The Role of ICT in Education – Romanian Experience

Abstract

The rapid evolution of ICT in recent years has an important impact on the whole society, and also on the education system. The current article aims to look to the current state of integration of ICT in the school education in Romania in order to determine its role in educational activities. The research was conducted on a sample of 538 people (school principals, teachers and students) selected from four schools in Ilfov county, Romania, two urban and two rural. The methods and data collection tools were: survey-based questionnaire, interview and analysis of documents. The results of this research provides insights into the opinions of teachers and students regarding the use of new technologies in education, the extent to which the new technologies are used in the education process, the training of teachers and students in the use of multimedia, the modalities of integration of new technologies in teaching, the degree to which teachers and students use online sources of information and educational software. The conclusion is that although the use of new technologies in teaching is beneficial for both students and teachers there is no relation between 1) the level of how much IT equipment exists in schools (in Romania this level varies significantly between schools) associated with the level of the training of teachers in informatics (not every school in Romania has well trained teachers) and 2) the willingness of students to use new technologies in their learning activity.