Thursday 28th of March 2024
 

Challenges and Opportunities for the Implementation of Social Network Technologies (SNTs) in Teaching in Universities in Ghana


Adu-Manu Kofi Sarpong, Arthur John Kingsley and Clement Yeboah

The introduction of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has changed the mode of delivery in many higher institutions and enhance student participation. In most developing countries however, ICT has not pervaded. This study is descriptive, which adopts a case study approach to investigate the challenges and opportunities in the implementation of Social Network Technologies (SNTs) in four private universities in the Greater Accra Region, Ghana. Eighty (80) lecturers in private universities were used as the sample for the study. A well-developed tool on the implementation challenges and opportunities of SNTs was used for data collection. The instrument contained twenty three (23) listings/items. The data collected were analyzed using frequency distribution and mean. From the research the findings reached with regard to the challenges which are higher cost of licensing the SNTs and purchase of sophisticated devices, incompetence in the use of multimedia tools, safety and privacy issues, and change in teaching methodology brings about dissatisfaction and the notion of uncertainty due to lack of exposure to technological devices. The opportunities available with SNTs for teaching are that SNTs support different teaching methods due to their flexibility, creation of effective teaching and learning environment and making teachers location independent. The following recommendations are made management needs to train its faculty on how to use cutting edge technologies such as SNTs to be implemented in teaching. University management should consider how to make laptops available for all of their lecturers so that they will be encouraged to have a strong affiliation with the technology and they will overcome the lack of exposure and change their teaching methods and move away from the traditional methods of the teaching. It will also boost their frequency of usage.

Keywords: Social Network Technologies, information technology, ICT Infrastructure, multimedia tools

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Adu-Manu Kofi Sarpong
Mr. Kofi Sarpong Adu-Manu received his Bachelor of Science and Master of philosophy in Computer Science degrees from Valley View University and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology respectively and works with the Department of Computer at Valley View University, Accra-Ghana. He regularly taught courses in Computer Science and Information Technology, including Programming, Distributed Systems, Computer Graphics, Visualization and Simulation, Database systems, and Multimedia at Valley View University. He serves as a Senior Research Assistant at the Faculty of Science and has supervised final year projects in software development. As part of the author’s academic achievements, Adu-Manu was won three (3) best paper awards and has seven (7) published papers to his credit. My research focus is on Data warehousing, programming languages, Computer Graphics and Social Networking. He serves as a board member to the Clute Institute in Colorado, USA and a member of Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) in the United States of America.

Arthur John Kingsley
Mr. Arthur John Kingsley a faculty member at the institute of Computer Science of Valley View University. He received his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Valley View University and Master in Information Technology from Accra Institute of Technology (AIT). He has keen interest Computer Science and Information Technology research areas of Educational Technologies, Web and Mobile applications. He has professional teaching membership with Victoria Information Technology Teachers Association (VITTA) in Australia and Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) in USA. He has won two best paper awards from conference presentations.

Clement Yeboah
Mr. Clement Yeboah holds BBA in Accounting and MBA in Accounting. At the moment I am pursuing MBA in Finance at Strayer University, Columbus campus - USA.


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