From blackboard to keyboard

At a recent conference on Technology-Assisted Learning in Nigerian Higher Education organised by the NUC and the American University of Nigeria (AUN), President of AUN, Dr. Margee Ensign noted that with the rapid growth in Nigeria’s population projected to be the third largest in the world by 2025, the best solution to education is the deployment of technology as Nigeria may not have enough time or resources to build more schools.
Speaking in the same vein, Mr. Julius Ayuk-Tabe, AUN’s Assistant Vice-President of Digital Services and Chief Information Officer believes that learning has evolved from chalk and board to flicking the computer screen and search engines. “Teacher-student communication has evolved from hand-outs to use of operational software like DOS, Windows, Mac OS running application software such as Canvas, Moodles, OpenERP, Skype, and emails solely for academic purposes.

The AUN has adopted the Learning Management System (LMS), a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of electronic educational technology (also called e-learning) education courses or training programs. “Technology has made the learning environment boundless, slowly displacing teachers. Technology is the pen and paper of our time, and we have a generation growing up in a digital world,” said Ayuk-Tabe.
Blended learning
“Today, we have blended learning which can take place anywhere, anytime, by anybody and on any device. It is a combination of the LMS and video conferencing. The instructors teach via an application called WebEx and students can record their sessions for referencing and the instructor can still manage attendance which is compulsory and once in a while appear face-to-face in the classroom,” he said, adding that the teacher is no longer the center of knowledge; “students learn out of class more than in class.”
On the gains of  video conferencing in teaching, Dr. Agatha Ukata, Assistant Professor of African Literature at the AUN    said: “Video conferencing creates an enabling environment for students to rub minds with  students in other parts of the world. It breaks the barrier of inaccessibility of persons talking on a one-on-one basis, using audio-visual tools. This  collapses distance and other logistic bottlenecks and takes learning outside the immediate academic environment.”
Mr Amed Demirhan, GM/Director at Barzani National Memorial, Kurdistan, Iraq and AUN’s former Director of Library Services believes that “if we start implementing serious ICT with video/audio media teaching in real-time, Nigeria can recruit faculty from around the world especially those countries where the faculty salary is lower than Nigeria’s.”
E-Library
Demirhan thinks that if institutions can get the libraries (the engine room of an academic institution) right, education would become more accessible and affordable to a larger number of people.  “We are applying information technology both to organisational structure, space and collection. That was why AUN was selected as one of the best innovative international projects in library in 2013. We want every school in Nigeria to know they can do what we did regardless of their resources.
“We spent much less than what the PTF gives to a university library in Nigeria. Every library gets about N30 million from the fund and they erect new buildings; but if they can put that money into tablets or other devices, every university with the cost of one building, can become an AUN as far as e-library goes.”
Advantages
“A smart library is basically like a smart phone – multi-functional, efficient, has more services and because you deal with e-resources, you don’t need too much space. We use more mobile applications. For instance, the scanner, desktop computer, laptop, photocopy machine and telephone have been replaced by smart phones, tablets and netbooks, thus providing a new level of efficiency and effectiveness. It saves money, more environment-friendly, effective, sustainable, consumes less electricity, takes up less space and that is why it is an equalizer for developing countries and very critical for national development,” said Demirhan.
Bridging the gap:
Experts believe there is need to properly manage the physical space and cyberspace in the classroom  to avoid distortion of learning especially where students are on social media, so technology is increasingly being used to create communities to foster the exchange of ideas, address difficult problems and avoid intellectual or professional isolation to bridge the divide. Said Ayuk-Tabe: “One of the Learning Management Systems that AUN has tested to combat that segregation is the Canvas and Turnitin application.
This application has drastically reduced plagiarism in the classroom. We come from an educational community where people don’t quote sources and they copy and paste.” In this age of digital learning, students motivate instructors/lecturers to change their method of instruction to interaction.”
E-learning here to stay
Engr. Idowu Desmennu, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Andrew D. Idowu and Co said the classroom of the future is already here. “We have a device that turns any wall into an interactive board; no chalk, no marker. It will work anywhere.”
Video animations
“Students will download each subject topic online at just N10. You teach in the day and the student takes the lecture home to watch on his phone or parent’s phone, on TV via USB on any DVD player or on a laptop. It can be downloaded from our app if the student needs it later. We have video animations to teach physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics. Literature textbooks will come in video modules. We have English modules from primary to secondary.” On envisaged challenges, Desmennu said the issues of power, security of the devices in public schools and finance, have been taken care of.
Smart devices
“Universities must be willing to spend on their bandwidth. As small as AUN is, we consume 110 megabyte per second and you must have the infrastructure, information system, steady electricity and human resources to manage e-learning facilities.
People must have access to cost effective smart devices to enjoy e-learning, which is why AUN is introducing Library on a Flash, an application with more than 500 open source books embedded in the flash. Unlike most schools that have a library, AUN operates a digital library and e-learning center. All academic materials are synchronized on KOHA that substitutes Google search engine.
“The difference between KOHA and Google is that KOHA helps to arrange database and filter non-academic materials,” said Ayuk-Tabe, adding that although Nigeria may not be ready for the classroom without chalk as some remote areas still don’t even have chalk but use charcoal, he believes that e-learning has come to stay in Nigeria, unarguably the biggest internet market in Africa.
“We may slowly have come of age to embrace e-learning and it has come to stay and the Nigerian educational system should afford itself the advantage of embracing it,” he said.