Profile

Maha Bali is an associate professor of practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at The American University in Cairo. She serves as International Director of Digital Pedagogy Lab, editor at Hybrid Pedagogy journal, and editorial board member of Teaching in Higher Education, Online Learning Journal, Journal of Pedagogic Development and Learning, Media and Technology. She blogs for the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Prof Hacker and DMLCentral blogs. She is co-founder of virtuallyconnecting.org.

Bali has taught educational game design, ed tech for teachers, and has co-facilitated several open online learning experiences including #CCourses, #MOOCMOOC Critical Pedagogy, Digital Writing Month and #OpenLearning17.  She is a MOOCaholic, Writeaholic and passionate open and connected educator. Her research interests including open and online education, critical thinking and critical pedagogy, intercultural learning, citizenship and higher education.

She holds a PhD in Education from the University of Sheffield in the UK.

She writes at http://blog.mahabali.me.

Education

PhD in Education, University of Sheffield, UK, 2013

MEd in eLearning, University of Sheffield, UK, 2006

BSc in Computer Science, American University in Cairo, Egypt, 2001

Selected Publications

Select peer-reviewed publications

Bali, M., Caines, A., DeWaard, H., & Hogue, R. (2016, December). Ethos and Practice of a Connected Learning Movement: Interpreting Virtually Connecting Through Alignment with Theory and Survey Results. Online Learning Journal, 20(4). Retrieved from https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/965/247

Bali, M. (2016). Bringing Out the Human in Synchronous and Asynchronous Media for Learning. In W. Kilgore (ed) Humanizing Online Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from https://humanmooc.pressbooks.com

Bali, M. (2015). A new scholar’s perspective on open peer review. Teaching in Higher Education, 20(8), pp. 857-863. DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2015.1085857

Bali, M., Crawford, M., Jessen, R. L., Signorelli, P., & Zamora, M. (2015). What makes a cMOOC community endure? Multiple participant perspectives from diverse MOOCs. Educational Media International, DOI:10.1080/09523987.2015.1053290

Hamon, K., Hogue, R. J., Honeychurch, S., Johnson, S., Koutropoulos, A., Ensor, S., Sinfield, S., & Bali, M. (2015, June 4). Writing the unreadable untext: A collaborative autoethnography of #rhizo14. Hybrid Pedagogy. Retrieved from: http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/writing-the-unreadable-untext/

Bali, M. (2015, April 20). Pedagogy of Care – Gone Massive. Hybrid Pedagogy. Retrieved from:http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/pedagogy-of-care-gone-massive/

Bali, M. (2015). Critical thinking through a multicultural lens: cultural challenges of teaching critical thinking. In R. Barnett & W. M. Davies (eds). Palgrave Handbook of Critical Thinking in Higher Education.

Bali, M., & Sharma,S. (2014, April 11). Bonds of difference: participation as inclusion. Hybrid Pedagogy. Retrieved from: http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/bonds-difference-participation-inclusion/

Sharma, S., & Bali, M. (2014, April 4). Bonds of difference: illusions of inclusion. Hybrid Pedagogy. Retrieved from: http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/bonds-difference-illusions-inclusion

Bali, M. (2014). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? The challenges of web-based intercultural dialogue. Teaching in Higher Education, 19(2), pp. 208-215. DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2014.867620

FORTHCOMING PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS

Bali, M. (forthcoming). Inequalities in Digital Literacies. In B. Alexander, S. Becker, M. Cummis and C Hall Giesinger (eds) Digital Literacy in Higher Education, Part II: A New Media Horizon Project Strategic Brief. Volume 3.4, August 2017. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Bali, M., & Mostafa, H. (forthcoming). Listen Carefully and You Will Hear: Using Creative Multimodal Assessments to Promote Student Expression. In S. Khadka & J. C. Lee (eds). Designing and Implementing Multimodal Curricula and Programs. Routledge.

Bali, M., & Sharma, S. (in press). Envisioning Postcolonial MOOCs: critiques and ways forward. In M. Kent and R. J. Bennett (eds). Massive Open Online Courses and Higher Education: Where to Next?

Bali, M., & Sharma, S. (in press). The unbearable whiteness of the digital. In D. Kim and J. Stommel (eds). Disrupting the Digital Humanities.

