1 Facilitating ICT Skills for Teachers in a Third World Country: Imperatives and Offline Strategies Prof O.O. Anowor Dr. Leonard Chinaedum Anigbo

OVERVIEW  What is ICT?  Of what use is ICT?  What are the advantages of e-learning?  Current teaching challenges  Offline ICT Strategies for overcoming the constraints  Availability of ICT facilities for teachers  Implications for teachers  Benefits of ICT compliance  Recommendations  Summary and conclusion 2

INTRODUCTION 3  Information and communication technology (ICT) is being increasingly utilized for the purpose of meeting challenges facing humanity.  It is now recognized that ICT is a helpful instrument for facilitating teaching and learning particularly at the tertiary level.  Yet the application of ICT to the field of education in Nigeria is highly limited even at the tertiary level.

What is ICT? 4  ICT is an acronym for information and communication technology.  It is basically concerned with the use of technological tools for managing the communication process.

Of what use is ICT? 5  The various components of ICT are being utilized in different ways by service providers.

What are the advantages of e- learning? 6  E-leaning has proved to have enormous advantages over the conventional process of teaching and learning.

CURRENT TERTIARY TEACHING CHALLENGES  Challenges currently facing tertiary teaching in Nigeria include:  Knowledge explosion  Decreasing interest in, and facilities for, conventional methods of studying  Increasing class size  Increasing constraints relating to logistics, physical facilities and time factor. 7

Offline ICT Strategies for overcoming the constraints 8  ICT strategies that have proved effective in meeting the challenges include:  Synopsis of the lesson to be delivered that is created in PowerPoint application with attachments in form of relevant articles for further reading sourced online or offline, to be used by students as a home-study aid using offline and online e-resources for lesson delivery file://F:\Philosophical Foundations of Education.ppt

---Offline ICT Strategies for overcoming the constraints 9  Animated presentation of instructional content that can be made available to students through screen projection or in a CD-ROM/DVD/flash.  file://F:\Imperatives of ICT for teachers.pptx file://F:\Imperatives of ICT for teachers.pptx

---Offline ICT Strategies for overcoming the constraints 10  Audio presentation of independent study material easily created in Microsoft One Note, Text Aloud or similar applications 

---Offline ICT Strategies for overcoming the constraints 11  The fourth package is a video presentation of instruction and demonstration, while the fifth, similarly created, is a video presentation of an interactive study session.  file://F:\Video0005.avi file://F:\Video0005.avi  file://F:\Video0007.avi

OVERCOMING IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES 12  The challenge of implementing the identified strategies can be met through:  Finding the working tools such as private or public computers with internet connection and printing facilities  Developing the necessary skills through training courses, mentoring and independent study  Reconciling new with conventional teaching methods through integration or substitution.

Availability of ICT facilities for teachers 13  A considerable level of ICT facilities are now readily available, even in third world countries, for use by all categories of teachers.

\ Implications for teachers 14  Acquisition of ICT skills by teachers is imperative in view of the widespread requirement that all teachers must be professionally trained and registered.

BENEFITS OF ICT COMPLIANCE 15  Benefits to be derived from making use of ICT include:  Saving time taken to complete operations  Saving energy spent in performing tasks  Assuring efficiency of operation  Assuring effectiveness of operations  Taking care of avoidable lapses in service delivery.

DISADVANTAGES OF DOING WITHOUT ICT  Performing tasks without the assistance of ICT has the following disadvantages:  Spending longer time in the performance of operations  Spending more energy in accomplishing tasks  Less efficiency in performing operations  Less effectiveness in accomplishing tasks  Avoidable lapses in service delivery. 16

Recommendations 17  E-learning should be incorporated into teacher education programs.

Summary and Conclusion 18  In spite of limitations imposed by scarcity of ICT facilities in third world countries, it is not only advantageous but imperative that ICT should be used to support teaching and learning.

19 THANK YOU