*The Education Technology event organised by M-Solution International is aimed at putting learning innovation at the forefront of government policies
IT News Nigeria:
Nigerian apex regulator, National Information Technology Development (NITDA) has said since Education Technology is now the key driver of many global economies the application of knowledge-based innovations will be a powerful catalyst for change in all sectors in the country.
Educational technology is an inclusive term for both the material tools and the theoretical foundations for supporting learning and teaching. Educational technology is not restricted to high technology but is anything that enhances classroom learning in the utilization of blended, face to face, or online learning.
Education Technology improvements will bridge the wide gap in Nigeria both in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions and ensure effective and efficient learning in all corners and territories of the nation and will go a long way to mitigate illiteracy.
What NITDA DG Say about Education Technology
The watchdog chief, Mallam Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi was upbeat at Education Webminar Wednesday that Education Technology has a great impact in enhancing and empowering the method and practice of teaching, which also enriches the lives of students through products, solutions, innovations and shared values.
“Innovations, imaginations and strong decision making skills are becoming increasingly important in meeting new challenges. We need to start implementing new Education Technology in teaching methodologies that can facilitate the development of skills required to participate in a highly globalised digital world,” he said.
He further noted how COVID-19 Pandemic created a global learning crisis, halting physical learning in schools.
“There is no better time than now, for our nation to join the ranks of developed nations who have employed technology to shape the future of their educational system,” he added.
Kashifu stressed that, the aim of every educational institution is to provide the students with a lifelong knowledge, secured with moral values, which will enable them to be successful and contributes effectively to natural and global development.
He said the Federal Government in its efforts to ensure continuous learning during the pandemic has created a task team championed by the Ministry of Education with collaborations with stakeholders and development partners to provide new time guidance on learning resources and to monitor students at home during this period. And private sector like First Banks have been supportive in using technolgy education
According to him, state government have also keyed by providing various teaching and learning programs through the radio and television medium.
Also speaking at the webinar, the Senior special assistant to the Lagos State Governor on Science and Technology, Saheed Olusola Balogun, said there is need for the educational sector to identify the importance of ICT and the need to start acquiring teaching knowledge from technology especially now that it becomes key to the digital world for economic development.
Similarly, the CEO of Simple Tech Solutions, Reggie Rusan said, for digital teachings to strive in Nigeria, there is a need for necessary infrastructurefor today’s and future learnings for students.
Rusan added that technology will continue to change as time goes on but the country must be infrastructural ready for the technological trends.
Education Technology and Private Sector
Other private sector have been in the forefront in powering education with technology. The management of Skool Media, led by the Director and Chief Executive, Mr. Moses Imayi, has already created two (2) telegram groups, code named “Unity Schools Virtual Learning (Senior School) and Unity School Virtual Learning (Junior School) to distribute starter packs and class codes instructions to students and selected teachers for the programme.
Unity Schools Virtual Learning is designed to run on a virtual classroom platform called Edmodo, while Telegram will be used as a clearing house to organize the students and share critical updates on the programme.
The Edmodo is a robust virtual learning platform that has the capacity to accommodate the entire population strength of all the Federal Government Colleges. Edmodo enables the building of network among “Unity School communities”. This makes schools and classrooms across the nation to grow their professional learning networks and work with a community of educators. It houses high level student-teacher interactivity using multimedia features which include videos, quizzes, polls, scheduling and voice engagement.
Our Correspondent also gathered that innovative technology will make schools and classrooms across the nation to grow their professional learning networks and work with a community of educators. Institutions with power database as a feature that allows teachers measure the progress being made by their students will improve learning. Educators can see student’s grades and participation levels with this feature, and they can even see how students react to the activities and discussions being held in the classroom. This information helps educators to understand the perspective of students to their lessons which further strengthens formative assessment.
