Eid Al-Mawlid An-Nabawi

Source of the photo.

Monday March 9th is a holiday to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. Birzeit University will be observing the holiday.

Sunni Muslims, the majority in Palestine, will observe the holiday on March 9th (12th of Rabi'-ul-Awwal in the Muslim calendar) and Shia Muslims will observe it a few days later on March 14th (17th of Rabi'-ul-Awwal in the Muslim calendar).

Rain, water, and Palestine

I'll be writing more on this post soon, but I want to at least let my readers know about the rain we've been having in Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Birzeit in the first month that I have been here.

Sleet on the 6th floor window of the Massa Building in Ramallah in the last week of February.


I spoke today to the meteorologist at Birzeit University. He reported that while a typical winter rainfall average is about 600 mm in Birzeit, (in 2006-07 the total was 734 mm and in the following rainy season it was 524 mm) we have 541 mm as of yesterday (March 2, 2009). In just three days last week (February 26-28) we received 109 mm. The February 2009 total is 271 mm.

I will be writing more soon about the importance of rainfall for the area but as you can see this rain in the past month has been very welcome in an area that depends so heavily on rainfall for human consumption and agriculture.

E-learning in Palestinian universities

I am gathering information about e-learning at Palestinian universities since that research is a part of my Fulbright program. Informally I have been talking with trainees at one of the courses here at the CCE about e-learning and its potential in Palestine. Several themes have emerged both from talking with the students and from my own investigation. I will be writing more on this topic later.

1. Everyone agrees that e-learning of some type (e-enabled, hybrid, blended) is a good thing in Palestine due to the difficulties of getting through Israeli checkpoints and the wall (al-Jidar) to attend F2F classes.

To give readers an idea of what I am talking about, the view below (on the left side of the photograph looking to the south toward Jerusalem) is of the Israeli separation wall just south of the Qalandia Crossing. Qalandia is located at the northern edge of greater Jerusalem (as defined by Israel).

On the other hand, there is reluctance to endorse 100% online learning in academia, the type of e-learning that we do at Minnesota State University, Mankato. My colleagues here list reasons such as the potential for cheating by students.

2. Internet infrastructure: (a) About 20% of Palestinians currently have access to the Internet. (b) Internet access is relatively expensive both due to monopolies within Palestine for the access and to Israeli taxes and tariffs on computer related equipment needed for Internet access.

3. The population needs greater awareness of the educational uses of the Internet.

4. Teachers in particular need education and appropriate training for teaching via the Internet.

5. Palestinians need political leadership to encourage educational uses of the Internet. Currently the Ministry of Education will not recognize a higher education degree if more than 30% of the courses were taken online.