King Abdulaziz University (KAU) has won Khalifa Award for New media and education within the UAE and the Arab World. The award aims to achieve a positive use of new media tools, and educating and train students to use them. The interest of the Award in this field stems from the spread of new media with creative tools, and the social networks with their cyber worlds that pose new challenges to be dealt with, benefitting from their capabilities.
Thus, it becomes essential to take advantage of this revolution of information, directing it towards what is useful for the educational field, enhancing its values, ideas and positive trends, in order to link the new media with education and bridge the gap existing between the two fields.
The New Media and Education Award is being granted to individuals or institutions that provide a model, an ongoing activity, or a service that utilizes the new media tools in the service of education as evidenced by the results of applying a set of scientific instruments based on clear scientific criteria and specific performance indicators. It is also granted to projects that add to the virtual network an exceptional educational content in Arabic through various applications, research and studies.
The Khalifa Award for Education, named after His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, aims at upgrading the standards of national and regional education sector by honoring and recognizing the efforts and creativity of all the eminent contributors to the education sector locally and regionally.
The Award recognizes excellence within academic and local community schools, public and private universities, as well as accredited institutions in the UAE and the region. The Award covers several areas including general and higher education, special needs, new media and education, education and sustainable environment, and education and community service.