Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology is building on its Google Free Fundamentals digital education foundation, with 50 Teaching and Learning Upgrade licenses for educators from Incentro Africa, a Digicloud Africa partner and East Africa’s only Google Premier Partner.
Prof Stephen Kimani, ICT Director at JKUAT, explains that the university has a 10-year history of harnessing Google tools to simplify education delivery and management. “We were one of the first universities in the region to move to Google products – in 2012, we moved to Google Cloud and started using Google productivity tools to support digital learning,” he says.
Students receive a Google email account on admission, and this serves as a secure access point to the various university resources and meetings.
The university uses various Google tools to support digital learning, including Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Scholar, Google Meet, Google Calendar, Google Chats and Google Classroom.
Prof Kimani says 160,000 licences for Google Free Fundamentals positioned the university to manage the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns. “During the pandemic, Google made free resources available as part of their CSR efforts. The power of these tools quickly became evident, and we used them for synchronous and asynchronous interactions, online meetings and online classes,” he says.
Google live streaming was particularly useful for the university in managing first year students’ orientation week.
With over 7,000 new students needing to undergo a week of orientation each year, live streaming allowed JKUAT to continue orientation week despite lockdown restrictions and social distancing requirements in 2020 and 2021.
Prof Kimani says there was initial concern around how to conduct orientation without exposing the orientation information to the general public. “We needed access control, but we didn’t want it to be complex, as these were new students who were not used to our systems and products.
“One reason for the Google Meet live stream success was that many students are familiar with Google products, so the learning curve is not steep. In addition, Google products are generally easy to use, ” he says.
The virtual orientation proved so successful that the university maintained it within a hybrid approach in 2022, and plans to continue doing so in future.
Prof Kimani says: “We will continue using the experience we gained during the pandemic to progress in the ‘new normal’. We can’t go back to where we were before.” JKUAT is harnessing tools from Google’s growing ecosystem to support learner management and hybrid teaching, and plans to continue using Google as an important partner as it trains professionals in computing and IT, engineering, architecture, health, agriculture, law, and pure, applied and social sciences.
Elizabeth Akinyi, Customer Success Manager – Google Cloud Solutions at Incentro Africa, notes: “Post-pandemic, it has become clear that schools and education institutions need to be ready to be more creative and interactive in education delivery and learning management. With Google for Education, they can go far beyond just emails and online meetings: it’s a holistic approach to digital education. In Kenya, we are seeing adoption driven by benefits such as more effective management of assignments, attendance tracking, and interactive Q&As.”
The Google Teaching and Learning upgrade includes features such as transcription of video calls, live streaming to YouTube, and premium tools to check work for needed citations with unlimited originality reports and peer-to-peer comparisons.
JKUAT is one of the biggest universities in Kenya, and one of the first movers in terms of digitisation, she says. As a recognised leader in terms of technical education, the university’s use of digital tools supports the needs and expectations of students preparing to work in the 4IR.
Akinyi says: “Incentro supports schools with education solutions beyond just offering product licenses – we ensure that they get the right training and support to optimise their use of these tools, which ultimately gives them the opportunity to only focus on what they do best.”
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