Building Online Communities as a Platform for Collaborative Learning and Cross-Cultural Self- Expression; Saudi Female Students’ Blog Hajj Behind the Scenes as an Example

1. Abstract

Digital Humanities as an emerging field provides endless opportunities to paradigm shifts in the educational experience in higher education, it opens wide doors for interdisciplinary collaborative students’ projects that can be the seed of larger-scale national and international. Blogging is a pedagogical activity that is used to enhance collaborative learning and social responsibility (Yu-Chun Kuo 2017). Hajj Behind the Scenes is a blog by Saudi Female Students. The study explores blogging as an activity and its possible utilization to build cross-disciplinary online communities and to enhance societal involvement in the field of Digital Humanities. The said blog is used as an example to study its effect on the students and their abilities to self-expression, autonomous learning, and collaborative creativity.

Hadeer Aboelnagah (habouelnagah@psu.edu.sa), Prince Sultan University, Saudi Arabia

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