Majestic change through information technology

Salahuddin Ahmed Steve Jobs, one of the greatest sons of this earth, died very recently after making a revolution in the information technology in the entire world. Who in the world does not know about IPods, Ipad, Mac Book and other revolutionary electronic gadgets? He introduced all his creation throughout the world to accelerate the pace of modern technology. Like Steve Jobs, the whole world also realizes that there is no alternative other than the rapid pace of information technology to develop the world. In our country we also accepted this truth and try to work accordingly. But we must admit that we still need to go a long way to enjoy the true pace of technology; it does not mean that we are not working on that, the fact of the matter is we are trying, but we do not have clear idea how to make things happen. To accelerate the pace of modern technology, we must make sure that our students get all possible access to use the technology. In developed countries, no educational institution can run without the help of modern technology and students of these countries are also moving forward with the pace of this technology. No too far, our neighbour country, India, has got huge momentum in information technology, but we are still just like a spectator, seeing how India developing day by day, capitalizing this modern technology. In India, the root of development is supposed to be the technology and the entire world knows the pace of this technology in India. Indian students get tremendous opportunity to get close to this modern invention, but sorry to say that our students do not have privilege still even to get to know the true meaning of technology. We need to make a difference through technology and to make this change we need to allow our students get access to this modern technology. Question is how many students in our country know even how to operate computer. Technologies have been used in every sphere in education sector in many other countries and consequently, they are developing day by day. One student must know how to operate computers, should know MS Office software and how to browse internet to get the up to date resources. Funny thing is we do not care even if our students know how to operate computers, although there have been many things going on to digitize our nation. Previously I was teaching in one of the private universities, where one of the criterions for evaluating the teachers was whether the teacher use website resources, but the university does not care if the main people, the students would know how to operate internet or if they would get access to the internet. A major portion of students study in various low graded institutions where there is not computer and internet; how we could possibly say that we accepted or trying to accept the pace of utilization of modern technology. We truly need to do make a majestic change through the utilization of modern technology. How could we do that? In each and every college there should be computer lab and all students must get access to that labs; not only that trained teachers should be there; otherwise these students would never know how to do these things. It is true that in our country there are many students truly coping up with the pace of modern technology; but I must admit that they are confined to only using Face Book or other social networking for how to make thousands of friends from different countries who possibly they will not see in their lifetime or talk to them possibly once in a year. This social networking is good, but we need to show our students the positive side of this networking, and again the educational institutions can play role of spearhead to introduce the very positive sides of the internet. I have seen in the newspaper that there were internet festivals going on and the most reputed mobile phone service provider sponsored this programme. Will the programme accelerate the pace of technology or will promote the internet facility of this company? We need to come up with some different initiatives. We need to take this internet to those students who do not have any access to it; we must make sure that all students would get access to it, otherwise as I mentioned earlier, we would enlighten only a small portion of our students, which ultimately would bring no change in our country. Even in many private universities students do not have access to internet and computer. If this is the case for private institution, we can imagine the devastating scenario prevailing in our public institutions. When I was studying in the USA, I came to know how internet serves the purpose of educating students in timely fashion. We should not confine ourselves only on old fashioned text books; we must introduce the advantages of internet and technology to our students. When it comes to research, internet can serve the purpose significantly. How many undergraduate and even graduate students in our country know MLA, APA style of research paper writing? Internet and computer can easily show how to write a paper based on MLA or APA style. MLA or APA or Chicago is some of the techniques that we use while we write research or thesis paper. In the USA I had to follow either one of these techniques while writing paper even in my undergraduate level. For this purpose internet and computer helped me a lot which I learnt from my professors. But with all due respect the fact of the matter is even some high profile teachers of our country do not know exactly the meanings of MLA or APA. We must introduce modern technology in all spheres of life, especially in education sectors. If students do not get access to it, there is no need to digitize Bangladesh; a majestic change will definitely come through the utilization of modern technology, but the bottom line is we must make sure that our future leaders, our students know the very positive side of this technology. The writer is lecturer, School of Business, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), email: sahmed@ashland.edu