers have been accepted for presentation in the symposium at the above themes. Delegates from around 15 Higher Educational Institutes in the Sultanate are participating in this symposium. Moreover, there is a poster presentation on student’s project where students from 5 colleges are participating.
His Excellency Dr. SAID BIN HAMED BIN SAID AL RUBAII, Secretary General of the Education Council is the guest of honour. The keynote speakers are Dr. Amer Awad Al-Rawas, Chief Executive Officer, Tasneea Oil & Gas Technology Group, Dr. Hafidh Al Shihi, College of Economics and Political Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, Dr. Mohammed Al Badi, College of Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University and Mr. Fahad Al Saidi, Project Manager, Information Technology Authority, Sultanate of Oman.
Out the outset, the uniqueness of the symposium is that it is organized in an environment friendly manner, a paperless program. A mobile application has been made for the invitation; program schedule and brochure which is available in google play store ‘SETS 2018’. The symposium is sponsored by Toyota, Hyundai, Bank Muscat, Gulf Energy, and Mars Hypermarket. Selected research papers would be published in IJERT and IGI Global journals.