Hi all!

You probably think I’m dead or just fed up with writing this blog. Well, half of that is partially true – I was on a holiday 8 weeks, but my plan was to write not only blogs but couple of articles as well during that time. You know, what else can you do either by the pool when it is +35 degrees in Turkey, Spain and Bulgaria or in the pouring rain here in Finland :).

Bad connections in Turkey

In Turkey I chose a hotel that informed themselves to have a wifi. You could even get wifi to your room by paying a bit extra, so that’s what I did. And you can guess my disappointment when it did not work. The fastest wifi they could provide was said to be 10 K/s, but usually it was about 27 B/s – it did not even open my emails. And that was something I paid 40 euros for in 2 weeks 🙁

I was SO disappointed. It also got me thinking that it is not at all obvious and self-evident that you can use digital tools efficiently everywhere in the world. In Finland we are so used to fast connections that usually work quite nicely. So it is easy to forget that is not the situation all over the world as we can see in the picture attached.

We are talking a lot about digitalization and how world is becoming more and more digital. Partially that it is true, but my summer was an eye opening experience. What is digitalization for Finland is not at all the same thing for some other countries. While we are talking about optical fiber cables and digitalzation of the periferia, other places are still struggling with proper basic infrastructure.

That also means that online activities in some countries may be limited due to this. Also the prices can be really high in some countries compared to the prices here in Finland, for instance.

So for a digipreacher or an expert in digital it is worth thinking that the digital world is still very heterogeneous. It may be hard or challenging to think and effective digital strategy, if the basic connection is flawed.

eLearning possibilities in Bulgaria

In Bulgaria the situation was not at all better. There was a common wifi for all the hotel guests, which meant that it did not work during evening. And since this was supposed to be a business trip, you can guess my frustration.

This was also something I really noticed in Bulgaria. One of the topics in the conference I was participating was eLearning and digital tools in teaching. Well, what can you do with digital tools, if the connection does not open a plain email easily.

We had quite interesting discussions with the local teachers about elearning. For them it was more like material banks online, while for us Finns it is interaction, gamification and independent research. Naturally, the digital tools and learning platforms they used in Bulgaria were very few, while again in Finland we have a wide range of them. However, it was positive to notice who eager the Bulgarian teacher were to develop themselves and their teaching. And despite the fact of inadequate connections or tools, they still aimed for more sofisticated teaching solutions.

This is something a regular Finn should also do instead of just complaining 🙂 #shootingmyselfinthefoot

So maybe I end this lament nowand finish the blog drafts I have written during summer and try to publish them as soon as possible. Not in eight weeks anyhow!