Question 1:
Describe and explain the technology innovation – what is the technology and how will it be used?
Nigerian education sector is trying to develop itself through proving special focus on the English education. According to Bunch (2013) the disparity within the Nigerian education sector is the main reason for the lower growth. However, according to Cipi (2014) the major reason for the poor condition of the English education is lack of well-trained teachers and the absence of adequate study materials.
According to the study by Oduma & Ile (2014) the growth of the English education has started through the development of colonial culture within the country. However, this cultural development did not contributed in the growth of the English education within the country. One of the major reasons for the present condition is that after the independence the Nigerian government has not heavily contributed in the enrichment of the English education.
The Nigerian schooling structure is divided into five formal divisions. Those divisions are: Primary schools, Secondary Education, Federal government schools, State owned schools and the Private Secondary Schools (Nigeria.usembassy.gov, 2012). However, the state owned and the federal government schools dominate the Nigerian education system. The growth of the private education sector in Nigeria is very poor because of its higher expenditure. The study by Wallenius (2010) has shown that the cost of private education is ranging within $1000 to $2000, which is beyond the limit of 90% of the population.
However, a different study on the English education by Verhoeven et al. (2014) has shown a different picture. According to this study the English education quality within the private schools are quite moderate. However, the English education quality within the government owned education is very poor. It has been observed that the main reason for the poor quality is that lower infrastructure and the lack of adequate materials. Therefore, an interactive educational portal for the English education from basic to advance level could be very much helpful for the government education sections.
The smart class concept is very much familiar within the global education sector. However, this concept is not very much familiar with the Nigerian education sector. The private education sector has implemented this concept but they have implemented through a static method. Therefore, the interactive educational portal with an interactive character will be very much attractive to the students especially those who are in the primary and secondary schools.
1.0.1 Technical Descriptions and Description of the Attractive features
The entire solution will be developed through the development of a cloud based interactive portal. The portal will be not displayed through the computer screens. However, the portal will be displayed through the interactive whiteboards. The main reason for selection of the interactive whiteboard is that over some of the surveys across the globe it has been seen that the interactive white board has increased the learning efficiency of the students by an average 17% compared to the other smart class techniques (Ietlb.com, 2015).
The cloud server model will enable the government to reduce the implementation and the physical infrastructure cost. On the other hand through this cloud based model the Nigerian government will provide mobility to the English education as it can be accessed from anywhere with just one internet connection.
On the other hand, this cloud based online interactive education portal will help the teachers to enrich themselves. This online portal will have a separate expert community and the purpose of this community will be knowledge sharing. Through this knowledge sharing expert community, the Nigerian teachers can develop themselves to deliver possible best in class English educational service to the primary and the secondary level students.
According to Okoh (2008) it is very much important to grow the attraction of the students to get the success of any educational service of topic. Through the studies by Chimaka (2014) it has been observed that the most of the children are very much passionate with the favourite cartoon character and the most of the young youths are very much passionate with their imaginary super heroes.
Therefore, to attract the students to the interactive platform these cartoon and the superhero characters will be replicated. However, through a primary survey it is very much important to identify the most popular characters for the each segment. The other attractive feature that will be included that if any of the students remains able to provide correct answer the interactive character will appreciate this effort through some of the lucrative appreciations. Through these exciting features, it is believed that the students especially from the primary and the secondary will gain their interest for the English education (Okpanachi, 2014).
1.0.2.1 Pre-Implementation Plan
The implementation plan will be very much extensive and lengthy. The main reason for the selection of a long deadline plan is to ensure the quality of the system and its features. Therefore, the implementation plan will be initiated only after a successful pre-implementation planning. The pre-installing plan will be developed to develop an interest within the student and the teacher community (Gass et al. 2011). This pre-implementation will help to identify the senses from the teaching staffs and the community on the ICT application. The product development will be done parallel within the pre-implementation planning.
