HoloLearn: An Interactive Educational System

Abstract

The HoloLearn project is a sophisticated interactive educational system that attempts to simplify the educational process in the field of medicine, mainly, through the use of Hologram technology. The Hologram technology has been used in conjunction with the feature of user interaction, to take the whole educational process to a completely new level providing students with a different learning experience. The system is more dedicated to medical students as they must study diverse, complicated structures of the human body anatomy and its internal organs. HoloLearn is aimed at replacing the traditional educational techniques with a new one that involves user interaction with real-sized 3D objects. Based on the interview conducted with medical students from different universities and educational levels in Saudi Arabia, and the questionnaire results, it has been found that traditional learning techniques are insufficient/inefficient as they lack quality and most of the criteria that could qualify them to be highly effective as reliable learning materials. Therefore, there is an increasing need for new learning strategies/methods with enough capabilities to give the students the chance to perceive every concept they study, rather than depending on their imagination to picture what a human body looks like from inside, they need visual learning methods. From another perspective, teachers also face difficulties when explaining medical concepts, especially those related to human body structure and behavior. The currently available materials and sources are mostly theoretical. They promote indoctrination and a result-driven approach instead of engaging the students in a process of sharing knowledge and ideas from both parties i.e., teacher and students. In fact, students have to listen and read instead of practicing and exploring, consequently students are prone to loss of concentration and mental distraction during lessons repeatedly, while from another angle they suffer from long study hours and difficulties in retrieving information. The results of this project indicate that when combining the Hologram technology with the user interaction feature, the educational process can be highly improved, and can be much more creative and entertaining.

E-Zakat: Management Information System of Zakat (Maal and al-Fitr)

“…Information technology can make zakat management more honest, professional, trans-parent, accountable and in accordance with sharia. It is hoped that a good information system can increase public trust in zakat amil institutions and make it easier to manage zakat [5]. The distribution of zakat that is right on target is the key to achieving the main goal of zakat, namely alleviating 2 poverty and empowering mustahiq.…”