Towards the Design of a Synchronous Virtual Learning System

The field of education has undoubtedly been affected by the penetrating influence of information and communication technology, characterized by improved access to the internet, and the increasing use of computing devices. However, education in Africa generally and specifically in Nigeria and other developing countries still face a 21st Century challenge in making education available and accessible to all. To this end therefore, this paper presents a conceptual approach, as to how tailor made e-learning services could be realized and integrated with a real time video conference server and any existing learning management system in order to facilitate a synchronous virtual learning environment in making education accessible and available to both remote students (distance learning students) and onsite users in Universities and other related educational institutes. It proposes a functional framework to exemplify educational services such as file sharing to enhance collaboration, a digital resource center for retrieval of both free and paid relevant academic resource. A conference room for real time classroom participation which learning platform should provide in order to enhance both teaching and learning performance of course instructors and their students respectively is also proposed. It provides an operational design which describes how custom made e-learning portal integrated with an Open source Video Conference server could be realized, in facilitating a synchronous virtual learning service. Furthermore, it proposes a Virtual Learning Network architecture to show how both remote and onsite students could optimize quality network access in realizing these electronic learning services

Towards the Design of a Synchronous Virtual Learning System

The field of education has undoubtedly been affected by the penetrating influence of information and communication technology, characterized by improved access to the internet, and the increasing use of computing devices. However, education in Africa generally and specifically in Nigeria and other developing countries still face a 21st Century challenge in making education available and accessible to all. To this end therefore, this paper presents a conceptual approach, as to how tailor made e-learning services could be realized and integrated with a real time video conference server and any existing learning management system in order to facilitate a synchronous virtual learning environment in making education accessible and available to both remote students (distance learning students) and onsite users in Universities and other related educational institutes. It proposes a functional framework to exemplify educational services such as file sharing to enhance collaboration, a digital resource center for retrieval of both free and paid relevant academic resource. A conference room for real time classroom participation which learning platform should provide in order to enhance both teaching and learning performance of course instructors and their students respectively is also proposed. It provides an operational design which describes how custom made e-learning portal integrated with an Open source Video Conference server could be realized, in facilitating a synchronous virtual learning service. Furthermore, it proposes a Virtual Learning Network architecture to show how both remote and onsite students could optimize quality network access in realizing these electronic learning services