The major reason for keeping the product development and the pre-implementation plan in line is that the pre-implementation findings will be included as an input to the system to make this system a well-structured one. On the other hand, the focus will be kept to analyze the current and the required infrastructure for the implementation of the interactive ICT platform within the robust education sector of Nigeria (Hickman, 2014). In this requirement analysis part, the major focus will be in the development of the physical infrastructures like the analysis of the present bandwidth, installation of the optical fibre network, development of the restricted Wi-Fi zones within the schools etc.
1.0.2.2 Final Implementation Planning
Once this pre-implementation plan is successful, the main implementation will be initiated. The main implementation plan will be implements through couple of phases. The proposal for the main installation will be illustrated through the following paragraphs.
The first stage will be to create positive awareness within the primary school teaching staffs. This awareness development plan will be done through the demonstration of the features and the interesting sides of the interactive classes. Moreover, a touch and feel kind of workshop will be created to make the teachers fully aware about the system and teaching techniques (Sari, 2014).
In the second stage, a training and development program will be arranged through creating demographic division within the country. In this training and development workshop, teaching staffs will be trained extensively. The main motto of this training and development will be made the teachers fully accustomed with the new teaching system. Moreover, it the other thing that will be done through this training and development plan will educate the teaching staffs about the usage of the online learning knowledge sharing community for their own knowledge development (Verhoeven et al. 2014).
The third stage will be designed fully to develop the awareness within the primary and the secondary schools students and the community about the new learning system and its effectiveness. In this stage the students and the parents will be demonstrated the system through an interactive seminars within the primary schools. This stage will help to develop primary level interest within the students.
In the fourth stage the actual system implementation of the system will be done through the segregating the schools as per the demographics. During this system implementation, a separate monitoring mechanism will be developed to monitor and control the system implementation. Once the implementation is done in the primary schools, the same cycle will be carried out for the secondary schools.
1.0.2.3 Monitoring Mechanism
Once the full system implementation has been done for both the primary and the secondary schools, a monitoring mechanism will be developed. This mechanism system will follow both the online and the offline monitoring of the entire process. The online monitoring will be done through calculating the hours of usage and through number of time a student is appreciated with the interactive character. This mechanism will help to identify the difference within the popularity for a particular given time (Adeoye & Tomei, 2012).
On the other hand, the offline monitoring will be done through fortnight schools visits by the application agencies. This measure will help them to understand the ground realities and the future development areas for this particular system. A separate monitoring mechanism will be carried out for the teaching staffs. This review will be done through an online test for the teachers to analyse how much capacity they have gained through the new system (Ogunfolu, 2014).
The main motto of this system will be to identify the gaps in the present system. This gap analysis will help to develop a more concrete learning system for the future purpose. On the other hand, this monitoring will help to identify the key flexible areas that can improve the interactive learning environment.
1.0.2.4 Leadership for the Implementation
Leadership will be very much important for this particular project implementation. According to Girgin & Stevens (2005) the relationship between a teacher and a student is the most motivating factor for the promotion of any kind of learning initiative. Therefore, during the pre-implementation and implementation the primary and the secondary teaching staffs will be trained in such a way that they remain able to increase and maintain the interest from the students for interactive learning.
The disparity within the education sector has created a negative impression on the English education. Therefore, a separate training will be provided to the English teachers so that they remain able to increase the interest for the English learning. This will help to increase the basic interest within the students before the final implementation of the proposed system has been done.
1.0.2.5 Sustainability of the proposed system
The sustainability could be a major issue during the initial years. The main reason behind this is that it will be difficult to keep both the conventional education delivery mechanism and the interactive education delivering in line. The primary and the secondary education structure needs to be changed to redesign the examination structure. Therefore, the examination structure should be developed with the incorporation of ICT (Hersh, 2014).
A separate planning from the government should be needed to promote the flexible education so that the students use this system from home though compatible devices. On the other hand, as the entire system is very much dependent upon the internet service. The government should focus concentration on the development of the infrastructure across the country (Adeoye & Tomei, 2012). If these initiatives were taken by the appropriate authorities then this system will be a very much sustainable within the Nigerian education segment.
