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 and specifically Nigeria still faces a 21^st Century challenge in making education available and accessible to all. As a means of responding adequately to this huge unmet demand for education in Nigeria, this paper proposes a Synchronous Learning System which could be used in Nigerian Universities as a way of alleviating challenges like overcrowded classrooms and lack of adequate human resources. It presents a functional framework to exemplify services which could be offered in the proposed virtual learning system to depict the peculiarity of an instructor-led classroom within the Nigerian academic context, an operational design which describes how a custom e-learning portal could be integrated with an Open source Video Conference server to facilitate learning in virtual classrooms. Furthermore, it proposes a virtual Learning Network architecture to show how both onsite and remote students could optimize quality network access in realizing these electronic learning services.