DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ONLINE LECTURING SYSTEM BY HAMPO, JOHNPAUL A.C.
ABSTRACT
With the risen quest for the
acquisition of knowledge, the edge cutting technological advancement of this
era has a magnified role to play. The availability of the internet all over the
world though a negligible not connected yet, online lecturing and educating systems
have gotten a boost. Irrespective of the distance or the location of the learner
and source of information, learning is made not just easier but also convenient
and interactive via electronic sharing of information and virtual classroom.
However, ONLINE LECTURING SYSTEM is a system design to help student gain access
to and acquire knowledge in any university of their choice. It has different
modules notably, the lecture module, questioning module etcetera. This method
of learning will not enhance face-to-face instruction on campus but the use of
computer in classrooms and elicitation of information with the World Wide Web
(WWW), enhanced distance education (on or off campus) and Individual and
group learning with both print and computer based materials. Thus students or
staff must not travel to acquire knowledge. Also information can be send to
students abroad through online. This research work is a web based system
designed with Microsoft Visual studio (ASP.Net) 2008 as its front end and Microsoft
SQL management server studio 2005 as its back end. The basic methodology used
was the Dynamic System Development Method.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Technological advancement of
recent these days aren’t only beneficial in the area of combating crime via
decision making, authentication, verification and recognition but also in the
dissemination of knowledge in a quick and prompt manner, doing away with the
physical barriers and inconveniency in learning.
Online learning or distance
learning as it may be called is simply the use of computer and its technology
in learning and teaching regardless of distance and time. It includes a number of computer-assisted
instruction methods. According to UMass Faculty, ‘Online teaching and
learning is faculty-delivered instruction via the Internet. Online instruction
includes real-time (synchronous) and anytime, anywhere (asynchronous)
interactions’.
Lectures online are delivered by
experts, experienced in their subject area and not novices as a result of its
nature as maybe seen by many. The best way to maintain the connection between
online education and the values of traditional education is through ensuring
that online learning is “delivered” by teachers, fully qualified and interested
in teaching online in a web-based environment (Feenberg, 1998 in the UMass
faculty handbook).
A system is a regularly
interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole (Stella C.
Chiemeke and Franca A. Egbokdara, 2006). Also, it can be seen as a set of
components interacting to achieve a common goal. As simply as a GPA calculator
maybe, it is also a system.
Students become more active and
reflective learners in an online environment. Also, teachers and students
engaged in learning via the use of technology, in turn becoming conversant with
technology as a result of it frequent and constant use. The aforesaid are the
two processes that are parallel and take place in an online learning
environment.
An online lecturing or learning
system always have a student interactive community, where students can interact
with each other via questions and answers. This community is liken to a blog
site. Blogs is a discussing or informational site published on the world wide
web and it consist of discrete entries called ‘post’ typically displayed in
reverse chronological order, that is, the most recent post appears first.
Asynchronous learning tolls the
path of nonexistent time with services like email and file attachment while the
synchronous is in real time and live chat and audio/video conferencing as such
of its services.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF
THE STUDY
Learning is a process people
undergo to obtain and acquire knowledge, skills and character. This process is
mostly not fun and not enjoyable but it is desirous because of the person’s end
expectation. To make learning enjoyable and fun, it has to be participatory,
hence, online and web lecturing is a typical model of participatory learning.
Online lecturing has not taken
the lecture halls/rooms from exiting, but they run pari-passu with the normal
lecture hall.it is just an alternative to help disseminate knowledge faster and
beyond borders. “Lecture webcasting has been defined as “the attempt to capture
new, non-persistent information (such as speech and the writings on a
whiteboard), while integrating it with existing information (such as presentation
slides) so that it can be successfully accessed at a later date”, Carnegie
Mellon (2007) quoted Brotherton and Abowd (2004).
Online lectures, most times
underwent through the process of manual teaching method by first being
delivered in the classroom before it is recorded, processed and edited, hosted
and finally distributed. Therefore, the process most online lectures went
through are lecture room presentation, lecture room recording, processing and
editing, hosting and distribution then playback when it is downloaded by the
user. These processes will be explained in chapter two.
Online lecturing will be most
effective when it is prepared and anchored by teachers/lecturers experienced in
the said field. This is affirmed by Feenberg (1998) in the UMASS faculty
handbook by stating, “The best way to maintain the connection between online
education and the values of traditional education is through ensuring that
online learning is “delivered” by teachers, fully qualified and interested in
teaching online in a web-based environment”. The two approaches to online
lecturing will be discussed in chapter two.
