The Era of Digital Technology in Teaching and Learning in African Universities

Abstract

Technology for teaching and learning has transformed from its crudest form of communicating with stones, pebbles, and skin to modern day technology devices such as filmstrips, projected media, m-learning, and e-learning. This has brought immense change into higher institutions of learning in Africa. This change has brought a revolution in teaching and learning and the roles of universities in producing lifelong learners. A wide range of technology devices and their applications are outlined, ranging from multimedia to radio broadcasting with policies related to ICT applications in different African universities, showing the level of information capitalism, access, and quality of higher education in Africa. Even though low teledensity, inadequate supply of electricity, low funding, and high level of poverty are some of the challenges generally faced by African universities, it is recommended that ICT policies across African universities need to be revitalized. In addition, there is a need to provide sufficient computing facilities and specialized facilities like multimedia laboratories to enable e-content generation. Finally, teaching and learning can be made available to thousands of students in Africa when universities are operating 24-7 online tutorials as a result of ICT and other technological developments. This is explored in this chapter.