THE Federal Government has disclosed plans to deploy a blackboard digital learning platform in Nigerian tertiary institutions to boost learning in the country.
Blackboard, according to experts, is a customisable online learning tool that could replace or supplement traditional face-to-face classes for a school or any other classroom structure. It is an online learning application that allows users to take or host online courses.
Students and teachers can interact, using assignments, video conferencing, discussion groups, tests, and more in Blackboard Learn and its upgraded version, Ultra.
Blackboard’s mobile apps and accessibility tools allow students to participate remotely and flexibly in classes.
Many conventional classroom functions have equivalents in ‘Blackboard Learn,’ allowing students and teachers to emulate just about every physical classroom experience element.
In a fully online format, the teacher might assign all materials to the students digitally, communicate outside of class using online tools, and have students discuss and collaborate online.
However, in a hybrid model, the class might meet in person only a few times in a week and use Blackboard activities that students complete outside the course. In a web-enhanced model, the classes may be face-to-face, but instructors may post supporting materials like syllabus, assignments, or optional discussions online.
Following the experience of COVID-19 pandemic when schools, including tertiary institutions, were closed down for several months, stakeholders have continued to advocate deployment of alternative digital learning platforms, in tertiary institutions and basic education levels in Nigeria.
Minister of Education, Professor Tahir Mamman, when receiving in his office a delegation of Anthology executives from the United States in Abuja, said the full deployment of the Blackboard learning technology would go a long way to fast-track educational development of the country.
Mamman said the Blackboard platform being championed by an Edu-tech firm, Anthology, would ensure easy access to online academic resources and address limitations of physical capacity of learning and the inability to access credible learning materials.
He pledged to provide necessary support through relevant policies that could facilitate the progress of the Blackboard project in the country.
“I am a firm believer of technology, I believe in the efficacy of what we can use technology to achieve,” he said.
Earlier, the executive secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Sonny Echono, who led the Anthology executives to the minister after an earlier visit to his office by the team, explained that the Blackboard platform would see to the establishment of Centre of Excellence in Nigeria that would be a benchmark for online learning methodologies.
Echono said it would also help the country to be at the forefront of learning management systems, saying that “what happened during COVID would not catch us unawares again.”
He added that the Blackboard would enroll about 2.2 million student users in Nigeria across the 253 beneficiary institutions of the fund.
Echono revealed that plans are also underway to enrol other private institutions to the Blackboard platform, saying the move would increase the target to three million students.
Speaking on the importance of Blackboard, Echono said : “It is a platform that handles everything even from management of the institutions to the process of seeking admission-when you get enrolled to how you finish.
Meanwhile, the president of Anthology, Joe Belenardo, said the Blackboard had been tested to provide solutions to students and directors of ICT around the world through skills.
Belenardo explained that the Blackboard, a learning management system currently has about 6,000 clients and 150 million students globally and it’s designed to create additional solutions/innovations, access to networks and give business development opportunities for learners.
Also, the country director and channel partner for Anthology Nigeria, Mr Ladipo Adedeji explained that the system allowed students to function adequately both online and onsite.
“It’s not just about online learning, the learning management system allows you to function in schools whether it’s online or offline,” he said.
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