Challenges of Blended Learning in the Middle East

The main barrier for adopting blended learning in many countries in the Middle East is the low Internet penetration rate. While many countries enjoy a high rate of 

Internet users, such as Israel, UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain, there are many other countries that have very low Internet penetration, such as Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. This is because of the high cost of Internet access, low speed, and quality (Mirza and Al-Abdulkareem 2011). In such countries, usage of blended learning will be limited to the minimum. For example, with low-bandwidth Internet connections, stndents will not be able to see supportive multimedia or download large materials. 

Currently, most universities use different tools, such as Blackboard, WebCT, or Moodle, to implement blended learning. However, the utilization of such systems is still kept to a minimum and is limited to posting lecture slides and homework sub- 

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