With help from the Centre for Extended Learning (CEL), Renison University College launched the first phase of its online Arabic language program, the first of its kind in Canada. It was only through the innovative use of technology that this highly interactive language program overcame the obstacles involved with teaching a language online that uses a non-Latin script.
"We needed a way to teach students how to form and join the Arabic letters,” said Melanie Misanchuk of CEL, who helped to design the course. “Showing them was easily accomplished by filming videos of the instructor writing, but it was tougher to emulate the idea of a professor walking around the classroom watching students write and correcting them. We solved that by having students film themselves using a smart phone or other video camera and uploading the short videos of their writing for the instructor to grade.