Advertisement

ICT in distance education: UEW makes strides

Library PhotoThe professional development of many teachers in Ghana, especially those in the rural areas, has proved difficult because of their inability to leave their places of work in the midst of family pressures and other pressing responsibilities for further studies.

Fifteen years ago, the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), started its distance education programme to address the demands of thousands of teachers who found themselves in such unfortunate situations.

Significantly, today, the university, regarded as the pacesetter in distance education in Ghana, has marked a turning point in the delivery of distance learning courses with the introduction of one of the latest ICT materials.

The new technology is being used in two graduate programmes - a new Master of Education (MEd) programme in Mathematics, English and Science being run at the Kumasi campus of UEW and MEd in Mentorship at the main campus in Winneba.

Students, including those from the rural communities of the country, have already enrolled on the programmes.

As technological development continues to influence education development, the traditional system in which distance education relied on print-based instruction material supplemented with occasional face-to-face tutorials by the university lecturer is gradually being phased out in many traditional universities across the world.

What the universities are doing is to explore alternative methods of delivering distance education instructions using some of the modern ICT materials.

It is in that regard that UEW has instituted the Master of Education (MEd ) programme by distance learning, using one of the latest technologies.

The Institute for Educational Development and Extension (IEDE), one of the academic divisions of the UEW, through its Centre for Distance Education (CDE), is driving the MEd programme.

Supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the programme is designed to help teachers pursue postgraduate studies without leaving the classrooms.

The CDE has over the period turned out a total of 18,093 professional teachers whose contribution to national development has been enormous.

Traditionally, CDE uses three methods in running the programmes, one of which is the printing of the course books and delivering them to the students at the various study centres. The rest involve conducting tutorials, quizzes and examinations at the study centres.

However, in order to improve the delivery of the distance programme, especially the Hybrid MEd through the use of ICT, the university has introduced a number of activities with technology at the heart of it all to meet the demands of the students on the programme.

Now, the distance education courses have been converted into the Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle) courses and are being uploaded onto the university’s learning management system server.

Moodle is an open source course management system (CMS), also known as a learning management system (LMS), which has become very popular among educators around the world as a tool for creating online dynamic web sites for their students.

According to the Director of IEDE, Dr Kwame Asante, the university has converted all distant education course books into eBooks to be loaded onto iPads which have been imported from China for the MEd programme and which have been distributed to students.

Besides, students have been supplied with Vodafone SIM cards while there has been Internet connectivity to the study centres and as well as the provision of WiFi access at the centres.

The SIM cards, to be used in the iPad, have been placed in a voice closed user group, which will enable students to talk among themselves free of charge.

Dr Asante said the tablet would also enable students to access their courses online and participate in all online activities of the programme.

Some other online activities in the distance education programme include posting of lecture notes for students by lecturers, posting of links to other relevant materials for students, posting of individual or group assignments by lecturers and posting of timed and ‘untimed’ quizzes by lecturers.

Interviews conducted with a number of the students during the launch of the programme in Kumasi showed that they were satisfied with the arrangements put in place by the university authorities.

By Kwame Asare Boadu/Daily Graphic/Ghana

Connect With Us : 0242202447 | 0551484843 | 0266361755 | 059 199 7513 |