Presentation - Digital culture and education: challenges and possibilities¹

ABSTRACT

We present the dossier Digital Culture and Education, containing 11 articles that develop questions about the set of practices, customs, and forms of social interaction in education, through digital technological resources, such as the internet and digital information and communication technologies (DICT). In these articles, we can notice the elements of digital culture, which are: new ways of interacting, communicating, sharing, and acting in society intertwined with education. Brazilian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Chilean research educators develop these elements from the digital culture, presenting their research carried out at different levels and teaching modalities, always highlighting questions about the use of digital technologies in education and today's society.

Keywords:
Digital culture; Cyberculture; Education; Digital information and communication technologies; Network society

RESUMO

Apresentamos aqui o dossiê Cultura digital e Educação com 11 artigos que desenvolvem questões sobre o conjunto de práticas, costumes e formas de interação social na educação utilizando os recursos tecnológicos digitais, como a internet e as tecnologais digitais de informação e comunicação. Nestes artigos podemos perceber os elementos da cultura digital, que são: os novos tipos de interação, comunicação, compartilhamento e ação na sociedade imbricados com a educação. Educadores pesquisadores brasileiros, portugueses, espanhóis e chilenos desenvolvem estes elementos da cultura digital, apresentando suas pesquisas realizadas nos diversos níveis e modalidades de ensino, destacando sempre questões sobre o uso de tecnologias digitais na educação e na sociedade atual.

Palavras-chave:
Cultura digital; Educação; Cibercultura; Tecnologias digitais de informação e comunicação; Sociedade em rede

The current theme of this dossier is the result of our discussions, debates, and research on current challenges, both in public policies and institutional practices, which indicate the emergency for the use of digital technologies in classroom and distance learning, at all levels. This emergency increased and multiplied since March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of a pandemic caused by a virus. The global effects of the pandemic have been many and they continue to increase. These effects include the closure of schools and universities in, at least, 115 countries, which affect billions of people involved in educational communities: teachers, students, managers, parents, etc.

Educational institutions were instructed to take advantage of educational technology tools on a large scale and many of these took action to put themselves in online education. However, the institutions did not stop to reflect on what already exists regarding research on technologies in education, on what a web-curriculum would be like, what skills and abilities teachers and students should have in a modality that presupposes the use of technologies in Online Education. There was no time for reflection, due to the urgency imposed, and much of the improvisation led schools to use the methodologies of Distance Learning (DL) in a hurry. According to Costa (2010, p. 18), this reinforces the prejudice concerning distance learning, in which “the biggest problem consists in the fact that, historically, distance learning is treated as a teaching modality used as a panacea for all the ills of Brazilian education”.

This imposed urgency propelled the “school” for a real search to understand the digital culture, that is

A new, current, emerging and temporal term. The expression integrates diverse perspectives linked to innovations and advances in knowledge, and their incorporation, provided by the use of digital technologies and network connections for the realization of new types of interaction, communication, sharing and action in society (KENSKI, 2018, p. 139).

Even having digital technological possibilities and the development of learning methodologies more appropriate to online education, we realized that the elements of digital culture such as the new types of interaction, communication, sharing, and action in society, in the first half of 2020, were partially considered. This has led to an increase in old problems previously seen in face-to-face education. Many schools, in face-to-face, had been insisting on obsolete practices, keeping their distance and oblivious to the “flow of life that overflows around them, they were in danger of becoming irrelevant” (PÉREZ GÓMEZ, 2015, p. 29) and continued to maintain this characteristic in virtual environments.

We also saw an increase in the supply of technological artifacts, miraculous kits to save the school, and institutions acquired these artifacts, showing their lack of understanding of what technology is in an educational context. Brito (2006) states that there is a great need to disconnect the understanding of the term object technology, from a simple instrument so widespread in a capitalist society that it worships merchandise as the main means of ascension. Besides, these technologies are being used to maintain the old models of education that insist on only providing information.

According to Pérez Gómez (2015, p. 29), the school must redefine the flow of information and

We teachers, we must realize that it is not advisable to just provide information to students, we have to teach them how to effectively use the information that surrounds and fills their lives, how to access and critically evaluate, analyze, organize, recreate and share it.