In Nigerian, only a few
Universities notably among the private, employs online lecturing. The advent of
National Open University of Nigeria in 2001 became the first university in
Nigerian to operate online lecturing in a larger percentage. Leona Sharon
posted on January 15, 2014 in https://studyinnigeria.wordpress.com/tag/online-learning-in-nigeria/ (accessed on 12/10/2015) said, “It
seems that with the dawn of online education Nigeria, the education
scenario would improve a bit. The aspiring learners in Nigeria, who cannot
enjoy a proper learning schedule, can now see a ray of hope with online
education. Only with the help of a computer and an internet connection, the
learners can now acquire a degree through online classes from various reputed
universities worldwide. These courses are affordable, they are easily
accessible and the best part is that the learners can get the most updated knowledge
about their course.”
The less expensive nature of
online lecturing will promote the rate of being educated in Nigeria and all
over the world. No visa, no flight ticket, no accommodation, no risk; all that
is needed is just a computer with internet connectivity. This form of education
is cheaper though in Nigeria, the setbacks – epileptic power and ill technology;
will make it expensive unlike other countries where there is assured power and
free or almost free Wi-Fi everywhere.
Online lecturing is not free
despite the online attached to it. This is in exception for bodies that run
some free courses. These bodies, notable coursera, edX & MIT professional
education etc, also have specialized and professional courses from where they
get some income. United Kingdom having upper hand in online lecturing does not
do it for free. One has to be a student of which the varsity’s fee must be
paid.
1.2 STATEMENT OF
PROBLEM
People desire knowledge but most
times, they are not opportune to the desired study mainly not due to finance
but to inconvenience and risk analysis. With the growth of internet usage,
online lecturing system can be fully integrated into the Nigerian education
system. These setbacks associated with acquiring knowledge can be overcome in
Nigeria like the United Kingdom who has about 750 institutions offering
accredited online degrees. (Posted by Leona Sharon on November 5,
2013 via https://studyinnigeria.wordpress.com/tag/online-learning-in-nigeria/ and accessed on 13/10/2015).
Simply speaking, the problems
associated with classroom/lecture room teaching are
1. Inconveniences – Some learners
and prospective learners at times engage in jobs concurrently which make things
difficult for them. Hence, the scheduled lecture time, they mostly don’t meet
up which make result to corresponding failure.
2. Geographical Structure – People
travel long distance to obtain knowledge, at times from a continent to another
due to the boundaries demarcation. After a long distance, students get stressed
up which affect their psychological reasoning and most times, this stress
results to admittance in medical facilities instead of resumption in the
academic institution.
3. Academic Delay – It is impossible
to school in two different schools in different locations in order to obtain
different certificates. Assuming schooling in Sokoto State of Nigeria and
Bayelsa State of Nigeria? How possible is it, knowing well that academic
sessions run in concordance. This system will enable people to concurrently and
without stress and risk get more than one certificates.
4. Risk – The risk of transportation
– flight, Vehicle; and accommodation in a new location is high especially in a
lawless or war/terrorism prone zones. This rick will be boycotted once online
studying is generally offered by institutions.
5. Finance – The major problem of
manual study is finance. To boycott this, academic institutions introduced the
part-time studying, but this could only help a little as many still find it
difficult to study especially the business active types. Online lecturing will
speedily solve these issues once the preliminary are taken care of.
6. Study Population – The seekers of
knowledge tends most times to be greater than the size of the institution’s
facility, hence limiting the desired seekers of knowledge. Wider range and
greater population will be covered with online lecturing system.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF
THE STUDY
Here are the objectives of this
research
1. To design a web based system that
be used for online lecturing in schools and higher institutions using the
stated methodology and tools (check the abstract).
2. To outline the importance of
online lecturing.
3. To review literatures on online
lecturing and its importance in promoting knowledge.
4. To build modules that will
support virtual time and maybe real time learning.
5. To build a module that will
support interaction between students.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE
OF THE STUDY
Knowledge being a vital tool in
any human’s life shouldn’t be restricted. The rate at will knowledge is sought
these days call for a platform for better dissemination of knowledge to the
seekers. Here comes online lecturing! Online lecturing will effectively and
efficiently disseminate knowledge with no regards to geographical location and
time. Anywhere, anytime, conveniently and economically, knowledge will be
disseminated with wider range.
1.5 SCOPE OF THE
STUDY
This research is limited to the dummy data
used and a course neither a department nor a university. The literatures review
alongside the data gotten through informal interview, observation and
brainstorming were used as a scope for this study.
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