Chapter 22: Educational Technology and Flexible Education in Nigeria: Meeting the need for Effective Teacher Education

The effective use of ICTs for teacher education addresses both the problem and solution to technology-based learning, seeking synergistic results that benefit preservice teachers as they graduate and carry out their duties as teachers. Accordingly, in order to demonstrate the above assertion, the author will be embarking on a discussion of ICT and teacher education and some factors that hinder (institutional, infrastructural, and economic problems) the uptake of educational technology and flexible education in Nigeria (see Figure 22.3). And consequently there is the need to better design teacher education curricula, infrastructure, and organization of programs so that preservice teachers can better plan for the unanticipated and unintended results that confront them in the classroom. Because ICTs play a key role as enabler to help us better manage the complex information flow and to integrate such information toward effective policy formulation and planning toward the utmost maximization of human capital and potential in society, we must develop effective and integrated tools as well as training modules to enable their application through effective teacher education agenda (Mac-Ikemenjima, 2005).