Rilwan, Akilu; Abdulrahman, Salisu (2015)

With the significant advances in Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), teaching and learning styles are changing fast and learning environments are greatly been influenced and transformed. E-learning is one such innovation and relates to the use of electronic mechanisms to support learning process, which is growing in popularity and becoming a powerful trend for the immense benefits it offers to learning environments. However, deploying and managing e-learning systems require huge investments in IT and many educational institutions cannot afford the cost. Cloud computing, a recent shift in computing paradigm which is envisioned to be the next generation architecture of IT industry, promotes the delivery of powerful computing resources as a service. We give an overview of the concepts and structure of cloud computing and its potential value as a platform for e-learning. Despite being in their early stages of development, we nonetheless argue their confluence will provide access to and enabling environment for delivery of effective and quality knowledge.