by CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Computer network plays a crucial role in virtually all areas of modern businesses. Not surprisingly, Business Education has been seen as a field of study that would benefit from the application of computer network. The promising of computer network prompted many observers to computer network the end of traditional business programs and the demise of long standing arrangements for the supply of business education. Existing providers had to adjust fast or risk being sidelined by whole new cast of players made up of business schools that had successfully reinvented themselves as ‘e-learning providers’ and other institutions drawn from outside the ranks of traditional suppliers but with the capacity to respond more effectively than their established rivals to a changed world (Jarvenpaa and Noam, 1996).
Griffith and Smith (1994) view Computer network as a system that involves telecommunication infrastructure that will link homes, schools, business, hospitals and libraries to one another and vast array of electronic information resources.
Computer network according Ajagun (2003) refers to a whole range of technologies involved in information processing and electronic communications. It includes all those electronic devices that are used in broadcasting, telecommunication and all other electronically mediated information gathering and communicating systems. Bakpo (2005) viewed Computer network as the combination of networks, hardware and software as well as the means of communication, collaboration, and engagement that enables the processing management and exchange of data and information.
Achieving a wide range and successful implementation of computer network in teaching and learning of business education requires better matching the distinctive capabilities of computer network-enabled education to the needs of students and their future employers. However, the integration of Computer network into business education is by no means trivial, and it is not simply a matter of providing computer access and training to faculty and students but involves deep changes into both course design and delivery (Alavi, and Yoo, 2002).
Business educators prepare their students not only to ‘do’ but to know under what circumstances and in what way the knowledge they have acquired should be applied, that is effectiveapplication of knowledge gained from business education to the real world of business (Brown, 2005).
Information and Communication Technologies is now widely utilized in teaching and learning of business education but where it is deployed, it has tended to supplement rather than displace traditional approaches to teaching and learning Alozie (2005). According to Onwuka (1985) teaching is a process of making impression on passive students, hammering in the facts. The preoccupation of teachers involved in this method is to handover to the students whatever the teachers themselves received from others. Teaching is an attempt to bring about desirable changes in learner behaviour and reflects the expected behaviour needed in improving on the learner and the society where he lives. Teaching is sometimes instructing, explaining or telling (Olaitan and Agusiobo,1999). On the other hand, Learning is defined as a relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a result of experience. Learning is a change in human disposition and capability which persist over a period of time, which is not simply ascribed to a process of growth (Gagne, 1970). The impact of computer network on the teaching and learning process seems to be more important and requires more than looking only to curricula. Computer network driven change in business education has been piecemeal and very uneven in its impact; change has been characterized not by revolution but by gradualism (Mogbo, 2002).
Statement of the Problems
Business education lecturers/teachers are expected to integrate Computer network in the teaching and learning process, they ought to use technology so that it supports instruction and enables learners to use technology as an important tool to meet their information and learning needs but this expectation has not be met among the tertiary institutions where business education is taught . Is it that the teachers cannot make use of computer network to teach during teaching and learning process of business education courses? Or they are not competent enough of using computer network during teaching and learning of business education courses? Probably the greatest barrier to technology use, however, is simply lack of teacher time- time to attend training or workshops, to experiment with machines and explore software, to talk to other teachers about what works and what doesn’t, and to plan lessons using new materials or methods (Okonta, 2008).