Non-peer reviewed in an Academic Journal (selection)

Bali, M. (2015, October 21). Yearning for praxis: Writing and teaching our way out of oppression. Hybrid Pedagogy. Retrieved from: http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/columns/yearning-for-praxis/ 

Bali, M. (2015, March 31). Embracing Subjectivity [featured column]. Hybrid Pedagogy. Retrieved from:http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/columns/embracing-subjectivity/

Bali, M. (2015, February 26). Inner voice, criticality and empathy [featured column]. Hybrid Pedagogy. Retrieved from: http://hybridpedagogy.org/

Select trade journal publications & conference presentations

Bali, M. (2017, April). What is Open Pedagogy Anyway? Year of Open. https://www.yearofopen.org/april-open-perspective-what-is-open-pedagogy/

Bali, M. (2017, January 31). There is More Than One Story to Be Told About Muslims in Trump’s America. The Conversation, republished 4 times, including Huffington Post

Bali, M. (2017, January 2). Fake News: Not Your Main Problem. DML Central. Retrieved from: http://dmlcentral.net/

Bali, M. (2016, December 1). Listening to Student Voices at Academic Events. Prof Hacker. Retrieved from: http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/ Bali, M. (2016, November 28). Are you on Mastodon Yet? Social Network of One’s Own. Prof Hacker. Retrieved from: http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/

Bali, M. (2016. November 3). 9 Mistakes to Avoid When Designing Educational Games. DML Central. Retrieved from: http://dmlcentral.net/

Bali, M., Skallerup Bessette, L., & Caines, A. (2016, November 2). On Digital Literacies. Prof Hacker. Retrieved from: http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/

Bali, M. (2016, October 25). Tips for effective online learning: Community edition. Prof Hacker. Retrieved from: Retrieved from: http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/

Bali, M., Mostafa, H., & Osman, S. (2016, October 20). What we learned from co-teaching. Prof Hacker. Retrieved from: http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/

Bali, M. (2016, October 12). Fostering permeability in academia. Prof Hacker. Retrieved from: http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/

Bali, M., Bowles, K., & Prinsloo, P. (2016, August 10). International something: Why you should care 

Bali, M. (2016, July 5). A postcolonial look at the future of #EdTech. Biennale of Sydney. Retrieved from: https://medium.com/not-evenly-distributed/a-postcolonial-look-at-the-future-of-edtech-4b1c6db7e12e#.wjmkiw7w2

Bali, M. (2016, Jan/Feb). Knowing the difference between digital skills and digital literacies and teaching both. Literacy Worldwide. Published hard copy, but also published on the Literacy Daily; retrieved from: http://literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-daily/2016/02/03/knowing-the-difference-between-digital-skills-and-digital-literacies-and-teaching-both

Bali, M. (2013, August 19). Critical citizenship for critical times. Al-Fanar: News and Opinion about Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.al-fanar.org/2013/08/critical-citizenship-for-critical-times/

Bali, M. (2013, July 19). Will the latest generation of online courses help the Arab world? Al-Fanar: News and Opinion about Higher Education.  Retrieved from: http://www.al-fanarmedia.org/2013/07/will-the-latest-generation-of-online-courses-help-the-arab-world/

Keynotes and Invited Talks

• Bali, M. (2017, May 29). Closing Plenary Panel. International Communications Association Conference, ICA17, San Diego, CA, USA.
• Bali, M. (2017, April 5). Hiding in the Open (keynote). Open Educational Resources 2017 (#OER17). London, UK. Slides/video at: www.mahabali.me/oer17
• Bali, M., & Aboulmagd, N. (2017, March).  Digital Pedagogy in the Regional Context (invited workshop). Digital Humanities Beirut, March 2017.

• Bali, M. (2016, November 30). OPEN SCHOLARSHIP AND OPEN PEDAGOGY FOR THE EGYPTIAN ACADEMIC. OpenMed event. Cairo University.
• Bali, M. (2016, May 26). Virtual Collaborative Scholarship for Development (Featured Speaker Spotlight talk). eLearning Africa, Cairo, Egypt. Presentation available at: (2016, May 26). https://www.haikudeck.com/p/8df54b4270 
• Bali, M., & Groom, J. (2016, May 26). Should EdTech have an ethos? Teaching technologies in a post-Snowden age (Featured presentation). AMICAL 2016, American University of Rome, Rome, Italy. Slides and video available: http://www.amicalnet.org/sessions/should-edtech-have-an-ethos-teaching-technologies-in-a-post-snowden-age
• Bali, M. (2015, September). Problematizing educational standards. Invited presentation at the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo. (slides)
• Bali, M. (2015). Why & How to Flip the Classroom. National Authority for Quality Assurance and Accreditation for Education Conference (invited presentation), Cairo University, Cairo, May 25, 2015.
• Bali, M. (2015). How Open Education is Transforming Lifelong Learning. Faculty of Pharmacy Cairo University Scientific Meeting (invited presentation), Cairo University, Cairo. April 25, 2015.
• Invited panelist, Edraak Launch ceremony, Amman, Jordan, May 2014.
• Invited to give a seminar on Critical Citizenship for Critical Times, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon, January, 2014.

Research Interests

• Critical Thinking, critical pedagogy
• Higher Education
• Faculty development
• Educational technology, eLearning, Digital pedagogy
• MOOCs, open education
• Intercultural Learning
• Community-based Learning
• Citizenship Education

Teaching Interests

• Teacher education
• Educational technology
• Educational game design
• Digital literacies and citizenship
• Intercultural learning
• ESL