How does this innovation align with the overall curriculum planning in this educational context
The interactive learning and evaluation follows a different set of process. This process is very much different from the conventional learning method. Therefore, the primary and the secondary education system need to be changed to meet the requirements of the interactive learning. The syllabus of the primary and the secondary education should be redesigned in accordance with the interactive learning.
The evaluation process for the interactive learning is very much different from the conventional method. Therefore, a separate evaluation process needs to be implementing for the English only. This separation will take robust change within the education framework therefore once the interactive learning is implemented the evaluation system for the English language should be changed otherwise it will be very difficult to identify the positive or negative effect of the newly proposed system. On the other hand, a separate identity for each of the students needs to be created so that the individual growth can be analyzed.
In the case of skills developments of the teaching staffs a separate skill development mechanism should be implemented so that with the growing levels quality education delivery does not becomes a problem. In the development of the course work, the levels should be keep through developing an equilibrium within the Nigerian quality and the international quality. This development should be done through the development of a consulting group with the Nigerian members and International experts.
What are the advantages, practical considerations, and limitations of implementing this innovation in this context?
The major advantage of the interactive learning is that it allows the student to learn things according to his/her grasping capacity. The long history of English negligence has created a negative will on the minds of the students. Therefore, through the implementation of ICT based education platform the teachers will remain able to develop the mindsets of the students through gradual improvement (LERA Blog, 2015).
The other advantage of the interactive education have is as it is a very much interactive platform it increases the students interest on the topic. According to the study by Shah & Khan (2009) through the interactive learning the interest increment is very much easy on a tough subject especially within the kids.
The other advantage that the interactive learning has is that it helps in improving the communication skills of the students. Therefore, the implementation of the ICT based education in Nigeria will not only help the students to learn English it will also help to develop the English communication skills. This development in the English communication skills will help them to prosper in their future (LERA Blog, 2015).
The major advantage that the cloud based interactive learning provides to the government is it significantly reduces the infrastructural development cost. The cloud is very easily accessible from any corner of the world. Therefore, if the Nigerian government wants to implement the interactive learning though a larger scales in future it will not incur major infrastructural cost for them (Kelly et al. 2005).
The other thing that the interactive learning provides is the uniformity of the quality and delivery system. This system delivers the content and the other resources through a single pointy and through a single process, therefore the uniformity of the education delivery remains the same at any point (LERA Blog, 2015).
How will the innovation be evaluated?
The practical considerations that should be taken into account while developing and implementing the interactive learning system will be:
The effectiveness of the system will be evaluated through assessing the growth of the English literacy within the primary and the secondary students. The growth of the students will be judged though their corresponding examinations. However, the penetration of the system will be judged through tracking the access time of the by system. This time tracking will be done though two ways. One is through tracking the system access time by an institute and by tracking the system access time by the individual students. Primarily the system evaluation will be done through this process. However, the evaluation process will be changed in accordance with the future improvements (Hersh, 2014).
The key areas that can be developed in future to make this interactive learning more lucrative and flexible to the students are:
Conclusion
The interactive learning portal through the digital whiteboard has the capacity and capability to increase the quality of the education. However, as the ground infrastructure and the teaching staff quality is not so high for the country therefore, before the large-scale implementation of the proposed project the development of the said resources should be done. The ICT based learning has the capacity to increase the efficiency of the students but as the country has major disparity within the education sector. Therefore, the implementation should be done very systematically and through taking specific areas at a time. Cloud based ICT education platform provides the flexible learning platform. However, to get the benefit this feature the government should develop its existing telecommunication network so that the interested students can access their learning contents from their home.
Reference List
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Chimaka, A. (2014). Formal Education. Frankfurt: Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften.
Cipi, E. (2014). How to Integrate ICT with Didactic Learning Approaches. Journal Of Educational And Social Research.
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