Azzam Alobaid

RESEARCH, TEACHING, or OTHER INTERESTS

Language and Linguistics, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Education, Developmental and Educational Psychology

Scopus Publications

A didactical framework for raising awareness of digital multiliteracies among university students: objectives, expectations and challenges
Azzam Alobaid
Discover Education, 2025
In an era dominated by digital technologies, the concept of multiliteracies extends beyond traditional literacy skills to encompass digital media and information literacies. This article addresses the pressing need to raise awareness of digital multiliteracies among university students by proposing a comprehensive didactical framework. The purpose is to provide educators and policymakers with a structured approach to integrating digital multiliteracies into higher education. The framework explores objectives, expectations, and challenges, drawing from foundational and contemporary theories, including the epistemology of ignorance and postdigital literacy ecology. It aims to balance digital and traditional literacies while addressing equity and ethical considerations. Strategies for implementation include curriculum integration, workshops, peer learning, institutional support, and continuous assessment. By framing these ideas within a coherent theoretical structure, this article offers actionable insights for fostering critical, ethical, and lifelong learners prepared for a digitally interconnected world.
ICT Virtual Multimedia Learning Tools/Affordances: The Case of Narrow Listening to YouTube Multimedia-Based Comprehensible Input for the Development of ESL Learners’ Oral Fluency
Azzam Alobaid
Studies in Computational Intelligence, 2022
ICT multimedia learning affordances: role and impact on ESL learners' writing accuracy development
Azzam Alobaid
Heliyon, 2021
This work examined the role and impact of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools such as YouTube as an open educational resource-cum-tool with respect to its affordances of captions and their adjustable settings like font size and color (i.e., enhanced captions of videos); these affordances were proposed for their multimedia learning effects for the development of ESL learners' writing accuracy. This work hypothesized that the frequent use of these affordances as a technique can create and enhance a multimedia learning environment which can in its turn help learners focus more on the (new) target language input, be more able to notice their errors and correct them by way of conscious comparisons between their own output and target language input. In effect, their L2 writing becomes more accurate over time. This work investigated the role and impact of these YouTube affordances on the development of ESL writing accuracy through exploring the learners' personal experience with and actual use of these affordances for the development of ESL writing accuracy over five months. Moreover, it sought to determine whether or not learners' L2 writing accuracy improved after the implementation of the proposed YouTube affordances for ESL writing improvement. Furthermore, it explored the correlation between the development of learners' L2 writing accuracy, if any, and the impact of these YouTube affordances on the development of ESL writing accuracy. The findings of this study revealed that the frequent use of ICT multimedia tools like YouTube with respect to its affordances of captions and their adjustable settings like font size and color (i.e., enhanced captions of videos) played a positive role that impacted the improvement of learners' English writing accuracy over five months. Also, the findings demonstrated that participants' L2 writing accuracy (as indicated by all the metrics used in this study for measuring the learners' writing accuracy progress) developed significantly after five months of the implementation of the proposed YouTube affordances of enhanced captions as a technique for the development of ESL writing. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant evidence, although ethically speaking this evidence was not conclusive as it was limited by the small sample size of this group of participants and thus the elicited and analyzed data, which suggested that there was a strong correlation between the development of learners' L2 writing accuracy and the frequent use of the proposed YouTube affordances of enhanced captions for the development of ESL writing accuracy. It was concluded that ICT tools such as YouTube with respect to its affordances of captions and their adjustable settings like font size and color (i.e., enhanced captions of videos) can be effectively used and recommended as a technique for the development of learners' L2 writing accuracy due to their positive and enhancing multimedia learning effects.
Smart multimedia learning of ICT: role and impact on language learners’ writing fluency— YouTube online English learning resources as an example
Azzam Alobaid
Smart Learning Environments, 2020
This work seeks to determine if and how much the smart learning environment of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools like YouTube can help improve learners’ fluency of language use and expression in their daily written communication. This research highlights and takes advantage of the potential role and features of multimedia brought to the language learner by the ICT tools, taking YouTube online English learning resources as an example of this smart learning environment. This work hypothesizes that learners who engage with, expose themselves more to and leverage such online language materials could develop their fluency of daily language use and expression in writing over time. The findings of this research show that there is a statistically significant difference in some but not all aspects of the learners’ writing fluency; basically, the accuracy and organization of ideas as qualitative dimensions of fluency improved after the actual exposure to YouTube over five months as long as factors like engagement, enhancement and intelligibility are provided by its multi-mediated input. However, other aspects of fluency in writing could develop slightly but with no statistically significant difference. Also, compared to other sources of language learning in the learners’ environment, multimedia educational tools developed by ICT like the widely known platform YouTube can be more effective and thus strongly recommended equally for language learners and teachers where optimization of writing fluency is the target of learning. This paper is a work-in-progress that investigates the role and impact of smart learning environment of ICT multi-media on English language learners’ fluency and accuracy of use and expression in speaking and writing.

Publications

1. Alobaid, A. (2023). Analysing ESL Learners’ Complexity Development: Linguistic Corpus Insights on L2 Chunks Acquired in Online Multimedia Learning Contexts. In G. Mazzaggio and P. Lorusso (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Summer School of Bilingualism and Multilingualism. University of Nova
Gorica Press, Vipavska 13, Rožna Dolina, Nova Gorica. PressBooks.
2. Alobaid, A. (2022). ICT Virtual Multimedia Learning Tools/Environments: Role and Impact on ESL Learners’ Development of Speech Accuracy—YouTube as an Example. In: Tso, A.W.B., Chan, A.Ck., Chan, W.W.L., Sidorko, P.E., Ma, W.W.K. (eds) Digital Communication and Learning. Educational Communications and Technology Yearbook. Springer, Singapore.
3. Alobaid, A. (2022). ICT Virtual Multimedia Learning Tools/Affordances: The Case of Narrow Listening to YouTube Multimedia-Based Comprehensible Input for the Development of ESL Learners’ Oral Fluency. In Technologies, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Learning Post-COVID-19 (pp. 501-551). Springer, Cham.
4. Alobaid, A. (2021). ICT multimedia learning affordances: role and impact on ESL learners' writing accuracy development. Heliyon, 7(7), e07517.
5. Alobaid, A. (2020). Smart multimedia learning of ICT: role and impact on language learners’ writing fluency— YouTube online English learning resources as an example. Smart Learning Environments, 7(1), 1-30.

Industry, Institute, or Organisation Collaboration

- Content Curator & Editor at Macmillan Education, India
- ezDI company (Data science)