Students who are in schools and universities today, due to the 2020 pandemic, are experiencing this new reality that has not yet been thought about or even projected. Therefore, the teacher must focus on the present, but with a glimpse at the future, impelling students towards this reality that presents itself or will present itself in educational institutions. From this observation, they must develop a digital competence, along with the specific knowledge of education that any teacher should have when exercising their profession, digital competence is developed.

The term digital competence refers to a set of strategies, attitudes, knowledge, skills and specific capabilities for the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) - and more specifically digital information and communication technologies (DICT) -, whether in everyday practices, or in activities in the professional context (NEVES, 2018, p. 107).

For Behar et al. (2013, p. 38), “the psychological subject's skills to teach and learn in any modality of education (face-to-face, mixed and distance) go beyond that of traditional teaching and learning colleges”. And we agree with the author when she says that we have to face the challenges that

the social transformations brought about by technology in all spheres of relationships (family, professional, and school) give rise to the development of the connected society. This society is configured to use ICT in a way that is not only quantitative, but also qualitative, in which communication, provided by them, allows interaction, collaboration, cooperation and authorship (BEHAR et al., 2013, p. 38).

In these times of digital culture, assuming cooperative learning, with all the elements presented by Behar et al. (2013), open up many possibilities, but the greater the challenges for it to be given an opportunity. Scherer and Brito (2014, p. 75) indicate that

Assuming to be inhabitants of virtual environments is one of the greatest challenges for teachers and students to experience cooperative learning processes. Allied to this challenge is the need for the teacher to know and be willing to learn throughout their profession the specific characteristics of teaching and learning in Distance Learning.

Therefore, in this dossier, we present reflections and practices from Brazilian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Chilean research educators, who explain the challenges faced in this Digital Culture. They perform their research at the various levels and modalities of teaching and bring questions about the use of digital technologies to show the art and the perspectives for the future of education and today's society.

In the article – Digital information and communication technologies and the Social Hierarchy of Objects in the field of education: empirical tests - the authors bring the report of an empirical investigation on scientific production in Education. For this, they use bibliometric and scientometric data analyzed based on concepts created by Pierre Bourdieu for the sociology of science with the help of a historical and philosophical reference. They empirically tested the statement about research in Education that there was a loss of the object of research in Education in postmodernity and the importance in terms of scientific capital of Digital Technologies of Information and Communication.

Next, we have six articles that involve Higher Education and technologies in its various aspects. In the first one - Teachers Digital Competences in Digcomp-based University Environments - the authors bring a proposal to adopt the descriptors suggested by the European Union through DigComp for the areas of information and communication skills for university professors. However, they warn us that the results presented may have been influenced by the Covid-19 crisis, which forced the digitalization of classroom teaching activities in a short period.

In the article – Virtualization in Higher Education: reflections on public policies and Blended Learning - the authors invite us to understand how this virtualized society can ensure, through the actions of the State, the insertion of digital technologies in their daily lives, which can be propagated by innovative pedagogical methods and practices, as is the case with the use of hybrid education. In the article - Didactic choreographs and contemporary pedagogical innovations for emancipating education - the authors seek to reflect on the use of active methodologies in higher education. By bringing the current way of living the curriculum and educational practice to the debate, they (re) think and propose pedagogical actions, in the perspective of an implicit, intercommunicating, and multidimensional didactic, which emphasizes shared mediation and takes into account the dimensions integrative, formative and technological aspects of the learning process.

The next article, - From in-person to virtual class, a model for using online training in the time of Covid-19 - the authors present us with a model of how to face virtual training in times of crisis, how to move from classroom to virtual, integrating the potential that digital technologies provide us to generate environments that promote quality learning in students. In – Didactics of History in Higher Education, enriched with audiovisual technologies and its impact on the promotion of self-concept of competence – the authors bring the use of cinema in scenarios for the development of competences in Higher Education as a very suitable strategy to revitalize the educational experience in the history of didactics subject, in Higher Education.

