Maha Bali is associate professor of practice at the Center for Learning & Teaching at the American University in Cairo. She is a full-time faculty developer and she teaches creative educational game design to undergrads. Bali also is co-founder and co-facilitator of Edcontexts, co-founder of virtuallyconnecting.org, editor of the journal, Hybrid Pedagogy and blogger at Prof Hacker.
Maha Bali
Articles
October 23, 2017
Where is the Humanity in the Computer Science Curriculum?
“Let us move from human-centered design to humanity-centered design.” — From the Copenhagen Letter I’ve been struggling to write this post for a long, long time. Every time I see calls for...
Categories: Critical Perspectives, Digital LearningJuly 17, 2017
Digital Citizenship in Children’s Books
I recently received a gift package from Alan Levine, a friend from Arizona. Two of my favorite items from the package are ones that I think are sort of gifts for my...
Categories: Civic Engagement, Digital CitizenshipMay 1, 2017
Are Digital Literacies Generic or Context-specific?
I was recently asked by Sally Pewhairangi whether I thought digital literacies could be taught as generic skills, out of any particular context, and whether they would then transfer. When I was...
Category: Digital CitizenshipMarch 27, 2017
What Teachers Can Learn from Students
I remember being a college student. The problem with being a professor who remembers being a college student, is that we're probably misremembering, or our experience is different from those of our...
Category: Educational PracticeFebruary 6, 2017
Travel Ban, Muslim Scholars and How to Help
Everyone is talking about the impact of the Executive Order from Trump to ban citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. The big tragedy is, of course, families who are...
Category: EquityJanuary 2, 2017
Fake News: Not Your Main Problem
This headline may sound shocking, but I truly understand the urgent need to develop digital literacies in response to the fake news phenomenon. But, let me tell you, I live in Egypt,...
Categories: Critical Perspectives, Digital CitizenshipNovember 3, 2016
9 Mistakes to Avoid When Designing Educational Games
I’ve been teaching educational game design for a few semesters now as part of a module of a Creative Thinking and Problem Solving liberal arts course at my institution. I started out...
Category: EdtechSeptember 1, 2016
Generic v. Specialized Tools in Assignments
I would like to share my thinking process for designing an assignment for my class this semester and hopefully this will be beneficial to others as well. I have an idea to...
Categories: Digital Learning, EdtechAugust 4, 2016
Engaging Introductions for First Day of Class
One of the things I always try to do at the beginning of class or even a short workshop is give participants opportunities to start building community — and this means that introductions...
Category: Educational PracticeJune 30, 2016
Critical Digital Citizenship: Promoting Empathy and Social Justice Online
I wrote Critical Citizenship for Critical Times in 2013, responding to the political upheaval in Egypt. I argued that teaching critical thinking traditionally promotes skepticism (a good thing, particularly when authorities like...
Category: Digital Citizenship