The usage of emerging social and digital applications is growing rapidly among the current generation of students and academics, and researchers started exploring their effectiveness in enhancing students’ creativity. However, examining the most effective criteria for evaluating digital-media-enhanced creativity in art and design still needs further exploration. This pilot study seeks to develop a framework to assess students’ creativity and another framework to assess the effectiveness of multimedia-based teaching approaches in art and design educational contexts. Sixteen design instructors participated in a survey, which aimed to identify their experiences with multimedia-based pedagogy as a potentially effective approach in fostering students’ creativity as well as educators’ innovation in teaching. The paper identifies and ranks the criteria, which they thought are effective in assessing digitally-stimulated creativity in each field of graphic design. The ultimate goal is to provide educators with a set of evaluation criteria to guide the appropriate teaching and assessment of digital creativity. Keywords: Creativity, multimedia, pedagogy, innovation, digital creativity.

This paper examines the relationship between the success of tech start-ups and the educational backgrounds of their owners. To better comprehend and encourage technopreneurial growth, it is essential to understand the educational background of tech start-up founders in Bahrain. The paper attempts to explore whether or not different educational qualifications of tech start-up founders are associated with their success. It also aims to investigate the pedagogical approaches, strategies, skills, and objectives that may have contributed to the success of leading technopreneurs, locally and globally in an effort to suggest the right practices to implement in Bahrain in order to emulate their educational experiences. The research qualitatively investigates the perceptions and academic experiences of the founders of five innovative Bahraini digital applications in an attempt to explore the role of their education in their success and growth. In addition, twelve support organizations in Bahrain were interviewed to examine the influence of higher education on entrepreneurial success. The paper argues that education is very essential to entrepreneurial success, and its findings provide clear evidence of the impact of education which focuses on fostering creative thinking, innovation, and team-working skills on technopreneurial success. These findings may have implications for universities in Bahrain to promote successful entrepreneurs through integrating the best practices in innovation and entrepreneurship education into the curriculum, and strengthening their cooperation with the government and various support organizations. Finally, the paper provides higher education institutions with guidelines and recommendations to maximize their role in the tech start-up ecosystem in Bahrain.

Background: With the proliferation of mobile applications and social networking sites, it became important to give critical thought to the evolution of social realities and dynamics created by technology. Although technology could be perceived as a threat that may disrupt family cohesion and contribute to intergenerational conflict, there may be certain digital settings, contexts, and uses that can create purposeful social interactions and support the exchange of knowledge among older and younger generations. Objective: The main objective of this paper is to mount and evaluate an intergenerational digital interaction campaign that encourages the youth in Bahrain to contribute to the digital inclusion of the elderly by teaching senior adults various technical skills. The ICT literature in the Arab world lacks a comprehensive investigation of technology adoption by the elderly, especially in Bahrain. Aiming to understand how advances in technology are challenging the elderly in Bahrain and seeking to empower them in ICT usage, the research endeavors to understand and change the perceived effects of technology within the family context in Bahrain. Method: This study employs qualitative action-based research and an intergenerational approach that engaged 144 digital media and graphic design students in teaching 144 mature and older people various technological skills in an attempt to suggest and analyse the context in which technology adoption may become beneficial in strengthening familial relationships, and enriching the life quality of older adults in Bahrain. It explores the digital activities that may have a positive impact on social dynamics, by bringing young people and older people together within a digital setting -to communicate, teach, and interact with each other. Results:The findings suggest that intergenerational learning experiences benefited both groups in learning and skill development and led to a positive change in attitude towards the other generation. Conclusion:Overall, the study concludes that intergenerational learning experiences foster a positive attitude among the mature and older participants, and provide opportunities for the youth and older people to communicate and build a common ground of understanding. These and the other findings in the research will allow for understanding the context in which technology adoption and the use of digital media may become beneficial in maintaining and strengthening familial relationships, and enriching the life quality of senior adults in Bahrain. Researchers who are interested in this topic may utilize these findings to expand their understanding of how the digital inclusion of the elderly may enhance intergenerational and family relationships, especially in the Arab world.

In computer-based courses such as multimedia and digital design courses, being fully conversant with a computer application is almost unachievable within a single academic semester. Therefore, it is common for students to seek additional help and information from their lecturers either during office hours or through emails. It is also common for students to acquire skills from online tutorials, books, friends, or private tutors, which may cause the student to possess more advanced computer skills than others, including their lecturers. The knowledge that is individually acquired by the student from the teacher or from other sources is usually limited to that single learner. Therefore, this action research proposes a new teaching method; Teaching by Recycling (TBR) whereby the effort of teaching a single student is recycled into the practice of teaching all students together. The main aim is to transfer the individually-obtained knowledge from the teacher or from other sources to other students. This research explores the implications of TBR and investigates its effectiveness in augmenting the pedagogical efficiency and scope of teaching students individually through expanding this scope to include teaching all students collectively.

As universities move to virtual learning, the need to explore the most effective practices for remotely teaching art and design students became very critical. It is very important to examine the strategies universities are using to efficiently transfer skills and knowledge and meet the needs of students through an online learning environment. Art and design classes involve hands-on activities and requirements that cannot easily be met in digital environments. Therefore, the study aims to investigate the creative approaches that art and design educators adopted to transition to remote teaching. The study involved conducting an online focus group with eleven art and design educators at The University of Bahrain to investigate the experiences, perceptions, and the challenges they faced while teaching art and design remotely during the Covid-19 Pandemic. The focus group engaged the educators in a semi-structured discussion in order to gather qualitative data that would allow for a descriptive analysis of their online teaching experiences and the most effective approaches they implemented. Thus, the study is undertaken to determine the most effective practices that can be employed by educators to engage students and enhance the distance learning process in an art and design online environment. The findings suggested that the main challenges that are peculiar to art and design distance learning include difficulty in clearly seeing the value of the colors in a student’s artwork on screen and the unavailability of features that support art and design remote teaching in the currently available learning management systems.