The Fiber-optic (Kenya) and Social Networking for Education

The arrival of the fiber optic has raised in me many interesting questions and I continue to toy with ideas and possibilities for Kenyans with the arrival of this technology. With the status quo, so many students already have facebook profiles and spend quite an amount of time on the site, chatting, updating their profiles, catching up on the friend’s life via their profiles etc. Many individuals have presented their thoughts on how this social networking tool can be used to enhance the learning for students. How it can create a virtual University, bringing together many remote students in such a way that they can share knowledge, discuss assignments and term papers and thus enhance the student-centered approach of learning. With the arrival of the fiber optic in Kenya and with the hope to have the internet infrastructure more readily available, reliable and affordable, it is expected that more families in Kenya will be able to access the internet from the comfort of their homes. Moore’s law still holds and continues to play its role on the current technological environment. Playing agreement with the law, we already have an increasing number of students in the higher institutions of learning owning laptops. What does this mean for them? That they can carry work home and work from their homes as well.
Let us consider all these factors coming to the ‘play field’ together. Thought of the implications? Is it possible that students may not have to come to school when they do not have classes and still work on their assignments and term papers effectively and in collaboration with the other students? What is in it for the lecturer? That they can effectively discuss any arising issues from the assignments and course work by communicating online using chats and other forms of Instant Messaging!
One issue remains unturned. Is the nature of facebook as a private space a hindrance to such developments? Can Social Networking be tapped as a tool to improve the education standards in Kenya?