New class of Palestinian coders moves to online-only study – Saudi Gazette

New class of Palestinian coders moves to online-only study – Saudi Gazette

JERUSALEM “” A new cohort of software development students in the West Bank is beginning their studies remotely on Saturday (Aug. 1), through the Anera+RBK PLUS program. Under normal, non-COVID circumstances, the coding students would be coming together in person for 20 weeks of training and team-building. Anera has adapted the program to the current health crisis by moving entirely to online learning.

The first two weeks will consist of self-paced precourse work, to be followed by classwork as a team, which starts on Aug. 15. During the pre-course phase, program instructors will be coaching and mentoring the students on a daily basis.

About the unique challenges posed by the necessary shift to online-only classes, Denise Habash, the program manager for Anera+RBK PLUS, said, "The real challenge is ultimately, building community online. If you can do this, everything else falls into place.

"The good news is our online learners are not only engaged, but actively contributing ways to reinforce community.

"Despite the obvious technical challenges with outages in Gaza, we have had much initial success in building community online. Our learning is collaborative so across the day our learners are constantly interacting with one another, in a digital communal space where we can be