DIGITAL BANGLADESH A Comparison between the situation in Bangladesh and Romania

The main purpose of ICT in Education means implementing of ICT Equipments and Tools in Teaching-Learning process as a media and methodology. The purpose of ICT in education is generally to familiarise students with the use and workings of computers, and related social and ethical issues.

ICT has also enabled learning through multiple intelligence as ICT has introduced learning through simulation games; this enables active learning through all senses.

Now our questions to our friends are:

Main Question: What are the main challenges the teenagers face in their family, social and educational life?

Subquestions:

1.How are the use of ICT facilities in your country for students like us? How much cooperative are your teachers regarding the use of ICT in classrooms?

  1. How much freedom do your parents give you? Are they very rigid about their demand and expectations from you?
  2. What do you think is the purpose of ICT in education?

I really believe that the starting point here should be the cultural values of a people, the way people are brought up and educated according to certain social norms; to put it short, it’s about the cultural and social background specific to a certain country, to the degree of its development as we all know that this makes the whole difference between traditional or modern society.

The problem with you is that you seem to live in a traditional society ruled by strict moral laws that directly influence your way of life.

That’s why you, as a people, and especially your seniors as you call them, have the feeling of being restricted in actions and thoughts and consider all these new developments, such as the introduction of the ICT, as challenges and dangers to your selves.

In Romania, things have changed a lot in the past 20 years; the fall of the communist regime and our opening to the more civilized and developed world have brought with them a change in our conceptions and lifestyle; generally, people are more open to new trends, especially the younger ones up to their 40’s, but of course there are traditionalists who prize old values, are more conservatory and do not entirely agree with us.

Of course there is a point in their attitude up to a limit, because we should not exaggerate and become totally morally corrupted by the temptations of the modern world: addictions of all kinds, superficiality or selfishness, cult of money and success, etc. But we have to understand that we cannot oppose to development, it’s evolution we are talking here! And this would be stupid! What we can do is to choose wisely and be guided by open-minded people, seniors or not! Because one condition of evolution is knowledge and learning. So my question is how to evolve if we limit knowledge and one aspect of it is ICT?

As Romanian teenagers, we are not facing serious problems in this respect, we have computers and internet at home and at school, we use IT in class, the only problem is that sometimes we tend to use it too much.: at home when chatting and for school when doing projects and research and not quite summarizing ideas, but just copying and pasting them, And of course, teachers are not very glad about this. But they are open to new technologies, there are even special training for teachers on computerized learning or e-learning and this is the first step in giving them the necessary skills to do this job.

After all, the purpose of education is not teaching and transmitting knowledge, it’s about giving the practical skills that are very important in our future life and career and ICT is one of the most important as we live in a technological world and we can’t do without technology. And so, it’s vital that anybody understand this, wherever our birthplace, education, religion, social or financial situation.

Socially speaking, we enjoy a lot of freedom, we go out a lot in our spare time, parents are not shading us, though I am pretty sure they are somehow spying on us , but very discretely; that’s ok, there should be a certain control, but this is better accepted if we talk with our parents and even negotiate certain thing and rules and try to follow them. And this is also the case at school.

So, we may say we are luckier than you in this respect. But I think that if your teachers and parents should be informed and taught how to deal with such challenges, everything will be ok, unless there are not serious religious or political issues involved. Policies can change faster, religious concepts are indeed difficult to change as it takes a lot of time.

But as Michael Jackson said : “We are the world” , I think it’s in our hands and power to change things, of course if we really want that, we are motivated and determined to do that.

Andrei Lates CH2