Design and implementation of electronic tutors for students in higher institutions in Nigeria
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Technology is changing the way teacher teaches and learner learns. Difficulty in obtaining higher education increases for a number of reasons. It could be their possible limit of capabilities with an educational environment or disabilities that limit their access to educational institutions. There are also a
number of people that live a great distance from the educational institutions. The need to commute becomes an encumbrance to achieving higher education. Also, the job markets are so competitive that teachers find that they must obtain higher education for further employment success. With synchronous schedules in present educational institutions, individuals are required to resign from their current employment to further their education. Typically, individuals are not willing to surrender their income due to the need to support a family or their current lifestyle. Some form of educational reform must take place to address the problems. Distance education or Distance learning programs are the solution to the above problems. The greatest appeal of distance learning is that one can study without having to leave home or a job to obtain higher education. These programs made it possible for students to complete their education without having to sacrifice their career and family time
E-tutoring/learning covers a spectrum of activities from blended and hybrid learning to learning that is entirely online (distance learning). E-learning mainly takes the form of online courses, where the dominant learning technology employed today is a type of system that organizes and delivers these courses. E-learning models are attempts to develop frameworks to address the concerns of the learner and present the technology challenges to deliver effective quality e-learning. When implementing e-learning model, it is very important not to take too narrow view of what constitutes e-learning and where its main value might lie. It is very important to widen our vision to what the added value the technology offer on the learning process. It allows remote learners to interact with the subject matter, subject material, and with each other in the form that could not be achieved for learners without technology. The role of technology is to get remote learners into a position to learn as though they were in-campus. And arguably, from the pedagogical view, it may provide a new way to achieve a deep understanding of the subject.1.1 Background of Study
This research work is focused on Computer Science Department, university of lagos. The method of learning used in the department is the normal manual/traditional way of learning which is, the classroom learning where student must come to a particular lecture venue at a stipulated time. Though, some few efforts has been made towards automating some of the lecturer-student relationship and routine like submitting assignments online, discussing with a lecturer on social media etc. This project research work (Modelling of an Electronic tutor) is embarked on to eliminate the manual way of classroom learning by surrounding our self with computer and other computing devices which will enhance the method of teaching.
1.2 Statement of Problem
The major setbacks in our everyday classroom lectures are numerous, some of which include but not limited to time constraint, insufficient attention and course material management.
Time Constraint: There is a fixed amount of time for interaction and which everyone will be expected to be present. Any student that is not present at the specified time definitely will miss that lecture and might not really have the time or the lecturer will not have the time to repeat or emphasize on that lessons.
Insufficient Attention: It is often difficult to understand within that stipulated time, they need much time as much attention will be needed to comprehend.
Courseware Material Management: the unending heaps of files, projects, lecture notes, internal correspondences, timetable and course outline occupy much space and the process of storing and retrieving information are cumbersome.
He above mentioned challenges are the problems facing the learning processes by the department of computer science at unilag. It is against these backdrops that the design and implementation of electronic tutor for students in Higher Institution, using Unilag as a case study becomes necessary. This work is going to ameliorate the problems identified with traditional approach of teaching and avails a new horizon of opportunity made possible by technological advancement.
1.3 Objective Of Study
This project is targeted to the design of an online electronic tutor for higher institution with the following aims:
To access the present traditional way of learning in the department of computer science unilag.
The end design an online application that will perform some basic functions and duties of the class room activities, combining online activities to create whole online courses presents additional possibilities and issues.
To implement an online tutor for students in the department this helps students to receive lectures from anywhere and anytime irrespective of their geographical location.
To provide a private tutorship and individual attention for the student as long as necessary.
To introduce a wide variety of PDF, Course outline for pre-learning, visual learning that is clear & attractively illustrated.
To create a platform that will enable the students to interact, share information and seek opinion.
1.4 Scope Of The Study
On the basis of the subject matter this study focuses on the design and implementation of electronic tutors for students in higher institutions in Nigeria, a case study of University of Lagos.
1.5 Significance Of Study
This study is immensely significant to Federal Ministry of Education & policy makers, students and stakeholders in the country. For the Federal Ministry of Education and Policy Makers, the findings and results that will be derived from this work will provide reliable feedback on the implementation of electronic tutor for students in the higher institution. The students, lecturers and stakeholders aided with more valuable insights and empirical support for electronic tutor for students in higher institution.
Finally the study will be a source of information, knowledge for future researchers and students who wish to research more on the subject or related subjects.
1.6 Limitations Of Study
A study of this nature requires analysis of all the teaching processes and methods in all the tertiary institutions in Nigeria. However, this is not practically possible. Another obvious limiting factor is the answering of questionnaires administered to them and interrupted power supply of power as seen in the country. There is a poor system security leading to viruses and spyware.
1.7 Definition Of Terms
BROWSER: a program with a graphical user interface for displaying Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) files, used to navigate the World Wide Web.
COMPUTER: An electronic device capable of performing computations and making logical decisions at speed of times faster than that of human beings can, it makes use of input and output (input-raw data-information, out-put-processed-feedback).
COURSEWARE: computer programs or other material designed for use in an educational or training course.
CSS: A cascading style sheet (CSS) is a Web page derived from multiple sources with a defined order of precedence where the definitions of any style element conflict.
CLIENT: It requests and consumes the services provided by another having the role of server.
DATABASE: A collection of different files in a specialized way for easy retrieval and update.
ELECTRONIC TUTOR: Is referred to as a web-base/computerized tutor, it makes use of electronic technologies such computer and internet to teach and enable people to learn.
HARDWARE: These are the physical component of the computer.
INTERFACE: Is a software environment, which serves as welcome view that is design to friendly welcome a user to page.
INTERNET: The global communication network that allows almost all computers worldwide to connect and exchange information.
JAVASCRIPT: an object-oriented computer programming language commonly used to create interactive effects within web browsers.
MATERIALS: Are set of tools or information tools that aids in calculation/counting and many other learning practical.
MENU: This provides the user with a number of options and a simple means of selecting between them.
MYSQL: is an open source relational database management system. Information in a MySQL database is stored in the form of related tables.
PHP: Hypertext preprocessor is a server side scripting language designed for web development as well as general purpose programming language.
PROGRAM: It is a set of instructions, which enables particular processes to be performed by a computer.
SERVER: it is a combination of hardware and software designed to provide services to the client.
SOFTWARE: It is used to describe all programs that are written in a particular computer installation and their associated documents.