In –Teacher Education in digital culture through gamification - the authors present the result of an empirical investigation, through a qualitative approach and in the perspective of pedagogical intervention, which aimed to analyze how teacher training using the gamification strategy enables the understanding of teaching practice.

In the article - Integration of technologies in the school curriculum: dialogues about challenges and difficulties - the authors present us with an investigation of the processes of integrating digital technologies into the school curriculum. They identify challenges and difficulties that emerge from pedagogical practices in integration processes with elementary teachers, high school teachers, and a third process developed in a subject from the undergraduate level, in Higher Education. Continuing with the discussion on Basic Education the authors of - Teacher’s narrative in networks: the journey of Basic Education teachers - analyze the path taken by public school teachers in Basic Education, in the construction of digital narratives on blogs, pages with their domain, and social networks. Moreover, they bring the perception of teachers of their ability to influence networks.

And continuing on the network issue, the authors of the article - Cyberfeminism and critical multiliteracies in cyberculture - invite us to understand how the role of cyberactivist women in combating discursive violence practiced by men on social networks can mobilize critical cyberculture multi-elements and contribute to feminist training processes at the university. Also, in - OnLIFE Education: the ecological dimension of digital learning architectures - the authors present a context in which a new relational, ecological culture emerges, linked to sustainability indicators and criteria, allowing us to speak of an OnLIFE Education in a hyperconnected reality, in which the “real” and “virtual” are mixing and merging, instigating institutions, teachers, and students to rethink the educational system as an ecosystem.

The issues addressed in the various articles are current and should provoke readers to take a stand in the face of challenges that arise for the area of education in times of a global pandemic.

REFERÊNCIAS

• BEHAR, Patricia Alejandra et al Competências conceito, elementos e recursoso de suporte, mobilização e evolução. In: BEHAR, Patricia Alejandra (org.). Competências em Educação a Distância Porto Alegre: Penso, 2013. p. 20-39.
• BRITO, Glaucia da Silva. Inclusão digital do profissional professor: entendendo o conceito de tecnologia. ENCONTRO ANUAL DA ASSOCIAÇÃO NACIONAL DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO E PESQUISA EM CIÊNCIAS SOCIAS, 30., Caxambu, 2006. Papers [...]. Caxambu: ANPOCS, 2006. Disponível em: http://anpocs.org/index.php/encontros/papers/30-encontro-anual-da-anpocs/gt-26/gt24-14/3475-gbrito-inclusao/file Acesso em: 29 maio 2020.
  » http://anpocs.org/index.php/encontros/papers/30-encontro-anual-da-anpocs/gt-26/gt24-14/3475-gbrito-inclusao/file
• COSTA, Maria Luisa Furlan. Educação a distância no Brasil: Perspectiva Histórica. In: COSTA, Maria Luisa Furlan; ZANATTA, Regina Maria. (org.) Educação a distância no Brasil: aspectos históricos, legais, políticos e metodológicos. 2. ed. Maringá: Eduem, 2010. p. 11-20.
• KENSKI Ivani M. Cultura Digital. In: MILL, Daniel. Dicionário critico de Educação e tecnologias e de educação a distância Campinas, SP: Papirus, 2018. p. 139-144.
• NEVES, Isa. Competência digital. In: MILL, Daniel. Dicionário critico de Educação e tecnologias e de educação a distância Campinas, SP: Papirus, 2018. p. 107-109.
• PERÉZ GÓMEZ, Ángel I. Educação na era digital: a escola educativa. Tradução de Marisa Guedes. Porto Alegre: Penso, 2015.
• SCHERER, Suely; BRITO, Glaucia da Silva. Educação a distância: possibilidades e desafios para a aprendizagem cooperativa em ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem. Educar em Revista, Curitiba, n. 4, p. 53-77, 2014. (Edição Especial). Disponível em: https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_issuetoc&pid=0104-406020140008&lng=pt&nrm=iso Acesso em: 29 maio 2020.
  » https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_issuetoc&pid=0104-406020140008&lng=pt&nrm=iso

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  Translation by Fabielle Rocha Cruz. E-mail: [e-mail].

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  21 Dec 2020
• Date of issue
  2020

History

• Received
  12 Sept 2020
• Accepted
  23 Sept 2020