For the last several years I have lectured in the Arabic Department of Levinsky College, teaching two courses on a regular basis:

 

1. Introduction to the History of the Middle East in the Modern World, and,

2. Arabic Sources in the Internet

 

Masjed-e-Barsian, near Isfahan. From: http://isfahan.anglia.ac.uk:8200/

In both courses, my students were an approximately equal mixture of Jews and Arabs. Due to this situation, several didactic issues were raised.

 

1.      In the introductory lessons, there was no basic common knowledge between Arabs and Jews, raising contradictions and differences in emphasis according to the national narrative. For example, I realised that the "Operation of Kadesh" in Hebrew,  was known as the "Triangle of Aggression" in Arabic. And the "Nakba", the disaster of the Palestinians in 1948, is a word not known to the Jewish students, and to my surprise, even some of the Arab students were unfamiliar with the word. As a basis to the teaching of Islam through the internet, I used an on-line article entitled, "Teaching Islamic Civilization Information Technology", Journal of Multi-Media History, 1998.

 

2.      During the lessons, I dealt with actual Middle Eastern issues with historical backround, in order to make the linkage between the historical material covered and actual events. When we learned about the Muslim Brothers movement in Egypt, it was natural to deal with the Hamas movement in the disputed territories. If there was a tension between Arab and Jewish students, or an empathy to one of the sides, I would use a mediation technique to bridge the gap.

 

3.      At the beginning, using the computer was dificult for both groups, but reading Arabic texts was of course more difficult for Jewish students. So Arab students helped the Jews to understand the texts in an atmosphere of cooperation.

 

4.      The lessons were given in a computer classroom and all  new "material" was applied immediatly by the students. The material was taught in five steps:

http://www.pressroom.com/~islam/

 

Step 1 - The students learned to use the e-mail. For this purpose each of them signed up in an Arabic portal (arabia.com) and got an emailbox of 10 MB with a personal user name and a password. He or she could use an Arabic virtual keyboard to send letters in Arabic. From this point there was no need for paper or pen and the comunication between the students was through the WEB. Each had a list of  e-mail addresses of  the students and myself.

 

Step 2 - The students learned to use search engines like google.com (for English) or ayna.com (for Arabic). They also learned to recognize the Arab portals and sites and to find the relevant information, and to narrow down their searches to make them more effective. In a short time, the students found  a lot of interesting sites, and the most popular ones were the sites of Arabic music. They could use the speakers to hear popular Arabic hits. Any every time one of them found something interesting, she would send a link to her friends, strengthening the communication and enthusiasm between the students in the group.

 

Step 3 -The students learned to use hypertext and were asked to send me attached files. One of the files was a very well known poem of a popular Syrian poet, named Nizar Qibani. Then each students was asked to find information about a different country, and to write a summary of a few pages about that country, using hypertext. In addition, they were asked to mention two or three relevant written sources on the same subject.

 

Step 4 - The students were asked to make a personal dictionary of Internet terms, a lexicographic area which is still developing. Creating the dictionary was done by each student  personally, and the work was sent in an attached file, using hypertext. It was a challenge for Arab and Jewish students equally.

 

Step 5 - The students were asked to prepare a corpus of texts on a specific subject from Arab sources in the WEB. For example, one of the students focused on the subject of Fatwa. Another decided to deal with the dillema of identity of Israeli Arabs. The work was sent to me in the format of attached file through e-mail.

 

In summary, teaching Islam and Arabic through the Internet in class, or virtually, is not only possible, but also effective. Learning is exciting, especially when part of the time, the student is free to incorporate the tools he has aquired for the purpose of finding information of personal interest. (for example, music, film, and books.)