The health crisis related to COVID-19 has further highlighted the important role that ICTs play in teaching-learning processes. Digital educational resources such as video tutorials, simulations, virtual laboratories, etc. have become essential for students to continue with their learning process.
Our experience due to the months of confinement, the closure of schools and the shift to online teaching, has shown us that school education faces several major challenges:
- Digital divide: Many students could not cope with an online education. They did not have enough electronic devices at home, or they had a very weak internet connection. This fact made it very difficult for many students to attend online lessons or submit assignments and homework.
- Absenteeism: Students absences due to digital divide would, of course, be justified. However, we also found that other students, even having the necessary tools, decided not to carry on with lessons due to lack of motivation.
- Low digital competence of teachers: We found that many of the teachers lacked in solid digital skills that would allow them to face this new situation. This contributed to greater inequality among students in their access to educational resources. Taking into account that it is increasingly likely that this situation will happen again and that online teaching has become usual, teachers’ training is urgent and essential. In addition, it is necessary to provide teachers with tools and applications that help them to adapt to these new needs.
We cannot totally solve the problem with digital divide, but we are increasing the amount of quality educational resources available on the internet. We hope this will help teachers innovate and develop new ways of teaching, and also increase students motivation to avoid absenteeism.
