VOA慢速英语 多接触互联网对学生有帮助

Bringing the Internet Closer Helps Student 多接触互联网对学生有帮助

More than 100 million people in Nigeria are not connected to the Internet. There are only a few networks that offer service and it is costly¹ and undependable. Now, a new project provides a resource for off-line viewing at no cost.

A non-profit organization called The WiderNet Project has developed the offline eGranary Digital Library. The service puts millions of digital documents, multimedia² work and websites onto a server. The information is then available to students, medical workers, and researchers at no cost, whether there is Internet or not.

Users can access informative³ websites that eGranary updates every day such as Wikipedia, Khan Academy, Project Gutenberg, MIT OpenCourseWare, and MIT BLOSSOMS (which is  Math and Science video lessons for high school students). Other resources on the service include university and medical publications, computer software, and educational games.

Ahmadu Bello University is the largest university in Nigeria and the second largest in Africa. The university uses eGranary's digital educational resources. Kasa Mathias is head of the school’s database department. He says students can access tens of thousands of educational materials without much problem.

"We give them background information on the available databases that they can use for their research work, their assignments, especially projects, and sometimes we will carry them through sensitizing on new databases that are available for them."

Ibitoye Idowu is a first-year student of archeology. He says easy access to university reading material, documents and journals has greatly helped his studying process. He says that in some cases, he understands the digital materials better than class lectures.

Students now have great reading material, but only when there is electric power. It often fails. (Sound of assistant apologizing for power outage) Student Ibitoye Idowu says those moments are difficult.

"The only challenge I am having here is the power supply, sometimes it will just go off." 

Muhammed Mu'azu leads the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. Professor Mu’azu says the university has spent a large amount of money on access to information. He says, now, it is available for 40,000 students and teachers.

"With or without Internet access students and staff have most of these educational databases and university has also invested a lot in Internet access so even for online materials they are readily available for staff and students anywhere you are in the university campus."

There are fears that students may waste time on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter instead of spending it on school work. Professor Mu’azu says the university needs to be careful about placing restrictions⁴ on usage. But he said it will investigate what a user is accessing if a large amount of bandwidth is used.

Muhammed Mu’azu compares the speed of the offline service to access over the Internet. The eGranary server can download hundreds of pages in less than 15 minutes. In the past, a 10-page document would take hours to download.

The offline digital library began in 2001. Hundreds of schools, clinics and universities are connected to it in Africa, Southeast Asia and many other places.

WiderNet says it aims to expand to thousands more education and health centers around the world. 

McKinsey & Company is a private international management consulting business. It released a report in 2014 that said 4.4 billion people around the world lack Internet access. And, it said most of them live in just 20 countries.

For the VOA Learning English Education Report, I’m Jill Robbins.

Words in This Story

digital - adj. using or characterized by computer technology

access - v. to be able to use; to open or load (a computer file, an Internet site, etc.)

database - n. information gathered and stored in a computer in a systematic⁵ way so computers can search it

lecture – n.  a talk or speech given to a group of people to teach them about a particular subject

bandwidth - n. a measurement of the ability of a computer network to send and receive information

download - v. to move or copy (a file, program, etc.) from a usually larger computer system to another computer or device

1 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

2 multimedia   

adj.多种手段的，多媒体的；n.多媒体

参考例句：

• Multimedia is the combination of computer and video technology.多媒体是计算机和视频技术的结合。
• Adam raised the issue of multimedia applications and much useful discussion ensued.亚当提出了多媒体应用的问题，从而引发了许多有益的讨论。

3 informative   

adj.提供资料的，增进知识的

参考例句：

• The adverts are not very informative.这些广告并没有包含太多有用信息。
• This intriguing book is both thoughtful and informative.这本引人入胜的书既有思想性又富知识性。

4 restrictions   

约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则）

参考例句：

• I found the restrictions irksome. 我对那些限制感到很烦。
• a snaggle of restrictions 杂乱无章的种种限制

5 systematic   

adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的

参考例句：

• The way he works isn't very systematic.他的工作不是很有条理。
• The teacher made a systematic work of teaching.这个教师进行系统的教学工作。